Rosemary Blaire Leith, Lady Berners-Lee (born in September 1961) is a director of both profit and

nonprofit organizations A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

. Leith co-founded the

World Wide Web Foundation The World Wide Web Foundation, also known as the Web Foundation, is a US-based international nonprofit organization advocating for a free and open web for everyone. It was cofounded by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and R ...

together with her husband-to-be, Tim Berners-Lee in 2009.

Life

Leith was born in September 1961, in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, and studied at Queen's University at Kingston. She moved to London in the late 1980s. During the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

at the end of the twentieth century, Leith co-founded the

webzine An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer maga ...

''Flametree'' with Jayne Buxton, an acquaintance from Queen's who also lived in West London. At this time Leith is quoted as saying: "Women go on the net with a purpose, not to play. They have less free time and are solution-driven. They want well-grounded advice that will help them to get things done." In 2009 Leith co-founded the

with Tim Berners-Lee, who had invented the web. She is a fellow at Harvard’s

Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008, ...

. Leith is active in a number of arts organisations, advising on strategy and fundraising. She was appointed, with Katrin Henkel, as trustees of the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

in London for a four-year term from March 2016. It was announced in December 2020 that both had had their terms extended for another four years to November 2024, Leith's contributions to various board of directors of arts institutions in London over the previous 20 years being noted. Directorships include

YouGov YouGov is a British international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm, headquartered in the UK, with operations in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. In 2007, it acquired US company Polimetrix, and sinc ...

, an international research and

data analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also entails applying data patterns toward effective decision-making. It ...

group. In June 2021, at

Sotheby’s Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

, Berners-Lee auctioned the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...

from the web as a

non-fungible token A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the b ...

(NFT). The proceeds, some $5,434,500, were reported to be put towards initiatives by the husband and wife team.

Personal life

She was married to Mark Opzoomer, with whom she had three children. They lived in Fulham, West London. In 2014 she married Tim Berners-Lee. The wedding was held at the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace.

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* * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Leith, Rosemary 1961 births Living people Queen's University at Kingston alumni People from Toronto Wives of knights