Neil Mendoza, Baron Mendoza

Neil Francis Jeremy Mendoza was born on 2 November 1959 in London.[5] Mendoza was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, Elstree, before going up to read geography at Oriel College, Oxford, matriculating in 1978.[6] He was a founding member of the Piers Gaveston Society.[7]

After periods in banking and film finance Mendoza co-founded Forward Publishing[8] with William Sieghart in 1986. Forward pioneered the custom media business in the UK[9] and became one of the leading independent contract publishers. The company specialised in international and multilingual projects with corporate partners including IBM, Tesco and Patek Philippe & Co.[10] In 2001, Forward was sold to WPP plc.

Mendoza was appointed the UK Government's Commissioner for Cultural Recovery and Renewal in May 2020,[4] and, on 31 July 2020, he was elevated to the peerage,[11] taking his seat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords.

During 2020 he played a leading role in the creation of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport £2-billion Culture Recovery Fund and is a member of its Board.[12]

He chairs the Culture and Heritage Capital Board.[13] He co-chaired a report, Boundless Creativity, for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.[14]

In 2016 Mendoza was appointed as Commissioner of Historic England by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport,[15] before being appointed as a DCMS non-executive board member.[16]

In 2017 he published the Mendoza Review of Museums in England for the UK Government.[17] In the same year Mendoza was also the lead reviewer on the Strategic Review of DCMS-sponsored museums conducted under Cabinet Office guidelines.[18][19]

Lord Mendoza is currently Chairman of The Illuminated River Foundation. He is a non-executive director of Meira GTx, a gene therapy company with research facilities in New York and London.[20] He sits on the Board of Visitors for the Ashmolean Museum.[21]

In 2020, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Dublin.[22]

Previously, Chairman of The Prince's Foundation for Children and The Arts, Vice-Chair of Soho Theatre, on the board of the Almeida Theatre and the Shakespeare Schools Foundation, he also was an independent trustee of The Daily Mail charity, Mail Force.[23] Appointed to the panel of The Taylor Review: Sustainability of English Churches and Cathedrals, he was a judge of the Laurence Olivier Awards for theatre for 2010 and 2011.[24]

Mendoza then served as Chairman of the Landmark Trust, a UK historic building preservation charity, from 2011 to 2021.[25]

Mendoza was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to arts and culture.[26]

In July 2020, it was announced that Mendoza had been nominated for a life peerage by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.[27] On 16 September 2020, he was created a life peer with the title Baron Mendoza, of King's Reach in the City of London.[28] He sits in the House of Lords as a Conservative Party peer,[29] and made his maiden speech on 10 November 2020.[30]

Mendoza married Amelia Wallace in 1993. They have a son and a daughter.[5]