Mike Houlihan
Board Chairman

My day job is as Director General of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales – a family of seven museums telling the story of the people, environment and creative spirit which gives Wales its special identity.

So why am I involved with the Collections Trust? Probably, for the same reasons that I love museums: stuff, curiosity and people – the energy of real things to tell stories, to capture emotion, to remember, to transform personality and to speak the hidden language of the inner mind and eye. Museums are the arenas of the imagination where these possibilities become infinite. Here, the Collections Trust is both magician and impresario, unlocking the power of objects and orchestrating our knowledge about them.

As Chairman my role is to ensure good governance, accountability and an unswerving focus on collections. Apart from that my only other job is to let Nick and his highly professional team get on with their jobs.

Away from museums my interest lies in the experience of the British soldier on the Western Front during the First World War.