Chair of the Board of Trustees

Chair of the
Board of Trustees

Candidate Pack
January 2026

We are a Museum with a devoted purpose –
to help shape a better tomorrow.

Join our Board of Trustees as our new Chair
and support our ambitious journey as we look
towards an even brighter future.

Welcome

from Liz Moss
Trustee & Chair of People Committee

The Thackray Museum of Medicine is on an upward
trajectory, catalysed by a major re-development
of our exhibition galleries and public spaces which
re-opened in May 2021. Since then, we have
embraced new audiences through inspired and
unique programming, grown our commitment to
our communities and learning programmes, and
reached our highest-ever visitor numbers.

As we approach our 30th anniversary year in 2027,
we continue to look towards a thriving, bright
future, whilst facing sector challenges head on.
We have learned to embrace dynamism, agility
and an adeptness for change in difficult economic,
environmental and societal circumstances. We know
the vital power, impact and influence our collections,
story-telling and assets – our people, programme
and place – can have; our focus is to embrace that
and ensure our future resilience and sustainability.

As a finalist at both the ArtFund Museum of the
Year (2021) and European Museum of the Year
Awards (2023), we have established ourselves as
a significant national asset, furthered by our recent
strategic developments.

Central to us achieving our ambitions is the support,
engagement and participation of a forward-thinking
and ambitious Board. We are looking for a new
Chair to help us continue to cultivate an engaged,
committed group of people, to support and uphold
the work of the CEO and staff team, and to continue
our trajectory of strategic success.

We are conscious of our ability to best represent
our incredibly diverse and culturally-rich local
communities; to that end, we are keen to
gain interest from a global majority candidate.

Aligned with the support from our key funders –
Arts Council England, Thackray Medical Research
Trust, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Garfield Weston
Foundation, Peter Sowerby Foundation, Wellcome
and others – you can help us deliver our goals and
ensure that we work in an ethical, robust, efficient
and effective manner.

Support our Museum in realising our exciting next
chapter as we look to the next 30 years ahead, and
join us as a our new Chair in 2026.

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Welcome  Page 3

Read our 2024/25
Annual Report >>

Watch our European Museum
Award entry video (2023) >>

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Page 5

We are Thackray

Helping to shape a better tomorrow

The Thackray Museum of Medicine is the UK’s largest
independent medical museum, a place that inspires
people with the passion and purpose of medicine and
healthcare – past, present and future.

Thackray is a welcoming, safe space where
we share our unique collection to help shape
a better tomorrow.

Situated in the bustle of a lively East Leeds inner-
city community and adjacent to St James’ University
Hospital – Europe’s largest teaching hospital – the
Museum showcases innovation in medical endeavour
through its collection of over 50,000 objects and
some 25,000 written works, covering all aspects of
the history of medicine. A focus on collaboration and
shared responsibility for health sets us apart from
many more traditional medical museums.

We empower people to understand their
own healthcare choices and inspire future
generations of change-makers by platforming
told and untold stories of medicine and society.

Open to the public, we welcome between 55,000
and 70,000 people through our door every year.
Medicine touches the lives of all humankind, and
the museum uses its collection as a focal point to
share personal stories from all parts of society.

By embracing and representing our community,
people will see themselves and better
understand each other.

Our exhibitions and programmes are built on the
foundation of democratising the collection and
co-curating with our community, ensuring that
our contemporary collecting programme and
the stories we tell feature and represent diverse
cultures and experiences.

Objects on permanent display are carefully curated
to tell the stories of those they impacted, from early
pioneers to medical professionals to patients, bringing
celebrations and struggles equally to life.

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We are Thackray  Page 7

Our programme

A year-round eclectic and inspiring offer

Our building houses two floors of permanent galleries,
taking our visitors on a journey through medical innovation,
from the history of healthcare to the advances that have
shaped the way we look after ourselves, and each other.

Since reopening in 2021 following a £4 million capital
redevelopment of our internal spaces, a core priority has
been offering a year-round programme of temporary
exhibitions and one-off events that bring the stories in
our collection to life.

PROGRAMME SNAPSHOT

Exhibitions
Beneath the Sheets: Anatomy, Art and Power

School Holiday Activities
Poo, Glorious Poo!

An intimate look into our extensive anatomical
artwork collection, Beneath the Sheets asks us
to confront the human realities that gave us our
understanding of the body, one page at a time.

Our holiday activities offer a fantastic mix of
theatrical ‘Boffins’ shows, crafts, games, trails,
hands-on activities such as dissections, plus much
more to suit all ages and multi-generational families.

