Sam Mullins OBE to step down as Director and CEO of London Transport Museum
Sam Mullins OBE has announced he will step down as Director and Chief Executive of the award-winning London Transport Museum in Covent Garden after 28 years leading the organisation.
Sam joined London Transport Museum in November 1994. Under his direction, it has grown to be the world’s leading museum of urban transport. Sam will step down later this year upon the appointment of a successor to lead the museum’s new five-year strategy.
After his departure, Sam will continue his career as a historian, writer and presenter. He will share his long-standing experience of cultural sector leadership through mentoring and consultancy and complete the first history of Transport for London.
As Director and CEO, Sam has guided London Transport Museum from strength to strength. Since joining, his ambition has seen the Museum’s visitor numbers soar from 180,000 to around 400,000 per year. He led the museum through its major £22 million redevelopment in 2007 through to seeing the venue named London Visitor Attraction of the Year in 2022.
Sam’s vision has long been to extend London Transport Museum’s reach beyond the walls of its Grade II listed building in Covent Garden. In 1999, the opening of the London Transport Museum Depot in Acton as the first publicly accessible museum store in the UK was a major step toward realising this aim. The Museum’s educators have been working in every London borough since 2006 to promote safe, active and responsible travel to primary school children. Today, this continues through the delivery of the STARS programme on behalf of Transport for London (TfL), helping to shape a greener and healthier city. The launch of the Museum’s exclusive Hidden London tours of disused Tube stations followed in 2015, inviting people to see where history happened as they explore secret and ‘forgotten’ spaces on the Underground network.
Sam has also overseen the delivery of many major heritage vehicle operations, taking the museum’s story out onto the roads and railways of the capital and beyond. London aficionados and transport history fans will remember the return of steam-powered journeys to the Metropolitan line to celebrate 150 years of the Tube in 2013, and the Year of the Bus in 2014 which culminated in an iconic cavalcade on Regent Street.
In 2008, Sam led London Transport Museum’s transition to charity governance. His commitment to delivering the Museum’s purpose as an education and heritage charity has resulted in a rich programme for people of all ages. Designed to inspire people’s curiosity about the world around us and how to shape its future, these programmes include volunteering opportunities to engage visitors and help preserve the Museum’s historic collection as well as interactive STEM workshops and skills and employability support for young people.
Most recently, Sam guided London Transport Museum through the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and its successful reopening post-pandemic which brought with it new displays and exhibitions.
In May 2021 the Museum invited visitors to imagine what a green future could look like for life in the capital with its new London 2030 installation and launch of its industry-backed Climate Crossroads programme. In 2022, Legacies: London Transport’s Caribbean Workforce opened, celebrating the contribution Caribbean people have made to transport in London and British culture more widely. Co-created with an advisory board of people with personal experience of this history, the exhibition features stories of first, second and third generation Caribbean people who worked for London Transport (LT) and TfL.
In 2018, Sam was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours for his significant contribution to the London Transport Museum.
Sam is president of the International Association of Transport Museums (IATM) and a past chairman of the Association of Independent Museums (AIM), where he led the campaign for Gift Aid on admissions. He has held the role of editor of the Social History Curators Group and been a board member and professional development mentor for the Museums Association as well as a trustee of the Royal Logistics Corps Museum. He is currently deputy chair of SS Great Britain and a judge for the Museums & Heritage Awards.
Sam is the author and co-author of works on the social history of transport including Underground: How the Tube Shaped London (2012); Omnibus: A Social History of the London Bus (2014); Goodbye Piccadilly: From Home Front to Western Front (2015) and Hidden London: Discovering the Forgotten Underground (2019).
Sam Mullins OBE said:
My twenty-eight years as Director and CEO at London Transport Museum have been the most rewarding of my professional career as a leader and historian working in museums. I have been extraordinarily fortunate to work with so many creative, dedicated and inspiring colleagues at our Museum. Their commitment to the organisation is evident to everyone who visits our Museum, participates in an educational session, takes a Depot or Hidden London tour or uses the website. For a historian like me, being associated with TfL and seeing history being made every day is a huge privilege. I also give grateful thanks to those Trustees who, selflessly and without thought of personal benefit, give their time and expertise to our Board, to ensure London Transport Museum remains a strong, well-governed and progressive institution. We have not only created one of London’s brightest and most popular museums but an institution which promotes all that is best in London.
Andy Lord, Commissioner, Transport for London said:
As director and CEO of London Transport Museum, Sam has made an incredible impact. Under his leadership, the museum has brought the story of our city and its pioneering transport network to life with flair and imagination. Not only has Sam shaped London Transport Museum into an award-winning visitor attraction, he has also established it as a charity that reaches beyond its walls to benefit children and young people across the capital and beyond. Whether it is through the long-standing delivery of our STARS initiative to promote safe, active and responsible travel, or encouraging young people into engineering careers, Sam has ensured London Transport Museum is helping to shape the future of our city. His contribution to the Museum and to Transport for London will leave a lasting legacy. On behalf of everyone at Transport for London I thank him deeply for his outstanding work.
Keith Ludeman, Chair of Trustees, London Transport Museum said:
During Sam’s long tenure at London Transport Museum he has led the organisation from its early days at Covent Garden to becoming a charity in 2008, and then gradually raising its profile through initiatives such as Tube 150, Year of the Bus and Hidden London. Sam is a historian, researcher and writer whose quiet leadership style has engendered strong relationships with his board of trustees, senior leadership team, TfL colleagues and the wider Museum community. His inspirational leadership was most evident during the Covid-19 pandemic, from which the Museum emerged even more strongly, recovering more quickly than any other London museum. On behalf of the board of trustees, I wish him a long, happy and healthy future, and thank him warmly for his long stewardship of this precious institution.
Marcus Arthur, Chair of London Transport Museum’s Enterprise Board, said:
Sam’s service has been of immeasurable value to London Transport Museum. As a leader he is open, honest, and always values driven. Through his tenure, from the first day to the last, he has delivered not through blockbuster budgets but with brilliant and relevant ideas. From a personal point of view, I will miss his charm, dry sense of humour and ability to get things done.