Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas, (born 18 October 1948) is a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

-born British

solicitor A solicitor is a lawyer who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to p ...

, local government politician and

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

. She has been the first woman to hold a number of public roles in the United Kingdom such as a two-year term as Provost of

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

and chair of the

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orch ...

Early life

Born and educated in

, Judith Mayhew was the daughter of Bill and Joyce Mayhew. She attended Corstorphine Primary School in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

and

Otago Girls' High School Otago Girls' High School (OGHS) is a secondary school in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. It was opened 6 February 1871, after a long campaign by Learmonth Whyte Dalrymple. It is one of the oldest girls state-run secondary school in the Southern Hem ...

graduating

LLM A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with Self-supervised learning, self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially Natural language generation, language g ...

from the

University of Otago The University of Otago () is a public university, public research university, research collegiate university based in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. Founded in 1869, Otago is New Zealand's oldest university and one of the oldest universities in ...

Career

She lectured at Otago before moving to the UK as a lecturer in law at the

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

and then

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

, from 1976 to 1989, where she set up and became director of the Anglo-French Law Degree ( Sorbonne), the first joint degree in Europe. In 1986, she entered private practice as an employment lawyer, rising to become special adviser to the chairman at

Clifford Chance Clifford Chance LLP is a British multinational law firm headquartered in London, England, and a member of the " Magic Circle", a group of leading London-based multinational law firms. In 2022-2023 Clifford Chance was the third largest law fir ...

, a global law firm. In 2006, she was appointed to the

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

Merrill Lynch Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, doing business as Merrill, and previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investm ...

. She was closely involved in the running of the

City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

from 1986. In that year she was elected to the

City of London Corporation The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the local authority of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United Kingdom's f ...

and chaired the corporation's Policy and Resources Committee from 1996 to 2003. From 2001 she was City and Business Advisor to

Ken Livingstone Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English former politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was Local Government Act 1985, abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of Londo ...

, the Mayor of London. Mayhew Jonas served on a number of boards of educational and cultural institutions. In 1999 she was appointed chair of governors at

Birkbeck, University of London Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a Public university, public research university located in London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the University of London. Establ ...

. She was Provost of

from 2003–05, the first woman to hold this post. She was the first woman to chair the

. She is a trustee of the

Imperial War Museum The Imperial War Museum (IWM), currently branded "Imperial War Museums", is a British national museum. It is headquartered in London, with five branches in England. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, it was intended to record the civ ...

and of the Urban Land Institute, and co-chair of the British Dutch Dialogues, the Apeldoorn Conference. From 2008 to 2022 she was Provost (Chancellor) of

Bishop Grosseteste University Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU) is a public university in the city of Lincoln, England. BGU was established as a teacher training college for the Diocese of Lincoln in 1862. It gained taught degree awarding powers in 2012, applied for ful ...

in Lincoln, England. Mayhew Jonas features in a film series, ''Dreamcatchers,'' about successful expatriate New Zealanders.

Honours and awards

Mayhew Jonas was awarded an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

by the

in 1998. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( DBE) in the

2002 Birthday Honours Queen's Birthday Honours are announced on or around the date of the Queen's Official Birthday in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The dates vary, both from year to year and from country to country. All are published in sup ...

"for services to the City of London". In 2004, she was made New Zealander of the Year in Britain. She was Global Award Winner at the New Zealand Women of Influence Awards in 2015.

Personal

She married Christopher Jonas, an English property consultant, in 2003.

References

External links

Cambridge University website
accessed 18 February 2017.
Profile
chathamhouse.org; accessed 18 February 2017. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mayhew Jonas, Judith 1948 births Living people British legal scholars Academic staff of the University of Paris People associated with Birkbeck, University of London People associated with Imperial College London Academics of King's College London Provosts of King's College, Cambridge Academic staff of the University of Otago University of Otago alumni New Zealand Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire New Zealand expatriates in England Merrill (company) people Place of birth missing (living people) People associated with Bishop Grosseteste University New Zealand Women of Influence Award recipients