Marie Stopes International appoints new Chair

Marie Stopes International announces the appointment of Suzanna Taverne as Chair of its Board of Trustees.

Suzanna was appointed after a rigorous selection process and brings a wealth of experience from across a range of sectors, both commercial and not-for-profit.

She has worked as Finance Director at The Independent, Director of Strategy at Pearson and Managing Director at The British Museum, where she was responsible for delivering the £100m Great Court transformation project. Suzanna has also held Board roles at a number of charities, including Age UK, The Design Museum, and the single parents charity, Gingerbread, where she was Chair. She recently stepped down as a Trustee of the BBC.  

Commenting on her appointment, Suzanna Taverne said: 

“I am hugely excited to be working with an organisation that is so profoundly committed to providing the contraception and safe abortion services that help women and girls to take control of their futures and lead the lives that they want.

"Marie Stopes International’s mission – to help women and girls to have children by choice, not chance – is more important now than ever and I am confident the organisation will continue to push boundaries to get high quality, affordable services to every woman who wants them.”

Suzanna joins Marie Stopes International as our 12,000 team members around the world continue to serve millions of women every year in 37 countries. In spite of a significant funding cut resulting from the US Government’s reinstatement of the ‘Global Gag Rule’, we remain on track to meet the goals set out in our strategic plan, Scaling-Up Excellence, and significantly increase our impact by 2020.

Our work prevents more than 7.5 million unintended pregnancies and 4.5 million unsafe abortions every year, and currently there are more than 25 million women around the world using a method of contraception provided by Marie Stopes International.