Helen Whitehouse OBE is Chief Operating Officer of the Natural History Museum, joining in 2023 after six years as Deputy Director for Museums and Cultural Property at DCMS. Prior to that she spent a decade in the Ministry of Justice working on areas such as judicial policy, legal aid, sentencing and rehabilitation. She is a trustee of Southwark Playhouse and a trustee of 3 Pillars Project, which runs sport-based mentoring programmes in the Midlands and the South for young men in the criminal justice system. Helen is passionate about the museums sector and has a particular love of YSP and the wider Yorkshire cultural scene. London born and raised, she also has family roots in Liverpool.