The Illu­mi­nat­ed Riv­er Foundation team

The Illu­mi­nat­ed Riv­er Foun­da­tion is a reg­is­tered char­i­ty based in the offices of the Roth­schild Foun­da­tion who pro­vide admin­is­tra­tive support.

Team

  • Sarah Gaventa, MA (RCA)

    Sarah Gaventa, MA (RCA)

    Director

    Sarah, Hon. Fellow of both RIBA and the Landscape Institute, is a public space and public art expert and curator, and was previously Director of CABE Space at the Commission for Architecture and Built Environment. She was Chair of the Elephant and Castle Regeneration Forum for five years.

  • Richard Dye

    Richard Dye

    Finance Director

    Richard is a Chartered Accountant, previously the Finance Director at Disasters Emergency Committee. He brings career experience of managing finance, resources and projects in the arts and not-for-profit sector.

Trustees

The project is governed by an independent Board of Trustees including Hannah Rothschild and Fabia Bromovsky, and chaired by Neil Mendoza.

  • Lord Neil Mendoza

    Lord Neil Mendoza

    Chair

    Lord Neil Mendoza is Provost of Oriel College, Oxford University, and Commissioner for Cultural Recovery and Renewal. In May 2020 he was appointed by the government as Commissioner in response to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the cultural sector.

    Neil is a non-exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Dig­i­tal, Cul­ture, Media and Sport. He led two gov­ern­ment reviews in 2017 — The Men­doza Review of muse­ums in Eng­land and a Strate­gic Review for the Cab­i­net Office cov­er­ing the nation­al muse­ums. Addi­tion­al gov­ern­ment appoint­ments include being a Com­mis­sion­er of His­toric Eng­land and a mem­ber of the review pan­el look­ing into the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of Eng­lish church­es and cathe­drals. Neil is also a direc­tor of Meira GTx, a gene ther­a­py com­pa­ny, list­ed on Nasdaq.

    Neil is Chair of The Land­mark Trust. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Neil was Chair of Chil­dren and the Arts, a nation­wide char­i­ty ded­i­cat­ed to using cul­tur­al work to help chil­dren in dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties and hos­pices. He was also Vice-Chair of Soho The­atre and a trustee of the Shake­speare Schools Fes­ti­val and has twice been on the judg­ing pan­el for the Lau­rence Olivi­er Awards.

    Ear­ly in his career Neil co-found­ed and ran a pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny, For­ward, that was sold to mar­ket­ing group, WPP.


  • Hannah Rothschild

    Hannah Rothschild

    Hannah Rothschild is a writer, filmmaker, company director and philanthropist. She has made films for the BBC, HBO and others. Her books have been published in twelve languages. The Improbability of Love won the Bollinger Wodehouse best comic novel and was runner up to the Bailley Women’s prize for fiction in 2015. Her novel House of Trelawney will be published in February 2020.

    In 2015 she became the first woman to chair the National Gallery. She serves on the boards of charitable foundations in the UK and abroad.

    She is a Non-Executive Director of RIT Capital Partners Ltd and Windmill Hill Asset Management Ltd.

    In 2018 she was made CBE for services to Literature and Philanthropy.

  • Fabia Bromovsky

    Fabia Bromovsky

    Fabia Bro­movsky is a Trustee of the Illuminated River Foundation and former Chief Exec­ut­ive of The Roth­schild Found­a­tion and Waddesdon Manor, a Roth­schild House owned by the Nation­al Trust and now man­aged and opened to the pub­lic on their behalf by the Roth­schild Found­a­tion. Having stepped down from her role at the Rothschild Foundation earlier this year, she continues her work on environmental standards and monitoring, regenerative land management and sustainability as a strategic advisor to the Sustainable Food Trust, remains a Director of Waddesdon Wines Ltd and recently joined the Management board for Arcadia, Nyland and Wadhurst Park, family and charitable interests of Lisbet Rausing.

  • Anthea Case CBE

    Anthea Case CBE

    Anthea has recently retired as Principal Adviser of Arcadia, a post held since 2004. She previously worked in the Treasury, and was Chief Executive of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund. She was awarded a CBE in 2003 for services to heritage. Anthea’s roles in the heritage and arts sector have included chair of the Heritage Alliance and Heritage Commissioner on CABE (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment). She is on the boards of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival Trust and a member of the British Council’s Cultural Protection Advisory Group.



Illuminated River has been developed in consultation and collaboration with over 50 organisations on and around the river, including the Port of London Authority, Historic England, Transport for London, Network Rail, London Wildlife Trust, Zoological Society of London, Cross River Partnership, seven local authorities (City of London, Tower Hamlets, Westminster, Southwark, RBKC, Lambeth, Wandsworth) from whom 30 planning permissions and 18 listed building consents have been granted.

Illuminated River aims to be a model of best practice and collaboration, demonstrating how different sectors and boroughs can work together to support cultural initiatives that make the city more attractive and accessible for everyone.