Trustees - The Sir John Ritblat Family Foundation

Sir John Ritblat Hon DSc is the Honorary President of The British Land Company PLC, and Chairman of Delancey’s Real Estate Advisory Board. He is the former Chairman of the Alpha Plus Schools Group and the associated Charity ‘The Gold Standard Charitable Trust’, where he served until 2023 and 2024 respectively.

He is the former Chairman of the Alpha Plus Schools Group and the associated Charity ‘The Gold Standard Charitable Trust’, where he served until 2023 and 2024 respectively.

Sir John is Vice President of Weizmann UK and he sits on the International Board of the Weizmann Institute in Israel.

He stood down as Chairman of the Board of Governors of London Business School in April 2014 after 23 years on the Board and 10 years as Chairman. He remains on the Estates Committee, as a Member of Distinguished Friends and is an Honorary Fellow.

He was previously Chairman of the Wallace Collection and a Trustee for 10 years and remains Chairman of The Foundation.

He is an Hon Fellow and Hon Trustee, and was Deputy Chairman of the Royal Academy of Music, and is also an Hon Fellow of The Royal Institute of British Architects.

Sir John is Hon President and Member of The British Library Development Advisory Group. He previously served as a Board Member from 1995-2003, and then served again from 2015-2019 during the period of its move from The British Museum to its new home in Euston Road. He endowed “The Sir John Ritblat Gallery, Treasures of The British Library”.

As well and his passion and support of the Arts and Education, Sir John is an enthusiastic sportsman and enjoys Skiing and Real Tennis. He is the current President of British Ski & Snowboard National Foundation. He has been the principal sponsor of The British National Alpine Ski Championships for the last 45 years and is the longest serving Sponsor in British Sport. He also helped to establish the governing body for all British snow sport athletes which is now known as GB Snow Sport Federation, where he serves as President.

He is Vice President of the Real Tennis & Racquets Association and associated with many other public and educational institutions with Honorary Degrees.

Jamie Ritblat is the Founder and the Chairman of Delancey, a specialist real estate investment and advisory company founded in 1995. Through his leadership Delancey has acquired, developed, managed and sold over £20 billion of real estate and real estate-related investments across all sectors, the vast majority of which are undertaken in partnership with other like-minded investors.

Mr Ritblat has led some of the most high profile, complex transactions in real estate in recent years. For instance: The c.£1.1bn acquisition of Minerva PLC; the repurposing of the former Dickins and Jones Department store on Regent Street into offices, leisure and retail; the development of the Rolls Building, which was pre-let to HMCS for the new UK Commercial and Business Court; the acquisition and transformation of the London 2012 Athletes’ Village jointly with the State of Qatar into the multi-award winning neighbourhood, East Village; plus the repurposing of the former 2012 Press and Broadcast Centre into a thriving, world-renowned digital campus – widely described as one of the most successful legacies of any modern Olympic Games.

In addition to his role at Delancey, where he takes personal responsibility for the comprehensive social value programme, Mr Ritblat has also been a committed trustee and supporter of a number of other organisations and boards. These roles have included Tate Britain, the Southbank Centre, Kew Gardens, Kings College University London, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), Maggies Cancer Caring Centres and Non-Executive Chairman of Mitheridge Capital Management, all of which he has now retired from. He is currently an active Trustee at the Bathurst Estate (a 15,000 acre estate in Gloucestershire), Blenheim Palace and the Heritage of London Trust. Mr Ritblat is also on the Advisory board for Brown Advisory, a $140 billion wealth and investment manager, and recently joined the Imperial College Council and their Real Estate Committee.

Michael Cohen is Finance Director at Creditincome and Director at Wallace Investments Holdings, the Ritblat Family Office vehicle. Previously Finance Director at Delancey, Mr Cohen’s responsibilities included finance and corporate finance activities for the company, its platform businesses, and clients, as well as investor reporting.

Prior to joining Delancey in 2009, Mr Cohen joined GET Group plc as Group Finance Director in 1998, where his role culminated in managing the sale of the company to Schneider Electric. Mr Cohen was also previously employed by Koch Metals Trading Limited in 1997 as Finance Director and FIMAT International Banque (now part of NewEdge) United Kingdom Branch as Finance Director in 1991. Mr Cohen began his career in 1986 at Arthur Andersen where he qualified in 1989.

Michael is a Trustee of The British Ski & Snowboard National Foundation and was previously a Trustee of The Gold Standard Charitable Trust, which offers bursaries to talented pupils whose circumstances would otherwise put an independent school education beyond their reach. Mr Cohen graduated from the London School of Economics with an honours degree in economics, accounting and finance. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

THE NOMINATING COMMITTEE

On 17 December 2019 an Awards Committee was established comprising of the Trustees and two additional persons being Lady Jillian Ritblat and Ms Suzanne (Suki) Ritblat. The purpose of the committee is to recommend to the Trustees deserving causes to be supported by the Foundation.

Lady Ritblat OBE is a qualified barrister and holds a BA (Hons) in History of Art, as well as honorary fellowships from the Royal Academy of Music (Hon FRAM), the Royal Institute of British Architects (Hon FRIBA), and the Royal College of Art. She has also served as an NGO representative at the United Nations in Geneva.

In 1963 she qualified for the Bar becoming the youngest person ever to have done so and was called in 1964 completing her pupillage to Robin Simpson in the chambers of Victor Durand and Jeremy Hutchinson. She later moved to Geneva where she served as an alternate delegate to the United Nations for the International Council of Jewish Women from 1977-1979.

However, it is for her work in the arts that Lady Ritblat is most noted. As a founding member of the Patrons of New Art, later Tate Patrons, she acted as the group’s first events organiser from 1984-1987 and became chair of the group from 1987-90.

During her time as chair, she represented the Patrons of New Art as a Turner Prize judge, as well as becoming involved in acquisitions, international relations and curating. In addition to being a member of many boards, such as Modern Art Oxford, New Contemporaries (where she served as vice-chair for 25 years), The Royal Academy of Music’s development committee, the RIBA, the Design Museum, Royal College of Art, and The Garden Museum, Lady Ritblat has co-curated shows such as The Curator’s Egg at the Anthony Reynolds Gallery (1994), and One Woman’s Wardrobe at the Victoria and Albert Museum (1999), commissioning the catalogue, which won a D&AD Silver Pencil for Graphic Design. She was executive producer of the film ‘Normal Conservative Rebels: Gilbert and George in China’ made by David Zilkha, which was shown at Tate, the Musée d’Art Contemporain de la Ville de Paris and the Edinburgh Film Festival and won a gold medal at the Chicago Film Festival (1996). Lady Ritblat has also made significant gift contributions of contemporary dress to the Victorian and Albert Museum, The Museum of London, The Design Museum, The Fashion Museum in Bath, the Platt institute in Manchester, and the Ulster Museum in Belfast.

Her passion for art is matched by her enthusiasm for music and architecture, and she was a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Regional Awards assessor in 2001. A domestic building that she and her husband built won an RIBA Regional Award in 2001 and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize.

Organisations that the Sir John Ritblat Family Foundation and Sir John’s other charitable funds have proudly supported include: