Redress the Imbalance & All Else will Follow: Dr Margaret Casely-Hayford CBE Chair, Chancellor & NED: Inspiring Leadership interview with Jonathan Bowman-Perks MBE

141. Dr Margaret Casely-Hayford CBE Chair, Chancellor & NED Margaret Casely-Hayford was appointed Chair of Shakespeare’s Globe in January 2018, the same year in which she was appointed Chancellor of Coventry University.  She has been an elected member of the Board of the Co-op Group since 2016.  

She was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Honours list, for services to charity and for promoting diversity, in 2018, upon ending her term as trustee and Chair of international development Charity ActionAid UK., and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of her former University college: Somerville, Oxford. 

She’s a trustee of the Radcliffe Trust, which supports the development of skills in classical music and traditional arts and crafts.  

She chaired a diversity review of the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards for CILIP (the Libraries Association); and served on a panel that oversaw the 2018 strategic review of the British Council, making recommendations to the Foreign Secretary.  

She was Director of Legal Services and Company Secretary for the John Lewis Partnership for nine years. Before that she worked for twenty years with City law firm Dentons where she had been a partner and jointly led an award-winning team in planning and development work), she’s now retired from executive roles. 

Her portfolio includes advising young entrepreneurs, and supporting and advising organisations on governance and advising those, in particular women and BAME or LGTBQ+ people, who wish to embark upon board careers.  She is passionate about establishing diversity on boards and is an ambassador of Board Apprentice.  

She champions better governance and democratic processes, and this year, was appointed to the Institute of Directors’ Governance Advisory Board, and made a Fellow of the Institute of Public Impact. 

Her passion for education sees her also as Chair of the Advisory Board of award-winning Ultra Education, an enterprise which provides teaching of entrepreneurial skills to primary school children; and as Patron of the John Staples Society a body created across the Leathersellers’ Federation of Schools, to develop social mobility by providing opportunities and access. 

She is also a member of the Rhodes Commission looking at the future of the statue of Cecil Rhodes and the impact of his legacy. 

Top Tip- leadership strapline would be: Redress the imbalance, and all else will follow