Loyd Grossman: secret sauce

Summary

Passionate, hopeful and raring to go, Loyd Grossman is the new Chair of the RSA. This profile reflects on Grossman’s multifaceted career to-date and its synergy with the RSA’s values. From his Glastonbury performances to cultural advocacy and museum funding, Grossman has long championed community and cultural engagement. Grossman admires the RSA’s belief in progress and vision for positive change, and sees the RSA as more crucial now than ever, particularly amid global challenges. 

Reading time

Six minutes

New RSA Chair Loyd Grossman talks music, art and societal change with Nicholas Wroe, and explains why he thinks the work and mission of the RSA are more important now than ever.

Loyd Grossman is perhaps still best known for his distinctively accented presence on long-running UK television programmes of the 1980s and 1990s MasterChef and Through the Keyhole. Along the way, he has also run a hugely successful food business based on his eponymous sauces, worked as a journalist, written several books (most recently on Bernini’s role in creating modern Rome), served on the boards of some of the most prestigious British cultural institutions, played rock guitar in a chart band and performed multiple times at Glastonbury. 

“I do admit I have rather tried to do things that I enjoy,” he laughs, sitting in the Henry Cole Room at RSA House in London on the day his appointment as Chair of the RSA’s Board of Trustees is formally confirmed. “My relationship with this place – something else that has also brought great enjoyment – goes back a while, too, having become a Fellow over 30 years ago now.” Grossman had come to London from Massachusetts – the source of those famously elongated vowels – as a student in the mid-1970s, and never really went back.

_{^{Above: Loyd Grossman photographed at RSA House on the day he was confirmed as RSA Chair of Trustees}}

Boston bonding

It was as an historian with a fascination for the 18th century that the RSA initially caught his attention. “I was much inspired by the fact that my fellow Bostonian, Benjamin Franklin, was one of the first Fellows. But it was the ethos and mission of the RSA that really brought me in and it has kept me here ever since.” From the outset, many of those RSA ideals felt familiar to him. “I came from an artistic and charitable family background. I’d always been concerned about broad issues of citizenship, about a sense of community and civic pride, and I like to do my bit.”

In this spirit, and as a by then high-profile businessman and broadcaster, in the late 1990s Grossman founded and led a campaign to support UK museums at a time of challenging cuts in funding. “Museums and galleries, and all the cultural activities in and around them, really do foster that sense of community pride and of belonging. I found that work very gratifying.” His efforts soon saw him co-opted onto a government advisory body on museums, and shortly after that he was appointed a Commissioner for English Heritage. “I began devoting more and more time to cultural policy and advocacy and it just kind of grew.”

Since then, he has served on many public committees, most recently as Chair of The Royal Parks, centring on arts, culture, heritage and education. He was awarded a CBE for his work in these fields in 2015.

From this near-unique vantage point, his assessment of the current state of UK cultural institutions is instructive. “They’ve never been more needed, yet they are under a great deal of pressure for all sorts of reasons. There are so many demands on public funding and no politician is ever going to say that health or the emergency services should have funding taken away from them. But culture, and its institutions, are also vital for the health and happiness of the nation. The link between people’s physical health, mental health and spiritual health is clear. So, let’s take a holistic approach – although I do feel, with public money so tight, we need to develop more philanthropy.”

When the post of Chair of the RSA became vacant, Grossman says, he was immediately interested. “I was due to finish eight extremely eventful years at The Royal Parks and, as you can probably tell, I don’t like being underemployed.” He spoke to his old friend and former RSA Chair Dame Prue Leith (1995–97), “and she told me it was the best job she’s ever had. Added to that, I was already very impressed by Andy [Haldane] as Chief Executive, so I applied.”

_{^{Above: Grossman samples his own home cooking during his time as presenter of MasterChef}}

Building hope

As he begins his term of office, he observes that: “It is interesting, and perhaps rather frightening, that for the first time both The Guardian and The Telegraph kind of agree that everything’s broken, and the world is in a mess. With that sort of narrative coming from both the left and the right, I worry that people are losing a sense of hope, and, for me, that means the RSA is probably more important now than it ever has been. 

“What the RSA does is all about having a belief in progress. That people have the ability and the talent to improve things and a confidence that we can all play our part and improve society for now and for the longer term. What a vital and inspiring point of view to hold within the context of dissatisfaction with public services, the potential breakdown of the international order and a culture in which we are overwhelmed with information and, apparently, underwhelmed with wisdom or knowledge.”

He points to two specific RSA initiatives that perhaps exemplify its potential for positive change. “Within the wider Design for Life mission, I am excited by our Playful Green Planet scheme, which connects children, especially those from urban environments, with green spaces and the natural world. It links with work we did at The Royal Parks, where we learned – especially during the pandemic, but it is true more generally – that if we think about access to nature as a last resort, we do so at our peril.”

The RSA Spark project, which will bring together learners, educators and entrepreneurs to unlock creativity across disciplines, is one that also chimes with his outlook and experience. “By 2030, these two projects will be reaching well over a million people from age three upwards, and will encourage responsibility, innovation, creativity, connection and so much more.”

Other ambitions Grossman has for the organisation include expanding its international focus: “We already have Fellows in well over 100 countries and the digital world makes it essential we have a global presence.” He is also keen to open RSA House to a wider audience. “We’re making a big investment in the Coffee House and the new bar, Muse, with the aim of making our home a resource for all London. You don’t have to be a Fellow to come in, but of course we hope that there will be people who will subsequently decide they like it so much they will want to join us.”

As for personal goals, he says that he’s looking forward to his business’s 30th anniversary next year and he’s still playing his guitar. “I think I’m done with Glastonbury now, but I join Jethro Tull every year for concerts to raise money for UK cathedrals.” 

_{^{Above: Nicholas Wroe interviewing Loyd Grossman at RSA House}}

And, in respect of his tenure at the RSA, he has just one long-term target: “Throughout its long and storied history, whether helping to restrict child labour or creating the Great Exhibition or any other of its achievements, everything the RSA has done has been part of a general desire to simply make things better. Who knows what’s coming down the road, but whatever happens, we have a set of principles and ideals that speak to this noble objective, and I intend to also apply that to the organisation itself. I’m just starting out here but, when my time comes to an end, I hope I can say that it was great when I arrived, and as I leave it’s even better.”

Nicholas Wroe is a freelance writer and former Assistant Editor of Guardian Review.

Charlie Surbey is an award-winning, multi-disciplined photographer whose work explores forward-thinking styles and the development of new techniques across camera and post-production work.

This feature first appeared in RSA Journal Issue 4 2024.