Community Programming
RHS Community Meal

In-depth Discussion
Insights

In our first ‘Community Table’ event, we invited our
local communities to come and have their tea with
us, and played a card game to unearth their feelings
about plants, gardens and medicine. Their responses
formed a jumping-off point for our team of young
curators to start building ideas for our summer
2026 exhibition, in collaboration with the Royal
Horticultural Society.

Thackray Insights are informal lectures inviting
you to delve deep into eye-opening topics and
groundbreaking discoveries with leading academics.
A great opportunity to ask questions such as: ‘can you
smell, touch and taste cancer?’, and ‘can medicine
treat the soul?’ in a varied and intriguing set of
subjects relating to medicine and healthcare.

Thackray Lates
Sunburn: The Science of Skin

Learning
Gothic Literature Day

Our series of adult-only (18+) evening events,
exploring unusual topics and untold stories
through talks, medical experiments, workshops
and performances.

In partnership with the British Library, we held our
first ever Gothic Literature Day in 2025 with partner
schools for 100 KS3/4 school children. Bringing context
to life, we were joined by writer and rapper Testament
plus Leeds-based theatre company Wrongsemble.

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Our Programme  Page 9

Mission & Vision

Our aims and ambitions

Our Thackray promises

Our mission is to inspire people with the passion
and purpose of medicine and healthcare in the
past, present and future.

Our long-term vision sees the Thackray establishing
itself as the UK’s leading medical museum by 2030,
with a wish to welcome 100,000 people a year.

Across our work, our team of are guided by a set of promises that allow them to distil our mission
and values into their everyday work. Designed together, these promises define what we do,
what people can expect from us and how we behave.

We use our unique collections and heritage building
as a foundation to:

We will:

•

•

•

•

•

inspire people with stories of the motivation,
commitment and achievement that drives
medical progress.

promote communities’ and individuals’ agency
in shaping health, wellbeing and the future of
medicine and healthcare.

enable people to participate in a public
conversation about medicine and health.

provide a space in our shared stories for the
under-represented and un-heard.

provide a focus for researchers, people working
in medicine, patients, decision-makers and the
public to connect, share ideas, imagine and
create a better future.

•

•

•

•

be recognised as an asset for meaningful
change within our community and across the
wider region, helping people find ways to make
communities healthier and better places to live,
supporting economic growth and promoting
equity and access.

have established the museum as a centre of
excellence for research for the benefit of all.

be governed and managed in an open, inclusive
and equal way, representing and sharing
decision-making with our communities, across
the whole range of our operations.

be a commercially resilient and entrepreneurial
museum that delivers excellent value for its public
alongside real economic benefits for the region.

We’ll make you feel seen.

  Whoever you are, whatever brings you here, you’re welcome.

We put humanity first.

  We tell people’s stories with empathy and care.

We’ve got your back.

  We make ourselves useful to those who live, work and are cared for locally.

We’re gutsy.

  We’ll show you how boldly we think.

We are not the authority.

  We look outwards, listen and reflect.

We’ll keep challenging ourselves.

  When we need to change, we change.

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Mission, Vision + Promises  Page 11

The Opportunity

Help to shape our future …

Our next Chair will work alongside our Board and wider team to
continue to build a sound platform for the Thackray to allow us to
reach new heights and secure a healthy long-term future.

We know the vital power, impact and influence our
collections, story-telling and assets – our people,
programme and place – can have; our focus is to
embrace that and ensure our future resilience and
sustainability. To do this, we are supported and
overseen by a Board of Trustees that represent both
our community and business needs, both of which
we believe are paramount to our future success.
Medical, law and governance, finance, academic
and cultural expertise are all represented, supported
by an increasingly diverse set of lived experiences.

A recent £250,000 project, funded by long-term
supporters the National Lottery Heritage Fund,
has transformed organisational knowledge of our
audiences and of ourselves – alongside our core
digital infrastructure – and allowed us to reach for
more ambitious long-term goals. Our team have
never had access to more knowledge and experience,
nor had such passion to share our collections and
stories with the world.

However, we cannot hide from the fact that this time
of change has been against a backdrop of uncertainty
all around us. As we approach our 30th anniversary
in 2027, the museum – and our sector – has had to
embrace dynamism and agility in difficult economic,
environmental and societal circumstances.

Although our work and audiences have grown
exponentially in breadth and diversity, like many of
our peers our financial reserves have stayed depleted
despite strategic investments, diversified income
streams and tight financial controls. And in the face
of climate change and worsening weather conditions,
the external bricks and mortar of our Victorian home
are in need of some serious TLC.

Leeds is a city with a population that is becoming more ethnically diverse.
Across the city, 21% of the population identifies as being Asian, Black, Mixed/Multiple
or from other non-White ethnic groups.

In our council ward of Gipton & Harehills, 65% of the population is from non-White ethnic groups.

