Top civil servant appointed as director-general of National Trust
Helen Ghosh joins from the Home Office
The National Trust has appointed Helen Ghosh as its next director-general.
Ghosh will leave her current role as permanent secretary to the Home Office in September after a 33-year career in the civil service. She held the post of permanent secretary to Defra between 2005 and 2010, and has also worked in the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs and the Government Office for London.
Simon Jenkins, chairman of the National Trust, said: “Helen is a distinguished and energetic public servant. We are convinced she is ideal to lead the organisation through what is proving a challenging time. We all look forward to working with her."
Ghosh said she felt "very torn" about leaving the Home Office but added that the work of the National Trust was something very close to her heart.
"I have been an admirer of the trust and its work all my life, and I am thrilled that I have been given the chance to be part of its future,” she said.
Ghosh takes over from Fiona Reynolds, who is leaving the National Trust after nearly 12 years at its helm to become the first female Master of Emmanuel College in Cambridge.
Reynolds, who takes up her new duties in September 2013, plans to write a book about her experiences at the charity.
Under her leadership, membership of the National Trust rose from 2.7 million in 2001 to four million last year. Visitor numbers increased to 19 million from 10 million a decade earlier, while the number of volunteers doubled to 62,000.
Property acquisitions have included the Victorian gothic Tyntesfield and its estate near Bristol; Vanbrugh’s Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland; the back-to-back terrace houses in Birmingham; John Lennon’s boyhood home in Liverpool; and the home of Kenyan-born poet Khadambi Asalache in Wandsworth, London.
Ghosh will leave her current role as permanent secretary to the Home Office in September after a 33-year career in the civil service. She held the post of permanent secretary to Defra between 2005 and 2010, and has also worked in the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs and the Government Office for London.
Simon Jenkins, chairman of the National Trust, said: “Helen is a distinguished and energetic public servant. We are convinced she is ideal to lead the organisation through what is proving a challenging time. We all look forward to working with her."
Ghosh said she felt "very torn" about leaving the Home Office but added that the work of the National Trust was something very close to her heart.
"I have been an admirer of the trust and its work all my life, and I am thrilled that I have been given the chance to be part of its future,” she said.
Ghosh takes over from Fiona Reynolds, who is leaving the National Trust after nearly 12 years at its helm to become the first female Master of Emmanuel College in Cambridge.
Reynolds, who takes up her new duties in September 2013, plans to write a book about her experiences at the charity.
Under her leadership, membership of the National Trust rose from 2.7 million in 2001 to four million last year. Visitor numbers increased to 19 million from 10 million a decade earlier, while the number of volunteers doubled to 62,000.
Property acquisitions have included the Victorian gothic Tyntesfield and its estate near Bristol; Vanbrugh’s Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland; the back-to-back terrace houses in Birmingham; John Lennon’s boyhood home in Liverpool; and the home of Kenyan-born poet Khadambi Asalache in Wandsworth, London.