Emily Benn elected Chair of Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Emily Benn has been elected as Chair of the Board of Governors of Guildhall School, which comprises elected members from the City of London Corporation and the School’s staff, the president of the School’s Student Union, the Principal of the School, Professor Jonathan Vaughan, and elected independent members from relevant professions. 

Emily is an Executive at Hakluyt and Company, a global strategic advisory firm, and has been an investment banker at UBS, a think tank director, a festival director, and a researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. 

Aged just 17, Emily was selected as the youngest Parliamentary candidate in the UK’s history and subsequently stood in the 2010 and 2015 General Elections as a Labour candidate.

She started playing the violin aged five, and studied at the Royal College of Music Junior Department, and conducted the Oxford New Orchestra. She co-founded and leads the Statutory Instruments, the UK’s political String Quartet, and serves on the board of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Since 2022, she has been an elected Member of the City Corporation, representing the Bread Street Ward. 

Chair of Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s Board of Governors, Emily Benn, said: “It is the greatest honour to be elected as Chair of Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the UK’s leading performing arts conservatoire. I am constantly in awe at the talents of our students, and what they go on to achieve. 

“I am the product of a musical education and have seen first-hand how the skills young people learn thanks to a performing arts education can transform personal and professional lives, as they did mine. 

“I look forward to working with the City of London Corporation, as well as colleagues across the cultural sector to demonstrate how critical the arts are for the future health and wealth of the UK, and fight to ensure that all young people have the chance of a brilliant arts education.”

Emily Benn succeeds Graham Packham, who has served for three years as Chair of the Board of Governors. Caroline Haines has been elected as the School’s Deputy Chair, succeeding Randall Anderson, who also served for three years.