It is imperative that our Board better represents the make-up of the population around us,
and in this role at Thackray – where equity is a primary objective – we particularly welcome
applications from individuals from global majority backgrounds.

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The Opportunity  Page 13

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Page 15

The Role

Responsibilities

We are looking for a new Chair to lead our dedicated
and skilled Board of Trustees.

Standard term of office
3 years minimum, up to a maximum of 6.

Strategy & Governance

Fundraising

Whilst you will have experience of charity governance
and leadership, we are open as to what the Chair role
might look like and we realise that our next brilliant
chair may work differently to how our Board currently
operates.

Remuneration
This, like all our Trustee posts, is a voluntary position.
Out of pocket expenses incurred in the course of
duties may be claimed.

The Board of Trustees is the ultimate governance body
for Thackray Museum of Medicine, serving as stewards
of our resources, and is ultimately responsible for our
strategy, operations, adherence to law and regulation
and financial management.

Time Commitment
We expect this to vary depending on the working
situation of the candidate and how the Board
co-operatively might manage its commitments.
However, our minimum expectation is about one
day a month.

We are looking for an inspiring leader, who genuinely
understands and cares about Thackray Museum of
Medicine’s work, and can align with our positioning
(pages 6 & 7) and promises (page 11).

Your Location
Ideally Leeds, though nationwide considered;
a strong connection to Leeds is desirable.

Board Meetings
Four per annum (of which three can be hybrid,
though in-person is preferable).

Board Composition
1 Chair and 12 Trustees (though there is no maximum),
including 1 Young Trustee.

Sub-committees
The Chair is welcome to attend sub-committees but
is not necessarily expected to.

•  People, which has a focus on EDI, HR and

remuneration

•  Collections, research, programming and learning,
which has a focus on activity, research, outcomes
and discussion on alignment with Arts Council
England’s Let’s Create agenda.

•  Finance, risk and audit.

•  Trading Board, which oversees our wholly-owned

subsidiary of the Medical Museum Trading
Company Ltd, and for which there are two separate
non-exec, non-Trustee directors.

•  Ensure the Board operates effectively in the
consideration, iteration and approval of the
strategy proposed by the CEO in support of
Thackray Museum of Medicine’s mission and values.

•  Use personal and professional networks to

help the CEO and fundraising team with access
to potential donors and supporters.

•  Advice and assistance in raising and maintaining

•  Ensure, with Trustees, Thackray Museum of

the charity’s profile.

Medicine operates efficiently and effectively to
fulfil its objectives.

Financial

•  Ensure high standards of governance and risk

management.

•  Ensure the Board is as diverse as possible and
provides the range of knowledge, skills and
experience necessary to deliver the charity’s aims.

•  Ensure, with the Board and chair of Finance,
Risk and Audit in particular, sound financial
oversight including review and approval of
the annual budget.

•  Oversight of high standards of financial

management.

•  Ensure the organisation is accountable and

transparent in its activities. Ensure compliance with
relevant charitable and company legislation.

Lead Board Meetings

•  Lead on all aspects of meeting chairing

including encouraging discussion at Board
meetings, summarising key points and ensuring
decisions are made and implemented.

•  Oversight of the sub-committees of the board.

•  Ensure a high performing and effective board
by committing to regular reviews of board
performance (including managing Trustee
retirements, resignations).

Guidance and Support to the CEO

•  Line management of and work in partnership with
the CEO to support them in achieving the aims of
the charity.

•  Support and guidance on operations, including

personnel management.

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Role + Responsibilities  Page 17

How to apply

If you would like to apply, please send the following:

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Closing date for applications
11.59pm Tuesday 31 March 2026

First stage interviews (online)
w/c 13 April (tbc)

Second stage interviews (in person)
w/c 20 April (tbc)

Anticipated start of tenure
Tuesday 12 May 2026

•  An up to date CV.

•  A completed data capture form

(which Harris Hill can share with you).

•  A Supporting Statement (no more than 2x

A4 pages) outlining why you are interested in
becoming Chair of Thackray Museum of Medicine
and demonstrating relevant experience for the role.

Please submit your completed application to
Jenny Hills (jenny.hills@harrishill.co.uk) 11.59pm
on Tuesday 31 March.

Please state in your application if you have any
holiday commitments between 13 and 24 April
that may coincide with interview dates.

Please could you let us know if you will require
any special provision should you be called forward
for interview.

The CEO, current chair, and other Trustees
welcome opportunities to speak to suitable
interested candidates in advance.

The Thackray is actively committed to promoting
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.

We are a Disability Confident employer (registration
number DCS036392) and welcome applications from
all sections of the community.

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How to Apply  Page 19

141 Beckett Street
Harehills, Leeds LS9 7LN

thackraymuseum.co.uk

Registered charity in England
no 1016169