Sir Nicholas David Coleridge (born 4 March 1957) is a British former media executive, author, and cultural chair. He is chairman of the Victoria and Albert Museum, chairman of the Prince of Wales' Campaign for Wool, chairman of the Gilbert Trust for the Arts and was co-chair of The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Pageant. He is an ambassador for the Landmark Trust and a patron of the Elephant Family. From 1989 to 2019, he was successively editorial director of Condé Nast Britain, managing director, Condé Nast Britain (1991–2017), vice president, Condé Nast International and president, Condé Nast International, the division of Condé Nast which publishes 139 magazines in 27 international markets, and over 100 websites, with annual revenues of approx $1 billion. Condé Nast publishes numerous titles including Vogue, Vanity Fair, House & Garden, Tatler, The World of Interiors, Condé Nast Traveller, The New Yorker, Architectural Digest, Glamour, GQ, Brides, Wired, Love and GQ Style, as well as owning the Johansens hotel guides and the Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design. From 2017 to 2019, he was chairman of Condé Nast Britain. He has been chairman of the Victoria and Albert Museum since 2015, having been a trustee from 2012 to 2015. He has been chairman of the Campaign for Wool since 2013 (deputy chair 2008–2013). He was appointed co-chair of The Queen's

Platinum Jubilee Pageant The Platinum Jubilee Pageant was held on Sunday, 5 June 2022 near Buckingham Palace, as part of Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee celebrations. Conceived and directed by David Zolkwer with Pageant Master, Adrian Evans, it featured over 10,0 ...

in February 2021. Coleridge was appointed a

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are the ...

in the

2022 Birthday Honours The 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as par ...

for services to museums, publishing and the creative industries.

Life and career

Coleridge was born in London, the son of David Coleridge, who was chairman of

Lloyd's of London Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body gov ...

in the late 1980s and descended from a brother of poet

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...

. He is the eldest of three brothers, and educated at Ashdown House,

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

, where he studied theology and history of art; however, due to a back injury sustained in Iran, he was not able to sit his finals. As an Eton schoolboy, he won the

Jeremy Thorpe John Jeremy Thorpe (29 April 1929 – 4 December 2014) was a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament for North Devon from 1959 to 1979, and as leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 to 1976. In May 1979 he was tried at th ...

Cup for debating with his school friend Craig Brown, though the trophy was later renamed when Thorpe's reputation fell under a shadow. He has written fourteen books, both fiction and non-fiction, based largely upon either his professional life (
The Fashion Conspiracy
',
Paper Tigers
',
With Friends Like These
') or episodic novels (
A Much Married Man
',
Godchildren
',
Deadly Sins
',
The Adventuress
'). ''The Fashion Conspiracy'' was the Number One bestseller, hardback non-fiction (The Times, 4 March 1988). His autobiography, titled ''The Glossy Years : Magazines, Museums and Selective Memoirs'' published September 2019 by Penguin Fig Tree, was #No 1 in Art Books, #No 1 in Fashion Books, #No 1 in Showbiz Biography. It was described by The Sunday Times as "the most entertaining book of the year". He has been chairman of the PPA – the Professional Publishers' Association – and two-term chairman of the

British Fashion Council The British Fashion Council (BFC) is a non-profit organization that aims to enable sustainable growth of British fashion in the global fashion economy. Founded in 1983, the BFC organizes biannual womenswear and menswear showcases, London Fashi ...

for four years, overseeing London Fashion Week. He was founding chairman of

Fashion Rocks Fashion Rocks is an annual international charity fundraiser event, which features fashions by the world's top designers presented as live performances by popular music acts. Fashion Rocks Worldwide is the owner of the intellectual property rights ...

, the fashion and rock music extravaganza showcasing the world's eighteen top fashion designers including Dior, Chanel, Prada and Ralph Lauren paired with eighteen top rock stars including Beyoncé, Robbie Williams, Bryan Ferry and David Bowie. It raised more than £3 million for the

Prince's Trust The Prince's Trust ( cy, Ymddiriedolaeth y Tywysog) is a charity in the United Kingdom founded in 1976 by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) to help vulnerable young people get their lives on track. It supports 11-to-30-year-olds who are u ...

charity. He was on the advisory board for the

Concert for Diana Concert for Diana was a benefit concert held at the newly built Wembley Stadium in London, United Kingdom in honour of Diana, Princess of Wales, on 1 July 2007, which would have been her 46th birthday. 31 August that year brought the 10th ann ...

, Wembley Stadium 2007. He has been a member of the Council of the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

, and a member of the trading board of the

. He was a director of PressBof, the parent organisation of the

Press Complaints Commission The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC closed on Monday 8 September 2014, and was replaced by the Indep ...

