Richard Charkin has been appointed as the new Chair of Common Purpose Charitable Trust (CPCT). He will replace our previous Chair, tech entrepreneur Rob Wilmot, who has led Common Purpose through an exciting period of growth. Sadly, Rob has decided to step down as Chair of CPCT because of the many and increasing competing demands on his time. The Board of Common Purpose remains in his debt and unanimously appointed Richard Charkin as the new Chair. Richard has previously been Chair of CPCT and says he is honoured to be Chair for the second time! We are all delighted to welcome him back.

Richard Charkin is Executive Director at Bloomsbury Publishing with responsibility for USA, India, and special interest publishing.

He has held senior positions at Macmillan (CEO worldwide), part of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck (Director), Current Science Group (CEO), Reed Elsevier (CEO Reed International Books) and Oxford University Press (Managing Director Academic and General Divisions). He is a non-executive director of the Institute of Physics Publishing and Liverpool University Press, Council member and former President of the UK Publishers Association, former Director of the Federation of European Publishers; and Past President of the International Publishers Association in Geneva.

He is formerly Chair of the Trustees of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, Chairman of John Wisden, Chair of the Society of Bookmen, Chairman of xrefer.com, a director of the Centre for Creative Business at the London Business School, and non-executive director of Melbourne University Publishing. He is President of The Book Society. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Richard spoke about being appointed Chair: “I am honoured to be appointed Chair of Common Purpose Charitable Trust for the second time. It has been a great pleasure to have been on the Board of CPCT for over a decade, during which time I have seen it go from strength to strength. There has never been a more exciting time than now for Common Purpose, and never a time where its vision of helping develop leaders who can cross boundaries has been more apt”.

Rob, the outgoing Chair, spoke about stepping down: "I have immensely enjoyed the challenge of helping Common Purpose to get ready for its next phase of growth. However, the organization and team now deserve more time and attention than I can currently commit. I am, therefore, delighted that Richard has agreed to take on the role of Chairman again, and I will rest assured that the future of Common Purpose is in his safe hands".

Julia Middleton, Founder and CEO of Common Purpose Charitable Trust spoke about both Rob and Richard: “We have benefited immensely from Rob’s commercial acumen and business insight as we have grown over the past year. He has guided us through turning our approach to blended learning into a commercial proposition, as well as helping us to become more strategically and commercial focused. It has been an honour to work with him, and the rest of the Board under his leadership, and we are all in his debt. We are also excited to continue working with Richard Charkin, who we are sure will help us continue the global growth that we are currently enjoying”.