Neil MacGregor is a British cultural historian, broadcaster and writer. He was editor of the Burlington Magazine (1981 – 1987), then Director of the National Gallery in London (1987 – 2002), Director of the British Museum (2003 – 2015), and founding director of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin (2015 – 2018).  He was the chair of the jury for the Booker Prize in 2022.

In 2010, he was appointed to the Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth II, and in 2013, he was appointed an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). Along with that, Neil has also won the International Folkwang-Prize, Friedrich-Gundolf-Preis from the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, and the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize from the British Academy. Neil held the Chaire du Louvre at the Musée du Louvre in Paris (2021), giving a series of public lectures about museums and their constantly changing relation to history and society. He has written several influential books including the seminal A History of the World in 100 Objects, Shakespeare’s Restless World, and Germany: Memories of a Nation.