Neil Mendoza
Quick Facts
Biography
Neil Mendoza (born 1959) is a British entrepreneur, publisher and philanthropist.
Education
Mendoza was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's and Oriel College, Oxford.
Career
In 1986 he and William Sieghart founded Forward Publishing, a company which pioneered the Custom media business in the UK. Forward became one of the leading independent contract publishers; it published magazines, children’s books and poetry books and specialised in international and multilingual publishing with corporate partners including IBM, Tesco and Patek Philippe & Co. Forward was sold to WPP plc in 2001.
Mendoza has been involved in banking, film finance and theatre. He put together an investor group which bought Hammer Film Productions in 2000. Hammer was sold to a consortium led by John de Mol in 2007.
He is Chairman of Victoria Private Investment Office, a wealth management company.
In 2010 Mendoza bought into the Pencil Agency run by Jenny Dyson of Rubbish (magazine).
Other roles
In November 2011 Mendoza was appointed Chairman of the Landmark Trust, the leading UK historic building preservation charity.
In 2013 he was appointed Chairman of the The Prince's Foundation for Children and The Arts by HRH The Prince of Wales.
Mendoza was on the board of the Almeida Theatre; he has been on the board of the Soho Theatre since 2007. He is a trustee of the Shakespeare Schools Festival and was a judge of the Laurence Olivier Awards for theatre for 2010 and 2011.
Mendoza was an active campaigner to keep the UK from adopting the Euro. He was on the steering committee of the No Campaign and New Europe.
In January 2016 Mendoza was appointed as a Commissioner of Historic England by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
Mendoza is also a non-executive board member at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.