April Gow is Vice President of External Affairs and co-founder of Gow & Partners. She has spent 25 years working in marketing in the corporate and the not-for-profit arts’ sectors. She started her career with Alfa Romeo, working in their US western headquarters in Los Angeles. April was recruited to join the advertising agency, Dancer Fitzgerald Sample (now Saatchi & Saatchi), to work on the Toyota account, followed by a 3-year period in Tokyo working for Estée Lauder on the Aramis brand as Advertising/PR Director. The following 15 years were spent working in the not-for-profit arts’ sector in executive positions in Los Angeles and New York. April worked closely with the Boards of these organisations and played an active role in recruiting new Board members and working with Board Committees.

Most recently, April was Director of Cultural Marketing for Aetna US Healthcare, at the time, a Fortune 50 company. She ran a $3 million annual program which launched Aetna as an important corporate donor to the arts in the US. This program was designed to support Aetna’s business in major markets and was used as a business development opportunity with its own advertising campaign.

April studied Art History at California State University San Diego, followed by two years of study in Florence, Italy; she returned to UCLA to study Political Science. She worked on the President Ford campaign in 1976 and various others, including Pete Wilson for Governor of California and his bid for the Republican nomination for President, and Carl McCall’s campaign for Comptroller of the State of New York.

She has served on various not-for-profit Boards and currently serves as Co-Chairman of the London Symphony Orchestra’s American Foundation and is a member of the Advisory Board of the LSO in London. In addition, she participates on numerous charity committees in London and New York.