Royal Institution appoints Director of Fundraising and Communications to drive post-Covid growth
The Royal Institution has appointed Rich Storton as Director of Fundraising, Marketing and Communications.
Rich joins the Ri from The Zoological Society of London (ZSL), where he was most recently Managing Director of Zoos and Marketing, while prior to that he headed up the UK marketing team at Odeon Cinemas. Rich studied Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford.
In his new role, Rich will be responsible for building on recent progress in raising people’s awareness of the Ri and their involvement in its activities; continued fundraising success, which last year saw the highest-ever level of corporate support for the CHRISTMAS LECTURES; and further growth of the Ri’s digital engagement, including adding to the 1m+ subscribers to its popular YouTube Channel.
The new post replaces that of Director of Development at the Ri, and unifies the independent charity’s profile raising, fundraising and digital engagement activities under a single directorate.
Lucinda Hunt, Director of the Royal Institution, said: “This is a very important appointment for the Ri. It is central to our core objectives to involve as many people as possible in our activities and to maintain and grow our financial stability.
“Rich has demonstrated a strong combination of operational and strategic experience in both the commercial and the charitable sectors. He has a breadth of leadership skills, an expert understanding of audiences, and a track record of achieving social impact and financial objectives. I'm delighted that he will be joining us at the Ri."
Rich Storton said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has clearly shown just how central science is to our lives; and it follows that public engagement with scientific advances, such as those that are combining to free the world from Covid-19, is more important than ever.
“So, while the past 18 months have clearly been challenging, I am delighted to be joining the Ri at a time of new optimism, with an opportunity to return to the sustained growth in virtually every area of its engagement activities, that its teams were reporting before the pandemic hit.”
Rich has been appointed at the Ri as it opens its doors to the public for the first time since March 2020, with a return to live events in its world-famous theatre. At the same time, the Ri will continue to grow its reach through digital activities, including the popular livestream talks it developed during lockdown, while developing support for more schools in disadvantaged areas during the 2021/22 academic year than ever before.
Rich is due to take up his post at the Ri at the beginning of September.
ENDS
For more information please contact Robert Davies in the Ri press office:+44 (0)20 7670 2991 /rdavies@ri.ac.uk