Emirati businessman and patron Abdelmonem Bin Eisa Alserkal is the founder of Alserkal Initiatives which includes Alserkal Avenue, a renowned cultural district based in Al Quoz, the industrial area of Dubai; Alserkal Arts Foundation, which supports cultural practitioners through multi-disciplinary artistic production, scholarship and research; and Concrete, a multi-disciplinary space that was the first project completed in the UAE by the Pritzker Prize winning architect Rem Koolhaas’ Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA).

Abdelmonem serves on the committees of numerous art institutions, including the British Museum’s Contemporary and Modern Middle Eastern Art Acquisition Group; the Tate’s Middle East and North Africa Acquisition Committee; and the Guggenheim’s Middle Eastern Circle, among others.

Abdelmonem is the Managing Director of Nasser Bin Abdullatif Alserkal Est., a Dubai-based family business with diversified interests in the UAE and internationally, and is a member of the board of the Alserkal Group. Abdelmonem and the Alserkal family are long-time supporters of the arts and have twice been recognised with the UAE Patron of the Arts award.

Marwan T. Assaf is an art collector, curator, and art researcher. Marwan is a Trustee of the Sursock Museum in Beirut and the Founding Benefactor of the Beirut Art Center. He is also a member of the Tate’s Middle East and North Africa Acquisitions Committee in London.

In 2006, he earned an MA in Contemporary Art from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. He has published a book about art photography in Paris in 2019: The Afterlife of the Photographic Subject.

Elizabeth Brooks is Co-Founder and Trustee of the Rory and Elizabeth Brooks Foundation established in 2006. The Foundation has focussed on global poverty research (supporting a Poverty Research Institute and Doctoral College at the University of Manchester), social justice, disadvantaged youth, and the arts.

Elizabeth is the Co-Chair of Tate’s Photography Acquisition Committee, a member of the Tate International Council, and a former Chair of Tate Patrons. In collaboration with Delfina Foundation, Elizabeth and her husband, Rory, founded the Brooks International Fellowship Programme in 2014, which supports curators, researchers, and art historians with an international perspective to develop research together with colleagues at Tate. In addition, the Foundation supports The Articulation public speaking prize at the National Gallery, The Photographers Gallery, the Hayward Gallery, and Create, the award-winning UK charity that enhances the wellbeing of marginalised people through the creative arts.

Elizabeth’s professional life spanned twenty years working in public relations, advertising, and fashion magazine publishing in Boston, New York, and London.

Formerly an international human rights lawyer, Mariana A Teixeira de Carvalho moved into the art world in 2009, working as the director of a number of prominent commercial galleries, including Luisa Strina, Hauser & Wirth, and Michael Werner.

Mariana sits on the board of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin and on the International Advisory Board of the São Paulo Biennial. She is closely involved with her family’s porcelain collection and is currently developing a museum dedicated to this in Portugal.

Yan Du founded the non-profit organisation Asymmetry Art Foundation, which is dedicated to nurturing curatorial practice and disseminating knowledge about Chinese and Sinophone contemporary art through academic scholarships, curatorial fellowships, and public programming.

Yan is an avid supporter of many institutions and initiatives in Asia, including UCCA and M+, and internationally, including Whitechapel Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, and Chisenhale Gallery.

In 2023, she founded YDC (Yan Du Collection) to bring together her passion for collecting over the last decade.

Lonti Ebers is the Founder and CEO of Amant, a non-profit arts organisation in Brooklyn, New York, founded in 2019. She established Amant to create studios and exhibition spaces to further encourage artistic development and experimentation.

Lonti is a trustee of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and serves on the board of the Centre for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in Upstate New York. She also sits on the European Committee of the Tate in London.

Nicoletta Fiorucci is a collector, patron and founder of the Fiorucci Art Trust which promoted emerging artist exploration in both institutional and unconventional locations. The Fiorucci Art Trust operated from 2010 until 2021, when the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation was established.

The Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation supports visionary artistic projects and intuitions, foregrounding Nicoletta’s long-standing institutional philanthropic activities, while carrying on the legacy and spirit of the former Trust as a not-for profit dedicated to supporting radical and visionary artistic projects.

In 2018, Nicoletta was awarded the decoration of Ufficiale dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia (Official of the Order of the Star of Italy).

Sangita Jindal is the Chairperson of the JSW Foundation, the social development arm of the JSW Group, one of India’s leading business houses. For over three decades, the foundation has been working to empower rural communities.

