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Mark Jones

Director, Victoria and Albert Museum

Chairman, National Museum Directors' Conference

Mark Jones became Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in May 2001. Before this he was Director of the National Museums of Scotland, from 1992, and for the previous eighteen years he was at the British Museum in the Department of Coins and Medals. He is an expert on the history of medallic art and, when at the British Museum, organised the exhibition FAKE? The Art of Deception, which attracted critical acclaim for its combination of 'broad popular appeal with the grandest kind of scholarship'.

In Scotland, he won a reputation as one of Britain’s most talented museum directors following the opening of the award-winning new Museum of Scotland in 1998. Both the striking building by Benson & Forsyth (Stirling Prize runner up 1999) and the displays were well received (the latter winning 22 awards).

He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford, and gained an MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art. His other previous positions include six months at the National Museum, Singapore in 1969.

Mark became Chair of the National Museum Directors’ Conference in December 2006. He is also a trustee of the National Trust, the Gilbert Collection and The Pilgrim Trust; is a member of the Court and Council of the Royal College of Art; Vice President of the British Art Medal Society and the Kensington & Chelsea Decorative & Fine Arts Society; and a patron of the Embroiderer’s Guild.