TRUSTEES OF THE STATIONERS' FOUNDATION
Composition of the Board of Trustees
- The number of Trustees is limited to seven
- Trustees must be appointed by the Court of the Stationers’ Company
- Trustees will serve for a term of three years and may serve more than one term, provided that their re-appointment is approved by the Court
- Trustees should undertake a regular audit of the skills and experience available amongst their number and identify any obvious gaps in the skills necessary to undertake their duties
- When a vacancy for a Trustee is imminent, the Chairman will contact the Clerk of the Company indicating, if appropriate, the ideal set of skills and experience that the new Trustee should have. The Clerk will add the vacancy to the annual call for volunteers to serve on Company committees, setting out the ideal set of skills and experience required, and will also advertise the vacancy to Liverymen in the Company
- Once the names of candidates are known, the Clerk will share them with the Chairman for him/her to discuss with the other Trustees, and their views, if any, will be passed to the Court via the Clerk for a final decision by the Court on whom should be appointed
- Normally candidates for Trustees will be Liverymen of the Company
- Trustees must, and will always, act in the best interest of the charity and its objects, irrespective of the interests of any other organisations and of the Company in particular and of any personal interests. Trustees must declare their personal interests annually in writing and before the discussion of any matter in which they have, or may have, a personal interest
- New Trustees will receive an induction consisting amongst other things of a meeting with the Chairman, a history of the charity, a copy of the charity’s scheme, a copy of the latest financial statements, copies of the last year’s minutes and copies of Charity Commission guidance material
Nicholas Brealey was appointed Chairman of the Stationers’ Foundation in July 2023. He was previously Vice-Chair and the Trustee responsible for the Foundation’s Postgraduate Bursary Scheme, after joining the Livery in 2017. Alongside the elected and co-opted Trustees, he is committed to widening access to the Foundation’s educational ‘Staircase of Opportunity’, encouraging its alumni and extending external relationships.
Nicholas Brealey was educated in London and at Cambridge. He joined Macmillan as a Graduate Trainee, visiting every University and Polytechnic as a Field Editor across almost every subject, before becoming a Commissioning Editor there and then at Allen & Unwin, including its American side.
He moved from academic to ‘trade’ publishing and started the non-fiction imprint Counterpoint, and then became a founding Editorial Director of the US publisher Simon & Schuster's first London office. Four years later, he switched both careers and jobs again to head up the Video and Publishing division of the Industrial Society, a Royal charity that was then Europe’s largest training organisation.
In 1992, he founded his own publishing company Nicholas Brealey Publishing, an independent press in Clerkenwell which went ‘global’ with award-winning books in diverse non-fiction areas. It increased its American foothold when it acquired US publishers in adjacent niches, opening its offices in Boston in 2004. After 25 years he sold the NB Group to Hodder/Hachette and he is now a Director of Duckworth Books.
He is a past Chairman of the Independent Publishers Guild (the IPG, 2000-2).