5 Trustees appointed to the Board of National Museums Liverpool

The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has appointed Heather Blyth, Paul Eccleson, Rita Mclean, and Tony Wilson as Trustees to the National Museums Liverpool Board for three years from 18th May 2020 - 17 May 2023. Isabel Chadwick has been appointed as Finance Trustee for four years from 18th May 2020 - 17th May 2024. National Museums Liverpool, formerly National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, comprises several museums and art galleries in and around Liverpool, England.

Heather Blyth

Heather has delivered many successful strategic initiatives in the media and cultural sectors. She has experience working for large multi-national organisations including Sky and Virgin Media and has consulted for a range of other broadcasters and media companies. At Sky, she was part of the launch team for the much-loved Sky Atlantic and she facilitated the creation of Europe’s biggest on-demand library of arts content under the Sky Arts banner. She also supported the business case and delivery of Sky’s investment into original content, which is set to more than double by 2024. This has resulted in award winning programmes such as Chernobyl, Patrick Melrose and Portrait Artist of the Year.

She is experienced across strategy, transformation, operational and insight roles and is skilled at bringing diverse teams together and creating frameworks that enable creativity to thrive whilst delivering strong business results.

Heather has two big passions. Firstly, ensuring we have a strong, enriching arts and cultural sector, open to all. Secondly, she is dedicated to helping empower girls and young women to reach their potential. She has a master’s degree from Oxford University and an MBA from Durham University. She lives with her husband and young daughter.

Paul Eccleson

Paul Eccleson is currently Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Munich Re’s Legal Expenses Insurance arm. He is also Finance Trustee for The Natural Theatre Company in Bath. He lectures at Postgraduate level in the Psychology of Financial Crime and Corporate Ethics at the International Compliance Association Paul is a financial crime and fraud investigation consultant, having successfully led one of the UK’s largest private prosecutions. His work has also included award-winning behavioural economics research in the area of customer understanding of complex products.

Paul has worked in senior positions across a range of industries. His early career was in artificial intelligence and e-commerce. Whilst a senior research manager with Hewlett-Packard, he led the implementation of one of the UK’s first e-commerce sites, winning the 1999 Financial Times Public Sector Website award for innovation.

Paul was born and raised in Birkenhead and has maintained close contacts with National Museums Liverpool, who he still sees as his cultural parent.

Rita Mclean

Rita McLean is an independent museums and heritage consultant with over 30 years experience of working across the UK heritage and cultural sectors in a range of strategic, advisory and operational roles. She was Director of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery from 2004 until 2012 and during this time responsible for initiation and delivery of a number of major capital development projects, collections development and interpretation programmes, workforce and audience diversity initiatives. She was awarded an honorary doctorate for services to heritage and culture by the University of Birmingham in 2010.

Current consultancy work includes assignments for the National Lottery Heritage Fund as a project consultant and expert adviser. She served for several years as an Artistic and Quality Assessor for Arts Council England.

Rita is a member of the National Trust’s Collections and Interpretation Advisory Group and Midlands Region Advisory Board. She is also a member of Birmingham Cathedral’s Fabric Advisory Committee.

Tony Wilson

Tony was born and educated in Liverpool. He studied a degree in law at the University of Nottingham before returning to Liverpool to commence his legal career.

He practiced law for 43 years. He was Senior Partner of Hill Dickinson from 2001 to 2011. During his term of office, the firm enjoyed considerable growth becoming a top thirty law firm with national and international offices. In 2005 Hill Dickinson became the first sponsor of Capital Culture 2008 and became the legal adviser to the Capital of Culture Board. He led Hill Dickinson to its current Headquarters in St. Paul’s Square, Liverpool - one of the largest office developments in the City.

Tony practiced as an Insurance lawyer and was senior legal adviser to a mutual insurer. He advised national retailers on claims handling and litigation strategies. He represented professionals with regard to proceedings before their regulators.

Tony is currently chair of the Liverpool Business Improvement District and a Trustee of the Liverpool Biennial. He has extensive board experience having previously been a board member of Liverpool Vision and the North West Business Leaders’ team. In 2005, he attended Harvard University and obtained a certificate in law firm management.

Isabel Chadwick

Isabel Chadwick has lived in the Northwest of England all her life. After graduating in Economics, she joined BDO’s Manchester Office qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1992.

Since leaving practice Isabel has spent the majority of her career working within the Financial Services Sector in organisations undergoing large scale change. This has included acquisitions, disposals, mergers and turnarounds, working in roles supporting the businesses through their transformation programmes. In 2013 she joined the turnaround team at the Co-operative Bank where she held the position of Commercial Operations Director.

In 2018 Isabel left the Co-operative Bank and set up a consultancy business which focuses on helping clients deliver complex change in their organisations; she is passionate about supporting businesses to achieve their potential. Isabel lives in Cheshire with her teenage daughter.