Duncan Wilson OBE

Chairman of Finance & Audit Committee

Duncan Wilson was appointed a Trustee in April 2008. He is the Chief Executive of the Greenwich Foundation, the charity responsible for running the estate of the Old Royal Naval College and opening the Painted Hall, Chapel, Visitor Centre and grounds to the public.

 

As well as being responsible for the maintenance of one of Europe's finest and most extensive groups of Baroque buildings, the Foundation manages a programme of major open air public events, Chapel concerts and Painted Hall dinners. In March 2010 the Foundation opened to the public its new state of the art interpretation and education centre for the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, “Discover Greenwich”. The centre incorporates a working commercial Micro-brewery, on the site of the historic Royal Hospital brewery of the 1830’s.

Duncan came to Greenwich in 2002 from the Somerset House Trust, where he led the project to restore the public spaces and open the site to the public from 1997.Successes included the Courtyard, fountains and ice rink, the Admiralty restaurant and the Terrace café and sculpture exhibitions.

Before that he was at DCMS as head of Libraries Division for three years, and before that at Treasury, where he worked on the defence and industry desks.

He is a chartered accountant and his first post-qualification job was as Financial Controller of English Heritage. However, before accountancy he worked as a professional archaeologist, and has a post-graduate degree in European Archaeology from Oxford University.

He was awarded the OBE for services to heritage in 2007.