Black Country Living Museum

As the Black Country Living Museum looks to its 50th anniversary in 2028, the Board is looking to appoint a new Chair to succeed Dr Paul Belford who steps down in the spring of 2025 after a five-year tenure.

The Museum opened permanently in 1978 and is now one of the UK’s leading open-air museums, capturing and celebrating the achievements, legacy, lifestyle and culture of the region’s past and the extraordinary impact this had on the wider world. With its thriving village, canal, tram way, school, and public park, alongside the energy of an industrial landscape of mining, steam power, heavy metalwork and lime kilns, the Museum offers a visitor experience few other places can match.

With an annual visitor attendance of c385,000, a fantastic programme of events and the recent completion of a £30m development, this is an exciting, high-profile position, with the primary role to ensure the Board is effective in its task of setting and implementing the Museum’s direction and strategy. The Chair also acts as a lead ambassador for the Museum, maintaining and cultivating key stakeholders and assisting the Museum’s fundraising efforts.

The ideal candidate will be a collegiate, effective, confident and visible leader, with an outgoing public profile, alongside integrity and enthusiasm for the Museums’ purpose and philosophy, together with an ability to propel commercial independence and excellence.

Saxton Bampfylde Ltd is acting as an employment agency advisor to the Black Country Living Museum on this appointment. For further information about the role, including details about how to apply, please visit www.saxbam.com/appointments using reference JBUFA. Alternatively email Belinda.beck@saxbam.com. Applications should be received by noon on Monday 16^th June 2025.