Board of Trustees

Board of Trustees

The RPS has a Board of Trustees, also known as Council, comprising five elected Trustees (including the President) and four appointed Trustees (including the Honorary Treasurer). The Board of nine Trustees is chaired by the President and is responsible for governance and for ensuring that the RPS fulfils its charitable object of public benefit and the promotion of the highest standards of achievement in photography. On a more practical level, the Board supports the Senior Leadership Team, the staff and the volunteers, in the delivery of the RPS strategic plan.

If you are interested in finding out more about the role of a Trustee please get in touch.

If you are interested in applying to be one of our appointed Trustees please click here.

For further information on RPS governance, please click here.

To find out more about our equality, diversity and inclusion work, and the RPS Critical Friends, click here.

Simon Hill HonFRPS
President and Chair of Trustees

Simon has been taking photographs since he was three years old and joined the RPS while still at school. As a schoolboy, in 1982 he gained his LRPS and the following year his ARPS.  He went on to gain an HND in professional photography from Blackpool College of Art, followed by a BA from UCA (via the Open College of the Arts) and an MA from St Martins School of Art, London. In 1991, shortly after beginning in practice as a professional editorial photographer, he was awarded his FRPS in the ‘Applied' category.  Exactly forty years after joining the RPS and thirty years after gaining his FRPS, Simon became the 72nd President of the RPS and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS).  Simon is a Membre de l’Excellence of the Fédération Internationale de l’Art Photographique (EFIAP).

With over 30 years experience as a professional photographer, Simon's work has been published in National Geographic Magazine, The Observer, The Sunday Times and many UK and European newspapers and journals. He is the first British winner of the Longford International Art Portrait Award, a former Kodak ‘Showcase’ Professional Photographer of the Year and, in 2019, was named BIPP Professional Photographer of the Year. In addition to his photographic work, as Managing Director and Lead Designer of VIDAR Media Group, Simon designs museum and gallery exhibitions for domestic and international clients. He has won many awards for his design projects including Best New Museum, the HLF Arts and Heritage Renaissance Award, RHS Bronze and Silver medals, European Attraction of the Year and Best Global Attraction of the Year.

Having over 25 years experience as a Charity or NFP Trustee, including three years as Trustee of the Open College of the Arts (an RPS partner organisation), Simon brings an essential and broad range of skills to the RPS Board of Trustees, not least his extensive commercial experience. Simon has held directorships on the board of over a dozen UK and European companies, including Chairman of one of Scandinavia’s leading cultural heritage design companies. In 1994 he gained the Institute of Directors Diploma in Company Direction and was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Directors. In 1996, he became a Qualified Member of the Chartered Society of Designers; in 2006, he qualified as a Chartered Marketer and was elected a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Simon remains an active Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and of the Royal Geographical Society, through which he is developing reciprocal benefits for the RPS.

The President writes a Voicebox feature in the RPS Journal.

Email Simon

David Muiry ARPS

Honorary Treasurer

Photography has been in David’s blood for fifty years. After spending (too) much time as a teenager ‘under red light’, professional training (first in medicine, then in actuarial science) and busy careers limited his free time for photography, but not the passion for it. Since retiring from his final executive role in 2023, he has immersed himself in pursuits to develop his photographic skills and creative vision.

David trained as a doctor at Guy’s Hospital Medical School, London. After qualifying, he practised in the NHS and as an officer in the Royal Navy, including active service in the first Gulf war in 1991. Shortly thereafter, he changed tack, moving into financial services to train as an actuary.

After gaining experience in the UK life insurance industry and qualifying as a Fellow of the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries in 1995, David spent the greater part of his career working in international life and health reinsurance with Swiss Re, one of the world’s leading reinsurers. He was fortunate enough to work with colleagues and clients all around the world, including overseas assignments in Switzerland and India, and in roles spanning product design, risk pricing, marketing and product management. As managing director for global health products, he led Swiss Re’s health strategy development and portfolio management.

In 2015, David joined Bupa, a leading international health insurance and healthcare provider, initially as Chief Commercial Actuary, providing actuarial advice and oversight to its operating businesses. As Group Chief Actuary from 2016 to 2023, David had overall actuarial responsibility for Bupa’s multi-billion-pound, global insurance portfolio, spanning premium adequacy, claims reserving, capital management, insurance risk, and financial & regulatory reporting.

