Samir Shah appointed as Chair of the Geffrye Museum

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has today (16th June 2014) appointed Dr Samir Shah OBE as Chair of the Geffrye Museum for a period of 4 years. The Geffrye Museum is devoted to the history of the home, showing how homes and gardens reflect changes in society, behaviour, style and taste over the past 400 years. Named after Sir Robert Geffrye, a former Lord Mayor of London and Master of the Ironmongers' Company, it is located on Kingsland Road in Shoreditch, London. The main body of the museum is housed in the Grade I-listed almshouses of the Ironmongers' Company, built in 1714 thanks to a bequest by Geffrye. The museum was extended in 1998 with an innovative yet architecturally sympathetic new wing designed by Branson Coates Architects. In 2011 the Geffrye Museum secured funding of £13.2million from the Heritage Lottery Fund to build an extension which is due to open in 2015.

About Dr Samir Shah OBE

Samir Shah is Deputy Chair of the Victoria and Albert Museum and has been a leading figure in broadcasting for over 30 years. Since 2004 he has been Chief Executive of Juniper Communications which makes television and radio programmes and specialises in factual content and dramatised documentaries. Before this he was at the BBC as Head of Political Programmes (1994-1998) and Head of Current Affairs (1987-1994).

Samir was a trustee of the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture (2004-2006), Chair of the Runnymede Trust (1999-2009) and a non-executive Director of the BBC (2006-2010), and is a fellow of the Royal Television Society. The University of Nottingham has appointed him to a Special Professorship in the Department of Post Conflict Studies.