Introduction to
We have long since extended our membership from drapers to people of all trades. And still central to the Company is the belief that being a strong and friendly community makes us better able to help others.
Member of the Drapers’ Company
The Drapers' Company
The Company is governed by a Court of Assistants, presided over by an annually elected Master. The Court consists of the Master, four Wardens and a number of Assistants. Rather like a board of directors, it determines the overall strategy of the Drapers’ Company and oversees the progress of our business and investments. The Court is also responsible for our grant-making strategy, ensuring best practice and compliance with Charity Commission guidance. The Court of Assistants is supported by a Court of Wardens and a number of committees covering investments, finance, charities and membership. All our committee members are volunteers drawn from among our 750 members. The Company’s Clerk, rather like a Chief Executive, leads a small senior management team and a staff of around 30.
We are proud of our ethos of service, fellowship, inclusivity and philanthropy, seeking to improve the quality of life and aspirations of people and communities, particularly those who are young, disadvantaged or socially excluded. With benevolence at its core, the Drapers’ Company does not, and will not, condone discrimination of any kind.
We are committed to taking issues of diversity and inclusion seriously; to ensuring that all applications for support are considered unconstrained by bias and prejudice; to act with integrity and ethically in all our dealings and relationships. We expect the same high standards from all our staff, members, suppliers and contractors.
The Drapers' Company
The Master and four Wardens are elected from the Court and serve for one year from August to July.
A new Assistant is elected to the Court each year from the Livery usually serving as Junior Warden in their first year. After serving on the Court for some years, an Assistant becomes eligible for election as Second Master Warden, Master Warden, and finally as Master of the Company.
Master
Philip has a family connection with the Drapers’ that goes back to the mid-18th century. He joined the Company in 1979 and was called to the Livery a half dozen years later.
Since 2019 Philip has served as chief executive of the AKO Foundation, the charitable foundation established by the Norwegian investment manager and philanthropist Nicolai Tangen (who now runs Norway’s sovereign wealth fund). He had previously held a similar position at the Linbury Trust, the grant-making charitable foundation established by the late Lord (John) Sainsbury of Preston Candover – the eldest of the 3 brothers who gave the Sainsbury Wing to the National Gallery – and his wife Anya, Lady Sainsbury. Earlier in his career Philip spent 20-something years in investment banking, which included two stints in the US, in Dallas and in New York.
Philip has a particular interest in music. Both his parents were professional musicians, and as a small boy he was a chorister in the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral. Some years later he judged that attempting to make a career as an opera singer was unlikely to work out well, so went into the City; however he continues to be active in amateur, mostly choral, singing, and is also frequently to be found at any one of several opera houses. In 2025 Philip founded a Drapers’ choir, which made its début at that year’s inaugural Company carol service.
Philip also serves as a trustee of a smaller grant-making trust, the Steel Charitable Trust, and sits on the advisory board of Greenwich Hospital.
Philip has twin daughters – Emily, a journalist, and Philippa, a theatre director and playwright – who will join the Company during Philip’s year as Master. His partner, Samira Ahmed, the well-known writer, broadcaster and journalist, presents Front Row on Radio 4, and Newswatch on BBC 1. Samira is also well known for her successful 2020 sex discrimination employment tribunal against the BBC.
Master Warden
Tim joined the Drapers’ Company in 1988 and was elected a member of the Court of Assistants in 2018, having first served as a governor of Bancroft’s School and then, for 8 years, as a member of the Company’s Charities Committee. After joining the Court he served on the Investments Committee and then, most recently as a trustee of the Drapers’ Multi-Academy Trust in Harold Hill, Havering: first as Chair of the Finance Risk and Audit Committee and then as the Board Chairman.
During a 27-year career in the Army, as a member of the Royal Anglian Regiment and then the Cheshire Regiment, Tim spent a considerable amount of time abroad. He lived in Germany on 3 separate occasions and completed operational tours of duty in Northern Ireland, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the Falkland Islands, Cyprus, Hong Kong and Bosnia. He commanded 1st Battalion The 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment from 1993 to 1996 and then Old College at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the following 2 years, He ended his uniformed service in the multi-national headquarters in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where he led a 65-strong contingent of staff officers, responsible for Land and Air operations. His final appointment was in the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, where he worked in Corporate Communications. He left the Army in 2002.
