Sarah Weir OBE

Sarah Weir is Chief Executive at Design Council - the leading authority on Design in the UK. Before her appointment, Sarah was interim Executive Producer at the Roundhouse, home of the Rothschild collections. Weir’s career has spanned the public, private and third sectors. Starting her career as a broker at Lloyd’s of London, she went from office junior to Managing Director at Aldgate Group Brokers; making her the first female MD in Lloyd’s. Leaving the city behind, in 1997 Weir joined the Royal Academy of Arts as Fundraising Director, where she was responsible for raising £8m a year for four years. She then joined the Almeida Theatre as Executive Director, where she oversaw its major refurbishment and re-opening. During 2003-07, she was Executive Director at Arts Council England. Weir was responsible for overseeing delivery of all public funding of arts in London, and led on several innovative, long-term strategic initiatives. It was here that she was first involved in the London 2012 Olympics. From 2008 until the start of the 2012 Games, Weir was Head of Arts and Cultural Strategy at the Olympic Delivery Authority, developing and overseeing the delivery of the permanent, integrated Art in the Park programme. In 2011, Weir was awarded an OBE for services to the arts and was made Director of Arts and Culture at the London Legacy Development Corporation. She continued to oversee the continuation of artistic interventions in the Olympic Park and, in tandem, created and led the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park charity, The Legacy List, which commissioned and supported arts, culture, education and skills programmes creatively connecting people to the Olympic Park, and the Park to its surroundings. Now called Foundation for Future London, it is responsible for the development of Olympicopolis, the arts and cultural quarter in east London.