Asians named as museum trustees

TWO ASIANS have been appointed to the Natural History Museum’s board of trustees, it was announced last week.

Harris Bokhari OBE is the first British-born Muslim trustee of a major British museum, where he will be joined by academic Yadvinder Malhi.

Bokhari is also a board member of the Princes’ Trust Mosaic Initiative and founder of the charities Patchwork Foundation and the Naz Legacy Foundation. He expressed his delight at the announcemen, but stressed the need for more diversity in appointments across museum boards.

“These institutions play such an important role in helping our society connect with their heritage,” Bokhari said. “Having governance teams who reflect the realities of contemporary, diverse Britain will be an important step towards achieving that.”

Malhi, 52, is a professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford; a Jackson senior research fellow in biodiversity and conservation at Oriel College, Oxford; and the director of the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests and the Oxford University Biodiversity Network. He will take on the unpaid advisory role for four years until May 2024.

“I have been enthralled by the Natural History Museum since my first visits as a child, and I am delighted to be now joining it as a trustee,” he said.

Of the 98 trustees in the top six museums in the UK, only 10 are from a BAME background. They includes Bokhari, Minouche Shafik (British Museum) and Farooq Chaudhry OBE (Tate).