Gaby Wood is Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation.

Prior to her appointment Gaby Wood was Head of Books at the Telegraph, and for 15 years she was an editor and staff feature writer at the Observer, reporting for the last seven of those years from New York.

She has written, and occasionally illustrated, for a number of other publications including the London Review of Books, US Vogue and the New York Times, to which she has also contributed photographs. From 2007-2008 she was a Fellow of the Cullman Center at the New York Public Library. Edison’s Eve, her book about the history of automata, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle award for non-fiction.

She has sat on judging panels for the Booker Prize, Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and Granta’s Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists, among others. She grew up bilingually in English and Spanish and holds a first-class degree in French. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Fiammetta Rocco is Emeritus Director of the International Booker Prize.

She is a writer and a critic. She grew up in Kenya in a Franco-Italian family and read Arabic at Oxford. She has been a judge of the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Booker Prize and the Royal Society Science Prize. In 2018 she chaired the judging panel for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. She is the author of The Miraculous Fever Tree: Malaria and the Cure that Changed the World. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

The Booker Prizes’ in-house team manages all aspects of the annual prizes and ceremonies, as well as other events, special projects, partnerships, the website and all digital content, from social media to original video.

• Rob Smith, COO
• Chloe Brand, Director of Development
• Hannah Davies, Director of Prizes
• Paul Davies, Director of Content
• Indira Birnie, Head of Digital Marketing
• Jonathan Davenport, Head of Video
• Alice Ingall, Communications Manager
• Lisa Macdonald, Children’s Prize Manager
• Lillie Razvi Toon, Prizes Manager
• Zoe Sanders, Executive Assistant
• Michael Windsor-Ungureanu, Senior Designer
• Donna Mackay-Smith, Deputy Head of Editorial
• Kyle Marsh, Digital Manager
• Grace Sansom, Digital Content Executive
• Daisey Cooke, Social Media Manager
• Jasmin Joannou, Digital Marketing Executive
• Joe Baumber, Administrative Assistant
• Maria-Mihaela Vasiutina, Finance and CRM Manager
• Emma Joliffe, Schools Engagement Manager

The Booker Prize Foundation’s Advisory Committee advises on any changes to the rules and the selection of judges, and represents all aspects of the book world.

Its members are:

• Bea Carvalho – Head of Books, Waterstones
• Hannah Chukwu - Publishing Director, Hachette UK
• James Daunt – Managing Director, Waterstones
• Jonathan Douglas – Director, National Literacy Trust
• Adam Freudenheim – Publisher, Pushkin Press
• Daniel Hahn – Writer and Translator
• Hazel Kenyon – Commercial Director, Nielsen BookData
• Lemara Lindsay-Prince – Literary Consultant, founder of Studio Lemara
• Ben O’Donnell – Reading and literary project consultant
• Emma Paterson – Agent, Aitken Alexander Associates
• Fiammetta Rocco – Emeritus Director, International Booker Prize
• Michal Shavit – Publishing Director, Fern Press
• Fleur Sinclair – President, Booksellers Association for the UK & Ireland; owner of Sevenoaks Bookshop
• Rebecca Stratford – Executive Producer BBC Radio
• Boyd Tonkin – former Literary Editor, The Independent
• Helen Williams – Legal Counsel, Booker Group plc
• Claire Wilson – Agent, RCW

The committee is chaired by Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation. 

Since 2019, the Booker Prize and the International Booker Prize have been funded by Crankstart, the charitable foundation of Sir Michael Moritz KBE and his wife, Harriet Heyman.

Crankstart was established by Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman in 2000 to support leaders and organisations that demonstrate know-how in areas of critical need, and have the ambition and grit required to tackle what often seems impossible.

It has organised or supported scholarship funds for students from low-income households at the University of Oxford, the University of Chicago, the Juilliard School and many California Community Colleges and schools. Recipients of some of Crankstart’s more significant recent gifts include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and initiatives for the homeless in the San Francisco Bay Area. Crankstart’s activities also include a wide range of grants for arts and journalistic organisations which depend on philanthropic support.

Michael Moritz is a British venture capitalist and author, born in Wales. He studied at the University of Oxford and was a journalist before moving into the world of technology investment. He has been a partner at Sequoia Capital since 1986. He was appointed KBE in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to promoting British economic interests and philanthropy.

Harriet Heyman is a former journalist with The New York Times, a novelist and a sculptor.

Read more about our funders here.