Royal Air Force Museum

Maggie has been CEO of the RAF Museum since 2015 and is passionate about the difference museums can make to people’s lives.

Following a history degree from the University of Liverpool and a Masters in Heritage Management from Birmingham University, she has served museums and the wider cultural sector for over 30 years. Following her first role at the Royal Armouries, she pursued her career as a social history curator, museum director and then CEO at Stevenage and Luton.

For Maggie, museum collections have transformative power to support learning, skills development, and to bring communities together. ‘Museums are about communication… they are about sharing people stories; drawing on the past to understand our present and inform our future.’ She believes all museum content and programmes should be underpinned by current thinking and research, and that museums have a responsibility to challenge perceptions and encourage fresh thinking.

A past President of the UK’s Museums Association and previous Co-Chair of the Women Leaders in Museums Network, Maggie is currently a judge for the Museums+Heritage Awards.  She is also the National Museum Directors Council’s environmental lead.

Maggie received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Middlesex in 2019 and was appointed a Visiting Professor within the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy at King’s College London in 2024.

She was awarded an MBE for services to museums and heritage in 2012 and, in the same year, included in the Independent on Sunday’s ‘Happy List’, its annual celebration of 100 people who made Britain a better and happier place to live.