The Board of Trustees of Tate are delighted to announce that the Prime Minister has appointed Gareth Thomas as a Tate Trustee. The term of appointment is for four years from 1 April 2010.
Gareth Thomas (born 1957) trained in law, and then began a 30-year commercial career with the John Lewis Partnership. Its longest-serving board member, he has helped it to win in recent years every major industry award for retailing and customer service. He left the John Lewis Partnership in April 2010 where he was Retail Director with responsibility for property, design, operations, sales and profit at John Lewis shops, which share a turnover of £3bn annually. Earlier this year he was one of three founding partners in a new retail property development company called Total Retail Concepts.
He worked in a Non-Executive capacity with the British Heart Foundation from 2003-2006, and since 2006 has been a Trustee and Non-Executive Director of Save the Children (UK). His private passion is British Art from the second half of the 20th century, which dominates a collection he has built up over the last 25 years.