Stephen Bayley

Stephen Bayley Hon FRIBA, Chairman of The Royal Fine Art Commission Trust, is the person for whom the term “design guru” was coined. This he accepted with self-deprecating irony. He was plucked by Terence Conran from the tedium of provincial academe to create The Boilerhouse Project in the V&A, an exhibition space devoted to design which became London’s most successful gallery of the eighties. Then, the two of them created London’s influential Design Museum. He was – briefly and hilariously – Creative Director of The Millennium Dome before a spectacular falling-out with the Government which he wrote about in his book Labour Camp (1998).

Over the past forty years his writing has changed the popular perception of “design”. His many books include Sex, Drink and Fast Cars (1986), Taste (1991), Design: intelligence made visible (2007), Cars (2008), Ugly: the aesthetics of everything (2012) and Value – what money can’t buy (2021). He has been art critic of The Listener, architecture critic of The Observer and design critic of The Spectator, as well as a columnist on The Independent and The Times. He is a Honorary Visiting Professor at Liverpool University School of Architecture.

Paul Finch

Paul Finch OBE HonFRIBA is programme director of the World Architecture Festival, deputy chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust and the Design Council and former editor of the Architectural Review and Architects’ Journal. He chaired the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment 2009-2011, having been a commissioner and deputy chairman 1999-2005, and also chaired Cabe’s Olympic Design Review panel from 2006-2012. He was deputy chairman of the Design Council from 2011 to 2014. He was awarded an OBE for services to architecture in 2002.

Dame Anya Hindmarch

Dame Anya Hindmarch is a British accessories designer, design and arts advocate and sustainability campaigner. She founded the brand that bears her name in London in 1987 and is currently working as its Creative Director and Chief Executive Officer. In 2024, she received a damehood in recognition of her contribution to the British fashion industry. Dame Anya is emeritus trustee of the Royal Academy of Arts and the Design Museum and a trustee of The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. She has also received several notable industry awards, including a British Fashion Award, and in 2021 published her first book, If In Doubt, Wash Your Hair.

Gerry McGovern

Professor GerryMcGovern OBE is Chief Creative Officer at  Jaguar Land Rover, responsible for all aspects of visual communications and developing the current portfolio of JLR vehicles. After completing a degree in industrial design at Coventry University, he studied for a Masters at the Royal College of Art, specialising in automotive design. He began his career at Chrysler in the UK, followed by a stint in Detroit, before returning to the UK as a Senior Designer for Peugeot and later joining the Rover Group. McGovern then moved to the Ford Motor Company to rejuvenate the Lincoln‑Mercury brands before rejoining Land Rover in 2004 as Director of Advanced Design. In 2014 he was appointed a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art.

Mike Stiff

Mike Stiff founded Stiff + Trevillion Architects in the early 1980s, later running the studio’s Berlin office. He has overview of design across the studio and works primarily on central London commercial projects, including Pavilion Road off Sloane Square for the Cadogan Estate and the comprehensive retrofit of the Arding & Hobbs building in Clapham Junction. Over the years he has taught at Westminster, Brighton and Sheffield Universities. He is a member of the Hounslow and Westminster Design Review panels and chairman of Octavia Housing’s New Homes Quality panel.