She chairs the King’s Counsel selection panel
UK courts minister Sarah Sackman has announced that the former chair of the UK chapter of Wikimedia, Monisha Shah, is the top pick to become chair of the UK Legal Services board.
According to the government, Shah was chosen as the preferred candidate after a “rigorous” assessment in line with the Governance Code on Public Appointments. Her official appointment to the role is pending a pre-appointment hearing by the justice select committee.
Per a letter from Sackman to justice select committee chair Andy Slaughter, Shah "delivered a strong and credible exposition of the issues facing the LSB both in terms of current enforcement action and live cases but also the wider systemic issues facing the sector," including access to justice, growth, inclusion, and consumer confidence, during her interview with the assessment panel. Sackman wrote that Shah "gave the panel a clear sense of what action she would seek to take as chair to address each challenge she identified" and displayed a strong understanding of the LSB's challenges and their implications for the chair.
Shah began chairing the King’s Counsel selection panel in January 2022. She also chairs Publishers’ Licensing Services and was appointed co-chair of the Copyright Licensing Agency in May 2025.
She sits on the Advertising Standards Authority council and is a serving trustee of the Royal Collection Trust, Art Fund. Moreover, she chairs the Caterham School trustees and previously served as trustee at the Tate and the National Gallery as well as The Foundling Museum.
Shah joined the appointment panel for the British Film Institute’s chair in October 2015 as an independent panel member. She was interim CEO and non-executive director at Imagen Ltd.
She became a non-executive director at Next Mediaworks Plc and joined the committee on standards in public life. She chaired the board at Rose Bruford College and sat on the boards of Office for Students and Ofcom (content board).
Shah led Wikimedia’s UK chapter from October 2021 to August 2025. She joined BBC Worldwide (now Studios), the BBC’s commercial arm, in January 2000 and rose to the position of director of sales, EMEIA during her 10-year stint with the company according to LinkedIn.
Shah’s pre-appointment hearing will be held in public to permit a select committee to take evidence. Ministers will take the committee’s opinion into account before formalizing the appointment.
