Selection Panel

John Kingman was appointed as Chairman of Legal & General Group plc on October 24, 2016. John is also Chairman of Tesco Bank and non-executive Chair of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which oversees the strategic direction of science and innovation funding in the UK, with a budget of over £8 billion a year.

John has had a long Whitehall career; as Second Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury, he had responsibility for the Treasury’s economics ministry functions for policy relating to business, financial services and infrastructure. He was closely involved in the UK response to the financial crisis, handling the resolution of Northern Rock and leading negotiations with RBS, Lloyds and HBOS on their £37 billion recapitalisation. He was the first Chief Executive of UK Financial Investments Ltd (UKFI). From 2010-12, John was Global Co-Head of the Financial Institutions Group at Rothschild.

John is Interim Chair of the National Gallery, a Trustee of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, a member of the Trilateral Commission and a World Fellow of Yale University. He chaired the judges for the 2017 Wolfson Economics Prize, a £250,000 prize awarded for the best solution to a public policy problem. In 2018 he undertook an independent review for the UK Government of the Financial Reporting Council. In 2021 John was awarded Fellow of the Royal Society.

Gabriele Finaldi has been Director of the National Gallery since August 2015. He was previously Deputy Director for Collections and Research at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, a position he took up in 2002. Prior to his role at the Prado, he was a curator at the National Gallery between 1992 and 2002, where he was responsible for the later Italian paintings in the collection (Caravaggio to Canaletto) and the Spanish collection (Bermejo to Goya).

Finaldi studied art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where he completed his doctorate in 1995 on Jusepe de Ribera, the 17th-century Spanish painter who worked in Italy. He has curated exhibitions in Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the US. He has written catalogues and scholarly articles on Velázquez and Zurbarán, Italian Baroque painting, and religious iconography.

Ben Bolgar is Senior Director at The Prince’s Foundation and Design Director of the development company, Stockbridge Land. At the Foundation he has led collaborative planning and design frameworks that cover town and city expansions, brownfield remediation and regeneration, heritage, green building and healthcare projects.

Ben helped structure the competition for the Armed Forces Memorial and has been a panel member and design adviser for St. Martin in the Fields, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Kensington Palace, Hillsborough Castle, Charterhouse, Clandon Park, the Royal College of Music, Chelsea Barracks and Tintagel Bridge.

Ben is an honorary fellow at the University College of Estate Management, a visiting fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford and a research fellow at Grenoble University. He previously sat on the Prime Minister’s Design and Estate Regeneration panels and the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission, following which he co-founded the Stewardship Initiative for long term investment in land.

Tonya Nelson is currently London Area Director at Arts Council England. She joined the Arts Council when she was appointed to be the first Director of Arts Technology and Innovation in 2019. Tonya was seconded to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in 2017 where she co-authored the policy report Culture is Digital. She is Chair of the International Council of Museums (UK) and also sits on the board of trustees of The National Gallery.

In addition, Tonya is a member of Christie’s Art World Professional Advisory Group. She was formerly Director of Museums and Cultural Programmes at University College London (UCL). Prior to entering the cultural sector, she was a barrister and management consultant in Washington, DC where she grew up.

David was appointed a National Gallery Trustee in March 2017.

David has worked in the real estate industry for over thirty years. He co-founded Brockton Capital in 2005; the firm has raised over £1.50 billion of equity across three separate real estate funds since 2006 and currently manages a £4 billion UK property portfolio. Prior to co-founding Brockton, David worked at The Blackstone Group (2001-2005, in London) and JLL (1989-1999, in London and New York). He has been directly involved in transactions totalling £8.5 billion ($10.5 billion) while at both Brockton Capital and Blackstone.

David holds a bachelor’s degree in Politics & Modern History from the University of Manchester, UK and a Master’s degree in Real Estate from MIT, Boston. David was President of the BPF (British Property Federation) for a one-year term from 2013–14. In addition, David is a member of the Bank of England’s Commercial Property Forum and the BPF Policy Committee.

Edwin Heathcote is the architecture and design critic of The Financial Times. He is an architect, writer, the author of about a dozen books, and the founder and editor of online archive readingdesign.org.

He is also the Keeper of Meaning at The Cosmic House, a new architecture museum opening in London in 2021.

Jane Wernick CBE FREng HonFRIBA is a structural engineer who is particularly interested in working on projects that give delight, and is engaged in our response to the climate emergency. She worked for Arup since 1973, where her most notable project was the Millennium Wheel. She founded Jane Wernick Associates Ltd. in 1998; projects include the Young Vic Theatre, the Kew Treetop Walkway and the Living Architecture houses. In 2015 the practice was incorporated into engineersHRW, to whom she is now a consultant.

Jane has taught at numerous schools including Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, the Architectural Association and was RAEng Visiting Professor of Design at Southampton University. She has served on many Design Review Panels, and was a member of the RIBA Building Futures Steering Committee (2005-14). She has also been a member of the Edge think tank since 2009.

She won the 2013 First Woman of the Built Environment Award and was awarded a CBE for services to structural and civil engineering in 2015.

The selection process is being managed by Malcolm Reading Consultants (MRC). An advocate for design excellence, Malcolm has created a unique and trusted competitions service with a dedicated global following among architects and designers. MRC’s clients include top tier cultural and educational and philanthropic organisations in places as diverse as the USA, India, Australia, Lithuania, Ireland, Taiwan, the Gulf and, of course, the UK.

Over the past twelve years MRC has run competitions for high-level projects with an estimated capital worth of circa £9 billion.

Trained as an architect, Malcolm is widely recognised within the profession. He has set new standards in procurement and is known for his loyalty to demanding projects.

Malcolm sits on the Sovereign Grant Audit Committee. He was on the board of Historic Royal Palaces for an unprecedented three terms (2005–2014) and is chairman of the UNESCO Tower of London World Heritage Site Consultative Committee.