David has been a member of the RPS since 2006, becoming Licentiate in 2007 and Associate (landscape) in 2024. He is primarily a landscape photographer, favouring wilderness locations over pastoral scenes and the built landscape, but also enjoys shooting animate subjects. As a beneficiary of an early introduction to photography and the life-long opportunities for recreation, skills development and creative fulfilment that it has brought him, David embraces the RPS’s commitment to bring photography to everyone.

Carolyn Bloore ARPS
Elected Trustee

Carolyn has been involved with the RPS since 1976 - when she first volunteered with the collection and ultimately opened it to approved researchers. She joined the Museum Working Party, gained her ARPS and edited the Historical Group Newsletter from 1979 to 1982. A Museum Methods internship at George Eastman House, Rochester NY in 1977 introduced her to accessioning, cataloguing (to mainframe computer) and conservation.

Back in Britain between 1978 and 1986 she curated Hugh Welch Diamond: Doctor, Antiquarian and Photographer, worked on notable travelling exhibitions Photography 1900-1920, Hayward Gallery and other UK galleries, The Golden Age of British Photography 1839-1900, V&A, Philadelphia Museum of Art and other US locations and curated A Vision Exchanged with Grace Seiberling, GEH, V&A and NMFPT and wrote for the accompanying publications. Useful material relating to the early years of the RPS was published in Seibering with Bloore: Amateurs, Photography and the Mid-Victorian Imagination, 1986 and in her PhD thesis: Photography and Printmaking 1840-1860.

Mid-career, a need for different working hours led to part-time lecturing, education in inner city schools and, ultimately a senior teaching and management role as Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Coordinator. Moving on to a local museum, Carolyn gained useful experience in funding programmes and curating a series of exhibitions on a small budget, notably From Canvas to Camera: George Hilditch 1803-1857 and Britflicks on Thames.

Carolyn returned to the V&A to manage a formal learning programme with a wide remit - from international, graduate and undergraduate courses to an award-winning schools programme, developing and funding ten year programmes for SEND and Hospital Schools, building a learning collection and continuing to curate exhibitions - one of which was Julia Margaret Cameron: Photographs of Children. She maintained photographically related interests, especially a University of Texas (Austin) post-doctoral fellowship researching in the Gernsheim Collection (concurrently with the V&A) and writing biographies for the updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and the Nineteenth Century Encyclopaedia of British Photography. At the RPS she had begun working on The PhotoHistorian, becoming Editor in 2002, a role she was to continue for 12 years, she was also Chair of the group for 3 years from 2007.

Moving into retirement, Carolyn continues to interact with the photographic community and speak to museum audiences.

Sebah Chaudhry
Elected Trustee

Sebah is experienced in working at international world class festivals, projects and events. She is Director of Sebahtage, a new organisation supporting artists and writers from under-represented backgrounds. She is Co-Founder and Co-Director of ReFramed, a photographic based visual arts network based in the Midlands, supporting the community and artists who are from the Global Majority. She curated and produced the first exhibition at Stockroom, Chosen Family Album, a brand-new cultural art centre in the heart of Stockport. She is currently Special Projects Producer at Photoworks. She has taught on the prestigious BA Photography course at Manchester School of Art, MMU.

Sebah was Producer and Facilitator of Derby Yaadaan Archives, a project based at the Pakistan Community Centre, commissioned by Derby Museum to work with the South Asian community in Derby to collect people’s migration stories from South Asia to Derby from 1950’s – 1980’s. She was Creative Producer & Assistant Curator on an international British Council funded project with Ffotogallery, The Place I Call Home, connecting the UK to the Gulf region. From 2013 — 2017, Sebah was Coordinator & Curator at FORMAT Festival. Sebah reviews portfolios internationally and mentor’s artists. She has also curated a number of exhibitions including the Global Sino Photo Awards at Christie’s, and Lives We Cannot Live by Jeremy Jeffs at Oxo Gallery.

