Melanie Richards CBE

Melanie joined Manchester Square Partners in September 2021 and specialises in sounding board advice to senior leaders across all sectors.

Melanie is a Non Executive Director of Morgan Stanley International and HKA.

With large-scale general management, board and advisory experience, Melanie was until September 2020 the Deputy Chair of KPMG UK, with a period as Acting Chair during the pandemic. She drove, with her fellow board members, the firm’s strategic direction and commercial performance. Melanie was heavily involved in its continuing transformation in areas such as risk, culture, diversity and inclusion, reputation and ESG. She ensured the voice of the firm’s key stakeholders was reflected at board level and worked with KPMG’s highest-profile clients and key stakeholders.

She has almost 40 years’ corporate finance and capital markets experience.

Melanie was awarded a CBE for her contribution to business and to the diversity and inclusion agenda in 2019. She is an Honorary Member of the ICAEW and has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Business and Administration from Oxford Brookes University.

Melanie is Chair of the Eve Appeal (a women’s cancer charity) and trustee of The Royal National Theatre and the Invictus Games Foundation. Married with two children, Melanie grew up in Wales and is passionate about rugby and theatre.