Samantha is appointed as a lay member of the Trade Mark Regulation Board and of the Patent Regulation Board. Samantha is a management practitioner with some twenty years’ experience of leading organisations which represent the interests of professionals, their clients and the wider public. Samantha is a passionate advocate for professional regulation. She was Chief Executive and Registrar of the General Optical Council, the UK’s regulator for optical professionals and businesses, from 2011 to 2017. She is currently a lay director at the British Acupuncture Council and the British Dietetics Association.

Samantha has an MBA from Cass Business School, where she received the Tallow Chandlers Award for her research on the subject of blind or excessive trust. This considered individual, organisational, and regulatory failure in high profile cases such as Harold Shipman and Nick Leeson (of Barings Bank). Samantha is currently in the final stage of her PhD at the University of Bath. Her thesis looks at the role that institutions can play in promoting or inhibiting professionals’ altruism towards their customers or clients. Samantha was born in the artistic seaside town of St Ives.

Outside of work, she has a lifelong love of the creative industries. She is passionate about independent music, an enthusiastic festival and concert goer, and a lover of open mic performance poetry.