Dame Amelia : health research

Dame Amelia and healthcare research

Dame Amelia is a governor of the Wellcome Trust Board since 2019 and also chairs the Audit & Risk and Remuneration Committees there. 

The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Sir Henry Wellcome to fund research to improve human and animal health.  The aim of the Trust is to "support science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone", with a financial endowment of more than £36 billion in 2021 and is funding leading research in healthcare. It spent £1.2 billion on charitable activities to improve health through science in 2020/21 and plans to spend £16 billion over the next ten years.  Amelia will talk to us about some of the emerging areas that the Wellcome Trust is focusing on.

Dame Amelia is Lead Director of State Street Corporation in Boston, Massachusetts.   She was a Non-Executive Director and then Chairman of Kinnevik AB in Stockholm from 2011 – 2021 and of the Guardian Media Group plc from 2007 – 2013.  She  worked for Morgan Stanley for 20 years, joining in London in 1987 and becoming Chief Operating Officer and Vice Chairman of the European, Middle East and Africa operations in 2002. Dame Amelia started her career at the US law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, first in New York and then in Paris.

Dame Amelia is the Chairman of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, a Governor of the Wellcome Trust and a Trustee of Project HOPE UK. Until recently, she was Chairman of the Standards Board for Alternative Investments, a Non-Executive member of the Board of HM Treasury, Chairman of The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation, Deputy Chairman and a Governor of the London Business School and a Commissioner of the UK-US Fulbright Commission.  She also has been a member of the Court of the Bank of England and Deputy Chairman of the National Portrait Gallery. 

Dame Amelia was appointed a Commander of The Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in the Queen’s 2018 Birthday Honours List, an honour solely in the gift of the Queen. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2010 Queen’s Birthday Honours List and a CBE in 2002, in both cases for services to the financial services industry. She received The Prince of Wales’s Ambassador Award in 2004. 

Dame Amelia, a British and American citizen, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA in 1956. She has a degree in History from Wellesley (1978) and a law degree from the University of Virginia (1983).  She was admitted to the New York Bar in 1984.

Dame Amelia is a keen fly fisherman, hiker, sailor and lavender farmer in the foothills of the Brecon Beacons in Wales.  She is a member of the Somerset Club (Boston), the Manchester Yacht Club (USA), Oswalds (London) and the Reform Club (London).