In 1994, Sangita set up the Jindal Arts Creative Interaction Centre (JACIC), part of the National Centre for the Performing Arts. Sangita publishes Art India Magazine, which has been a chronicler of the Indian Art scene since 1996.

Sangita is member of Tate’s International Council and the UN Women Business Sector Advisory Council. She is an Eisenhower Fellow, a Trustee of the World Monuments Fund – India Chapter, a Trustee of Asia Society’s Global Board, and an advisor to Khoj, among other prominent committees and appointments.

Sangita was recognised by Vogue India as ‘Heritage Keeper of the Year’ in 2019, for her work in the preservation of cultural heritage in India. She also received the Golden Peacock Award for Social and Cultural Leadership 2019.

Businessman, art patron and collector Elie Khouri is an ardent supporter of the regional and global art and design communities. He is a member of Tate’s Middle East and North Africa Acquisitions Committee and MoMA’s Media and Performance Committee, as well as supporter of various publishing projects.

Elie is currently the CEO of Vivium Holding, a progressive single-family office founded in 2017 that specialises in alternative investing. He is also the Chairman of Omnicom Media Group MENA, the media service division of leading global marketing communications company Omnicom Group.

His collection is a kaleidoscopic range of works by both emerging and established artists that create a nuanced, multifaceted reflection of the modern world.

In 2019, Elie was a collector-in-residence at Delfina Foundation.

Andreas and Ulrike Kurtz have shared a passion for art since the early 1990s. After growing the family business to an IPO in 2005, Andreas acted as Chairman of the Business Angels Association in Stuttgart. Ulrike is a software computer specialist.

Andreas and Ulrike are members of the International Leadership Council at the New Museum in New York and the International Council at Tate, where Andreas recently became the Vice Chair and sits on the International Council Advisory Board.

Yuanbo Liu is an executive at Palantir Technologies and the founder of Metamorphosis, an investment fund dedicated to supporting the food ecosystem. She is an angel investor and advisor to early stage startups.

Yuanbo is a member of the Development Committee of the Board of Trustees at the Royal Opera House. She has been involved with the Delfina Foundation since 2022, when she supported the fifth iteration of the Politics of Food thematic programme.

Louisa Macmillan is an independent editor, writer, curator, and researcher specialising in modern and contemporary Arab art. She was the Eisler curator of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern Art at the British Museum and is currently Head of Research and Archives at Azzawi Art, London.

Her love of language, especially unusual etymology and fiendish grammar is matched by a passion for visual art, and a strong conviction that making the arts accessible for all is crucial to promoting mutual understanding between cultures.

Suling is President of the Mead Family Foundation, which supports education and medical causes and the arts. In 2013, she co-founded the Cambridge Art Residency at Girton College, which encourages engagement between practising artists and any area of scholarship within the university. At Harvard Law School, where she earned a Master of Laws, Suling sits on the Dean’s Advisory Council and founded a scholarship for Students in the Arts.

Suling is a member of the Kettle’s Yard Committee, the Kettle’s Yard Campaign Board, the Contemporary Art Society Frieze Fund Prize, Camden Art Centre’s Frieze Emerging Artist Prize, and Tate’s Photography Acquisition Committee, among others. She was Chair of Tate Patrons until 2022.

Luba Michailova founded Izolyatsia, a non-profit, multidisciplinary platform for contemporary culture in Ukraine. The foundation’s mission is to inspire positive change by using culture as an instrument in art, education, and projects geared at activating Ukraine’s creative sector.

Her collection featured site-specific commissions produced through Izolyatsia as well as acquisitions. A significant part of the collection was lost during the military seizure of Izolyatsia’s premises in Donetsk by the pro-Russian separatists in June 2014.

In 2017, Luba was collector-in-residence at Delfina Foundation.

Irene Panagopoulos is the CEO of Magna Marine Inc. She is actively involved in many organisations, serving as a Trustee of Dia Art Foundation, New York, and a Trustee of Northeastern University in Boston.

She is a member of the Contemporary and Modern Middle Eastern Art acquisition group at the British Museum, Tate’s International Council, the Whitechapel Gallery’s Commissioning Council, and the Cycladic Museum Contemporary Art Council, among other appointments and committees.

In 2018, Irene was collector-in-residence at Delfina Foundation.