, 2007–2014. While on assignment making a television documentary about Tamil terrorism in Sri Lanka in 1984, he was arrested and jailed for ten days in Welikada prison, Colombo, where he embarked upon writing a collection of short stories,
''How I Met My Wife
As a journalist, he has been an irregular contributor to ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'', ''

Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...

'', ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'' and the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

''. In 1976, between school and university, he was a cub reporter on the Falmouth Packet newspaper in Cornwall. From 1979 to 1982 he was associate editor of the ''

Tatler ''Tatler'' is a British magazine published by Condé Nast Publications focusing on fashion and lifestyle, as well as coverage of high society and politics. It is targeted towards the British upper-middle class and upper class, and those interes ...

'', working for then editor

Tina Brown Christina Hambley Brown, Lady Evans (born 21 November 1953), is an English journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host, and author of '' The Diana Chronicles'' (2007) a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, '' The Vanity Fair Diari ...

; from 1982 to 1985 he was a columnist at the ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

''; 1986–1989 he was editor-in-chief of ''

Harpers & Queen ''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the st ...

'' magazine, a Hearst title, before joining Condé Nast. In 2002, as chairman of the British Fashion Council, he suggested that the then Sunday Times fashion editor, Colin McDowell, was habitually too negative about British fashion designers. This drew criticism from McDowell, who accused Coleridge of

jingoism Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national inte ...

. He was described by ''

Campaign Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed *Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme * Bl ...

'' magazine in 2012 as “''magazines' most compelling advocate for almost two decades''”.

Personal life

He is married to the healer and author Georgia Metcalfe and has four children, Alexander, Freddie, Sophie and Tommy. They live in

Chelsea, London Chelsea is an affluent area in west London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 miles. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the south-western postal area. Chelsea histori ...

, and in

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

. The December 2007 issue of Condé Nast's ''World of Interiors'' magazine contains a feature on his country house, the 1709 Wolverton Hall in Worcestershire. In 2019, he commissioned a garden

folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

, a 46-foot writing tower, in a Tudor-Georgian-Jacobean style, by the architect

Quinlan Terry John Quinlan Terry Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 24 July 1937) is a British architect. He was educated at Bryanston School and the Architectural Association School of Architecture. He was a pupil of architect Raymond Erith, with whom ...

. The folly won a first prize at the 2021 Georgian Group Architectural Awards, and the Craftsmanship Prize at the 2021 British Brick Awards. He has seven godchildren, and his novel ''Godchildren'' was dedicated to them. Two of the godchildren,

Cara Delevingne Cara Jocelyn Delevingne ( ; born 12 August 1992) is an English model and actress. She signed with Storm Management after leaving school in 2009. Delevingne won Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards in 2012 and 2014. Delevingne sta ...

and Edie Campbell, are now well-known British models. Another of his godchildren, journalist Ned Donovan, married

Princess Raiyah bint Al Hussein Princess Raiyah bint Hussein ( ar, راية بنت الحسين; born 9 February 1986) is the younger daughter of King Hussein of Jordan and Queen Noor. She has two brothers, Hamzah and Hashem, as well as an elder sister, Princess Iman. She is ...

of Jordan.

Honours and awards

He was the 1982

British Press Awards The Press Awards, formerly the British Press Awards, is an annual ceremony that celebrates the best of British journalism. History Established in 1962 by ''The People'' and '' World's Press News'', the first award ceremony for the then-named '' ...

Young Journalist of the Year, as a columnist at the ''

'', and was given the Mark Boxer Lifetime Achievement Award for magazine journalism by the British Society of Magazine Editors in 2001. In 2013, he was awarded the Marcus Morris Lifetime Achievement Award for publishing by the

Professional Publishers Association The Professional Publishers Association (PPA), formerly known as the Periodical Publishers Association until 2011, is the main publishing industry body which promotes companies involved in the production of media, supporting the creative economy at ...

(PPA). In June 2017, he was inducted into the Professional Publishers Association's Hall of Fame by Lord Heseltine. In May 2018 he was awarded the lifetime "Outstanding Contribution to British Media" Prize at the British Media Awards. He is the only person ever to be awarded all four of the Publishing industry’s Lifetime Achievement Awards. Coleridge was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(CBE) in the

2009 Birthday Honours The Queen's Birthday Honours 2009 were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as pa ...

and was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

in the

for services to museums, publishing and the creative industries. A portrait of Coleridge by photographer William Teakle is in the collection of the

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coleridge, Nicholas 1957 births Living people People educated at Ashdown House People educated at Eton College Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge British male journalists

Nicholas Nicholas is a male given name and a surname. The Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Anglicanism, Anglican Churches celebrate Saint Nicholas every year on December 6, which is the name day for "Nicholas". In Greece, the n ...

British media executives Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Knights Bachelor