Guildhall School selects new Chair

EMILY BENN has been elected to lead Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s Board of Governors. 

She takes over from GRAHAM PACKHAM and joins the senior leadership team alongside new Deputy Chair CAROLINE HAINES, who succeeds RANDALL ANDERSON. Both Packham and Anderson step down after three years.

The London school, provided by the City of London Corporation, has a Board comprised of elected members from the City Corporation as well as staff, the president of the Student Union and elected independent members from relevant professions. 

An Executive at the global strategic advisory firm Hakluyt and Company and a politician, Benn previously ran as a Labour Party parliamentary candidate in the 2012 and 2015 general elections. She has held roles as an investment banker at UBS, a think tank director, a festival director, and a researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. 

Since 2022, she has been an elected Member of the City Corporation, representing the Bread Street Ward as an independent candidate. 

A keen violinist, Benn serves on the board of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She also co-founded the string quartet Statutory Instruments, where she plays alongside Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire, Councillor Katherine Chibah and Channel 4 News' Cathy Newman.

Benn said: “It is the greatest honour to be elected as Chair of Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the UK’s leading performing arts conservatoire. I am constantly in awe at the talents of our students and what they go on to achieve. 

“I am the product of a musical education and have seen first-hand how the skills young people learn thanks to a performing arts education can transform personal and professional lives, as they did mine. 

“I look forward to working with the City of London Corporation, as well as colleagues across the cultural sector, to demonstrate how critical the arts are for the future health and wealth of the UK and fight to ensure that all young people have the chance of a brilliant arts education.”