She has been on the Jury for Portrait of Britain, RPS, RBSA and many others, In 2025, she joined the nominator list for the prestigious Joop Swart Masterclass. She reviews internationally at FORMAT Festival (Derby), Fotofest (Houston) and Les Rencontres d’Arles (Arles).

Steering Group member at FORMAT Festival and a Trustee at The Royal Photographic Society and COMM.UN.

Sophie Collins LRPS
Appointed Trustee

Sophie is an experienced marketer with international experience spanning over two decades; working agency-side across Global clients including IBM, Cisco, Apple, GSK, Unilever, American Express, Sony, and British Airways. She has led integrated global marketing strategies, managing large teams and significant budgets, and specialises in digital marketing transformation, and combining brand awareness and performance activity to meet ambitious business growth.

Sophie has been Chief Marketing Officer at MPB for the past 4 years as part of the exec team driving 5x business growth in that time. The marketing challenge at MPB has been through the funnel, from raising brand awareness in international markets, to improving customer loyalty and lifetime value in the UK, to establishing and communicating the sustainability strategy.

Prior to MPB, Sophie was VP of Performance Marketing at DAZN - a global leader in sport streaming - responsible for driving subscriber growth and loyalty. Sophie was a founder member of the marketing team, and developed and delivered the global marketing strategy from launch through to over 1.2 million subscribers in the first 3 years.

As Managing Director, North America at Ogilvy, Sophie was seconded to IBM to lead the digital marketing transformation team within IBM Studio. This encompassed designing and delivering the tech and data infrastructure for CRM and media delivery, along with the people strategy and governance to deliver against IBM’s $200M+ marketing budget effectively and efficiently.

Sophie has been a keen photographer since the age of 13, studying in the UK and in New York, at the International Centre for Photography. She joined the RPS in 2020 and gained her LRPS distinction in 2021. Sophie is passionate about supporting diverse representation in photography and videography, often speaking on the topic and supporting numerous projects to improve access to visual storytelling for everyone.

Victoria Forrest
Elected Trustee

Victoria Forrest is a graphic designer known for her refined approach to publishing, combining traditional book arts with contemporary technology. She has worked with renowned photographers, artists, and cultural institutions on a range of distinguished projects, from photographic monographs to immersive publications.
A graduate of the Royal College of Art with a specialization in large-format photography, Victoria’s early experience in the darkroom inspired her commitment to sustainable lithographic techniques and high-quality print. Her research, supported by UKRI, explores how digital enhancements can enhance the tactility of print, including wider audiences in visual storytelling.

As the founder of VIKA Books, Victoria blends fine art production with interactive media. Her patented Connected Books combine sign language and multimedia with traditional print, showcasing her commitment to inclusive design. Her work has received recognition from InnovateUK, CreativeUK, and D&AD, earning awards such as Women in Innovation, TechWomen100, and Great British Entrepreneur of the Year for Creative Industries.

Featured by the BBC, The Bookseller, and the BJP, Victoria is driven by a belief in the power of design to connect people and open up new ways for everyone to enjoy the visual arts.

James Weeks LRPS
Elected Trustee

James's career has provided him with a wide range of experience. Graduating in Computer Science, he worked as a broadcast journalist for 15 years, running the digital outlets for a UK-based rolling news channel and creating a highly successful news consumption app which won awards from the Royal Television Society and Apple. James then moved to a newspaper to take a leadership role on the editorial team.

His path then took him into advisory work, in the Media and Entertainment practice of a large global consultancy. There, his projects included optimisation of consumer experiences, design and build of websites and more general organisational optimisation and redesign.

Returning to broadcasting, he acted as Head of Product for a large UK-based video streaming service - managing a complex roadmap for a product that covered multiple European markets and a wide variety of digital outlets, apps, websites and smart TVs. He now works as a consultant in the Software and Media industries - advising organisations on improving efficiency and increasing revenue.

James's love of photography began with an impulse purchase of a second hand SLR in Freshers' Week. He shot thousands of rolls of film - mostly landscape and travel - before migrating to digital and creating an enormous mound of full hard discs. He achieved his LRPS early on in his RPS membership over a decade ago and has had a number of half-completed ARPS projects pending ever since.

Alistair How LRPS
Appointed Trustee

For staff contact details please click here.