Deborah Bull

Deborah Bull is Vice President & Vice-Principal (London), King's College London.

In this role, she leads on the development of the university’s external engagement profile within London, maximising the potential of King’s location in the heart of the city to create opportunities for the university and the communities around us and positioning King's as integral to London's health and success.

Working across all areas of King's, she has overall responsibility for strategic interactions with London’s institutions, agencies and organisations and specific responsibility for leading on the university’s collaborative activities and partnerships with the cultural sector. In this aspect of her role, over the last four years, she has helped to position King's as a world leader in cultural engagement, finding ways in which partnerships between the university and the cultural sector can enhance the student and academic experience while adding value across arts and culture. She provides leadership for the Culture teams at the Strand Campus and for Science Gallery London on the Guy's Campus.

Deborah Bull joined King's College London in 2012 following a long and successful career in the arts, first as performer and, more recently, as creative leader and cultural commentator. She danced with The Royal Ballet from 1981 until 2001, performing leading roles throughout the classical and contemporary repertoire.

In 2001, she joined the Royal Opera House Executive to devise and implement strategies for developing new art, new artists and new audiences, becoming Creative Director in 2008 and taking the lead on the organisation’s Olympic programming.

Over the last 20 years, her work for television and radio includes the award winning The Dancer's Body and Travels with my Tutu (BBC2) and, for BBC Radio 3 and 4, programmes on topics as diverse as dance, the law and ageing. She is the author of four books, with the most recent, The Everyday Dancer, published by Faber in 2011.

Following her appearance at the Oxford Union in 1996 and a subsequent invitation to deliver the Annual Arts Council Lecture the same year, she has written and spoken on the arts across a wide range of media and in 1998 she was awarded a CBE for her contribution to the arts. She has served on Arts Council England, as a Governor of the BBC, as a judge for the 2010 Booker Prize and is currently a member of the governing body of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Vice President, Cultural Development at the British Science Association.