entrepreneur, arts patron, ecological activist, writer and accidental hotelier

Vanessa Branson is a champion of global cultural and ecological initiatives and is frequently sought after as a keynote speaker and event chair. As the Founding President of the Marrakech Biennale, she created North Africa’s only trilingual arts festival – comprising visual art, literature and film programs featuring acclaimed international and Moroccan artists. In October 2014, Vanessa Branson was awarded the Royal distinction of Officer of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite, a Royal honour is in recognition of the contribution she has made to the Moroccan cultural scene and, in particular, for her efforts in establishing Marrakech as a richly diverse and eclectic platform for the arts.

Prior to this, between 1999 and 2004, she was co-founding curator with Prue O'Day of the Wonderful Fund Collection. Her other cultural projects have included the establishment and co-direction – along with Prue O’Day and Anatol Orient – of the Portobello Arts Festivals in 1987, 1988 and 1989. Active as an entrepreneur, she founded the Vanessa Devereux Gallery (1986–91) in London, where she showed a number of emerging artists including William Kentridge’s UK debut exhibition.

In 2002, along with her business partner Howell James CBE, she developed an ancient crumbling palace in the centre of Marrakech into a beautiful boutique hotel - El Fenn.  She owns and runs Eilean Shona, a tidal island  on the west coast of Scotland at the entrance to Loch Moidart where J M Barrie wrote the screenplay for Peter Pan.

She is a trustee of the British Moroccan Society and The Leilea Alaoui Foundation, as well as a trustee for Virgin Unite and on the board of Hammersley Homes.

Her memoir One Hundred Summers was published on 21 May 2020.