Petr and Pavlína Pudil are the founders of The Pudil Family Foundation and the non-profit institution Kunsthalle Praha, which opened 2022. The Pudil Family Foundation became the bedrock and continuous resource for shaping Kunsthalle Praha’s own art collection—a complex assortment of artworks spanning modern, post-war, and contemporary art. The Kunsthalle’s programme focuses on short-term exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, as well as on educational activities in the renovated building of the Zenger Electrical Substation at Klárovin Prague, which received the Czech Republic’s National Prize for Architecture.

Petr and Pavlína Pudil are members of acquisition committees of the Tate and Centre Pompidou.

Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani established the Samdani Art Foundation to support the work of Bangladesh and South Asia’s contemporary artists and architects and bring international attention to them. As part of this initiative, they founded the Dhaka Art Summit, a biennial platform for bringing together curators, artists, and other arts professionals from around the globe. The sixth edition of Dhaka Art Summit welcomed 572,000 visitors over 9 days. As part of the Dhaka Art Summit, the Samdani Artist Award presents the emerging voices with Bangladeshi scene with the recipient benefitting from a residency at Delfina Foundation.

Nadia and Rajeeb are members of Tate’s South Asia Acquisitions Committee, with Rajeeb serving as co-chair; Tate’s International Council; Art Dubai’s Advisory Council; Alserkal Avenue’s Programming Committee; and The Harvard University, Lakshmi.

They were the first South Asian arts patrons to receive the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. Nadia was named Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire honour in the Queen’s 2022 Birthday Honours List, and received the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture in 2023.

Nadia and Rajeeb are currently setting up new permanent art space in Sylhet: Sirhatta – Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park.

Hamza Serafi is the co-founder of Athr Gallery, which was established in 2009. Hamza is the Vice President of the Mohammed Saleh Serafi Foundation, The House of Islamic Art, Alshifaa Museum, and Wasel Artspace, as well as the Vice Chairman of Salehat Holding. He a member of the steering committee for the Red Sea Museum and is on the Advisory Committee in the Visual Art Department at Princess Noura University. He is also the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Samaa Studio for Integrated Architecture and Design. At the end of 2023, he will be launching Netaj Product Design Platform.

In 2014, Hamza was a founding member of the Saudi Art Council, which produced the 21’39 arts initiative in Jeddah from 2013 and which sowed the seeds for the development of contemporary art that is evident across the Kingdom today.

Sara Alireza and Faisal Tamer are both avid art enthusiasts, collectors and patrons of the arts. They are active supporters of the Tate, British Museum, Centre Pompidou and Delfina Foundation, among other institutions and initiatives.

In 2013, Sara and Faisal became founding members of the Saudi Art Council, which produced the 21’39 arts initiative in Jeddah from 2013 to 2022.

Sara served as Head of the Education Committee at 21’39, which developed and implemented public symposia, talks, workshops, and exhibition tours for the public. She is also a trustee of the Barakat Trust and has been responsible for fund management, organising a diverse range of cultural events, and fundraising activities.

Faisal is a Managing Partner at Tamer Group of Companies and the Chairman of the Board of its subsidiary, Saudi Japanese Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. He is Co-chair of Tate’s Middle East and North Africa Acquisitions Group.

Ileana Drinovan Nomikos has a profound love for the arts—not only the visual arts but also literature, theater, and music. She is most intrigued by the boundaries between these fields, where genres overlap, experimentation happens, and new creative forms emerge. Born in Bucharest, Romania, and raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA, she graduated summa cum laude from Princeton with a thesis on Black Sea harbour architecture in antiquity. During her university years, she worked as a painting restorer, an experience that included a brief study of 16th-century painting restoration in Florence. She later completed her doctorate at Stanford, focusing on themes of repetition and performativity in Senecan texts. Today, she lives in London, England, with her family.

In 2011, Nomikos founded Santozeum on Santorini, Greece, where her family traces its roots. This foundation offers an open, unconventional museum space designed to encourage exploration without the constraints of typical exhibition formats. Santozeum emphasizes the ephemeral, inviting long-term collaboration with artists over brief displays, and celebrating the creative moments that emerge between defined forms and concepts.

Currently, Nomikos is developing Ilfa Services, a new venture with curator Fabian Schöneich. Opening in London in early 2025, Ilfa Services will serve as a community-driven platform for interdisciplinary exploration. Positioned as a cross-community rehearsal space, it will be a hub for dialogue, exhibitions, and collaboration—a place where art, conversation, and community intersect to foster experimental and socially engaged practices.