The Royal Academy of Engineering has announced that Dame Tamara Finkelstein DCB will take over as chief executive officer in February 2026, once Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE steps down after 21 years of service to the Academy, eight of them as CEO.
Dame Tamara has had a long and successful career as a senior leader in the civil service, most recently as Permanent Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). In this role, she led the department through Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, during which she oversaw the government’s response to food supply issues. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath (DCB) in the 2025 New Year Honours for public service.
As Director General of Building Safety at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Dame Tamara created the government’s building safety programme in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire. As Leader of the Policy Profession in government, she also worked closely with the science and engineering profession to raise science and engineering capability in policy professionals, raising the percentage of STEM graduates in the policy fast stream from nine to 31% per cent over the last five years.
Dame Tamara is a trained engineer and economist and has supported the work of the Academy in government as a champion of the Policy Fellowships programme, and participant in the pilot Senior Policy Fellowships programme. She has also fulfilled a number of charity leadership and advisory roles, including as Vice-chair of Norwood, a charity for vulnerable children and people with learning disabilities.
President of the Academy Sir John Lazar CBE FREng commented on the appointment: “We are delighted to appoint Tamara Finkelstein as our next chief executive.
“She has a wealth of experience that the Academy will benefit from in its next chapter, from driving complex policy change at scale, to embedding engineering expertise and mobilising experts to respond to national and global events.
“She is a proud advocate for the role of engineering in society and is deeply committed to the Academy’s values – her commitment to inclusion in particular is well known in the policy profession.
“I am looking forward to working with her as we begin our 50th anniversary celebrations and to deliver on our strategy commitment to engineer better lives.
“On behalf of the Trustee Board and wider Fellowship, I would also like to thank Hayaatun for her leadership as CEO over the last eight years and her incredible service to the charity over more than two decades. She has transformed the Academy’s culture, spearheaded significant advances in our international, policy and enterprise activities, and grown our ambition, visibility and impact. We wish her the very best for the future and hope she will remain part of the Academy community for many years to come.”
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