Tim’s second career was spent in Not-for-Profit organisations. He was the UK Director of Emmaus for 8 years: an International charity which helps to rehabilitate homeless and other socially excluded people living and working in communities underpinned by social enterprise. He joined the East Anglian Air Ambulance in 2011. During his tenure as CEO, the charity became the first in the UK to operate a day/night helicopter-borne emergency medical (HEMS) service. After 3 years as chief executive of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), an organisation with more than 192,000 members, Tim reverted back to the charitable sector as the interim Commercial Director of Action on Hearing Loss: formerly and now, once again, known as the RNID. He retired in 2020.
Married to Christine, a retired Primary School headteacher who then worked for Ely Diocese as Head of School Performance, Tim lives in rural Cambridgeshire. He was and still is, albeit as a spectator now, a keen sportsman. Like Tim, Chris is heavily involved in the local community, as a Parish Councillor and a member of a variety of different organisations. Two of their children are members of the Drapers’ Company, maintaining a family tradition that has continued unbroken for more than 200 years.
Second Master Warden
Andrew Ford became a Freeman of the Company in 2017 by Redemption, was called to the Livery in 2020 and was elected to the Court in 2023. He has served on the Charities Committee and is Chair of Governor of Bancroft’s School.
Since 2019 he has been Chairman of Trustees of The Hedley Foundation, a grant giving charity to UK registered charities that is focused on supporting disadvantaged people across the spectrum of social need. He is also an Extra Equerry to The King.
Prior to 2019 he was a Head of Department within the Royal Household responsible to the late Queen for the planning and delivery of all ceremonial activity and other high profile, public facing programmes involving Her Majesty and her family, which was a post he held from 2005. The highlight of his earlier military career was to command 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, which the Drapers’ Company closely supports.
He is married to Ros with two sons, both of whom are City-based corporate solicitors and themselves married with young children living in London. His interests are playing vicarage tennis, walking, participating in field-sports and messing about in the garden at home in Wiltshire
Renter Warden
Tom studied Chemistry at Oxford University before qualifying with Price Waterhouse as a Chartered Accountant. He was Finance Director for many companies including HMV Canada, Virgin Megastores UK, Body Shop UK and worldwide CFO for James Dyson. Having retired from corporate life in his late 40’s, Tom now works restoring derelict heritage buildings in Herefordshire.
Tom was a non executive director and then Chairman of the Corps of Commissionaires and also CFO of St Andrew’s Healthcare, a major mental health charity. He is now a Trustee for Historic Royal Palaces.
Following appointment to the Drapers’ Court in 2013, Tom was the founding Chair of Governors for Drapers’ Maylands Primary School and as Chair of the Hall and Major Works Committee has overseen the significant re-presentation of the Livery Hall in 2021. He was Master in 2023-24.
Tom is married to Alison and they have a 22 year old daughter Heather. His interests include all sports (particularly rugby, cricket and football), heritage buildings and garden landscaping. Tom is also a very minority shareholder in AFC Wimbledon football club.
Junior Warden
Josh became a Freeman of the Company in 1994, was called to the Livery in 1998 and was elected to the Court in 2022. He has served on the Charities Committee and the Investments Committee. He is also on the Board of Egmont Foundation in Denmark and has enjoyed roles in other community-related non-profit organisations.
Josh was most recently CEO of dunnhumby Ltd, the world-leading customer data science business. He has spent his career leading differentiation and growth in competitive, data-heavy and changing sectors. Josh lived in California as Global Head of Google’s multi billion display advertising business after the YouTube acquisition and then spent seven years as head of Digital and Data for HSBC, including the development and roll-out of mobile banking to over 30 markets. Immediately before joining dunnhumby he was an operating partner at CVC (private equity).
Josh spent his early career at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey & Co. He has an MBA with distinction from INSEAD and a degree in economics from Cambridge University.
He is married to Marianne Costigan and they have a daughter and two sons, each forging their own career. Josh enjoys sailing, being outside, and catching up with friends and family, some of whom are members of the Company.
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