The Gate Theatre is excited to announce the appointment of Baroness Shami Chakrabarti as the new Chair of the Board.

Joining the team at this exciting time in the Gate’s long history is Labour Party politician, barrister and human rights activist, Shami Chakrabarti, who will join as Chair of the Board later in the summer. She served as the Director of Liberty (the National Council for Civil Liberties) from 2003 to 2016 and as Shadow Attorney General from 2016 – 2020.

Shami Chakrabarti, incoming Chair of the Board, said:

I am honoured to be joining the Gate as its chair at this pivotal moment. Its values of internationalism, diversity and community are the essence of great theatre and what it brings to our lives in challenging times.

BIOGRAPHY

Shami Chakrabarti (Baroness Chakrabarti CBE PC) is a human rights lawyer and campaigner, Labour Peer and was Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales from September 2016 to April 2020. She was the Director of Liberty (the National Council for Civil Liberties), from 2003 to 2016 and its In House Counsel from 2001 to 2003. Prior to that she was at the bar and then a Home Office lawyer (1996-2001). She was a panellist on the Leveson Inquiry into media culture, ethics and practice after the phone-hacking scandal in 2011/12 and one of an international group who carried the Olympic flag at the opening of the London games in 2012. She was the Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University and the University of Essex and has been an Honorary Professor at the Universities of Bristol and Manchester and the London School of Economics. She served on the Board of the British Film Institute (BFI) for many years and on the Members Council of the Tate. She is a Master of the Bench of Middle Temple. She has written and broadcast widely and is the author of two books, On Liberty (2014) and Of Women (2017). Both are published by Penguin, Allen Lane.

An exclusive blog with Shami Chakrabarti will be released early next week.

Photos: Jo Metson Scott