Our people
The team behind the Booker Prizes, including the trustees and advisory committee of Booker Prize Foundation
Gaby Wood is the 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.
Gaby Wood
© Clara MoldenFiammetta Rocco is the Administrator 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.
Fiammetta Rocco
Our team
The Booker Prizes’ small in-house team manages all aspects of the two annual prizes and ceremonies, as well as other events, special projects, partnerships, the website and all digital content, from social media to original video.
- Sarah Rogers, Director of Finance & Operations
- Hannah Davies, Director of Prize Management & Special Projects
- Paul Davies, Head of Editorial
- Donna Mackay-Smith, Deputy Head of Editorial
- Indira Birnie, Head of Digital Marketing
- Alice Ingall, Communications Manager
- Michael Windsor-Ungureanu, Senior Designer
- Zoe Sanders, Executive Assistant
- Jonathan Davenport, Executive Producer
- Jenn Phillips-Bacher, Digital Product Manager
- Emily Facoory, Digital Content Executive
- Daisey Cooke, Social Media Manager
- Sinead Sillars, Digital Consultant
Samantha Harvey, winner of the Booker Prize 2024
© David Parry for the Booker Prize Foundation
Our Advisory Committee
The Booker Prize Foundation Advisory Committee advises on any changes to the rules and on the selection of the judges, and represents all aspects of the book world.
Its members are:
- Bea Carvalho - Head of Books, Waterstones
- James Daunt – Managing Director of Waterstones
- Jonathan Douglas – Director of the National Literacy Trust
- Adam Freudenheim – Publisher, Pushkin Press
- Daniel Hahn – Writer & Translator
- Stephen James-Yeoman - Commissioning Exec, BBC Arts
- Lemara Lindsay-Prince – Literary Consultant, Founder of Studio Lemara
- Emma Paterson – Agent, Aitken Alexander Associates
- Fiammetta Rocco – Administrator, The International Booker Prize
- Michal Shavit – Publishing Director, Fern Press
- Fleur Sinclair – President of the 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 of Booker Group plc
The committee is chaired by Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation.
The Booker Prize 2024 shortlisted books, with Iris, the Booker Prize trophy
© David Parry for the Booker Prize FoundationOur funders
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.
Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman