The Royal Corps of Army Music Trust
The Royal Corps of Army Music Trust
Our Trustees
Our selected Trustees play an important part in advising and supporting the RCAM Trust.
Graham is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, qualifying in the early 1980s and working for Peat Marwick (now KPMG). His career has been spent mostly in global information and technology companies in senior finance roles, including for Reuters, Cable & Wireless and Micro Focus. Having been CFO of a FTSE250 company, this has given him great insight into how to apply initiative, strategic thinking and practical solutions to finance functions in the working environment, and this success led to Directorbank Group identifying him as one of 145 Outstanding Finance Directors of in 2010.
Following his retirement in 2022, he has focussed on using this experience both as an NED advising companies on corporate finance, but also on working for various charities, mainly those concerned with health and social care. He is able to draw on his vast experience of charitable governance: following the death of his teenage son from a brain tumour, he became a Trustee of The Brain Tumour Charity in 2004 and in 20 years, helped it to grow from humble beginnings to generating now £14m of income and has invested over £100m for research. He was asked in 2022 to step in as CEO and run the Charity for a year while a new Chief Executive was recruited.
In his spare time, he is a keen sportsman and cyclist. He is a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards.
Graham has a long-standing association with, and deep affection for, RCAM. His wife Berendina has been a Professor of Music at the Royal School of Military Music since 2002, and as such he has known many members of the Corps from recruitment to retirement since that date!
Nicky Murdoch MBE
Nicky enjoyed a 30 year career in the Army. During her time she served in a variety of appointments in Command and on the Staff in roles as diverse as specialist intelligence in Northern Ireland to the Command at Worthy Down. Her last full tour was as Chief of Staff at the Headquarters of the Royal Corps of Army Music when it was based at Kneller Hall. After a break when she was diagnosed with cancer her return to work saw her on secondment to a charity where she designed, developed and delivered a programme for Wounded Injured and Sick personnel which was the forerunner to the Defence Recovery Capability.
In 2011 she left the Army and became the CEO of St John and Red Cross Defence Medical Welfare Service where she worked for 7 years. DMWS provides welfare support to the Armed Forces Community when they are in the healthcare pathway. She transformed the charity in that time, expanding the offer from just the serving community to include the whole of the armed forces including families. She was awarded an MBE for her work.
Nicky left this role to become the Chair of NHS England’s Armed Forces Patient Voice Group which advises on the health issues facing the armed forces community and assisting in the development of specialised services for the community a role she has done for the last 8 years. She was a member of the Veteran’s Advisory Board for 3 years and appointed to the advisory board of the Independent Review of the treatment of LGBT personnel who served during the period of the Ban.
Nicky has been involved in running charities for the last 30 years, chairing an operatic society, a children’s music festival and having been a trustee of the WRAC Association. She was a Non-Executive Director of the Forces Pension Society for 6 years and is now a trustee and Chair of Grants for the Veterans Foundation. She is a Chartered Manager and a Chartered Companion of the Chartered Management Institute and is a member of the “Our Dorset” Public Experience Group for the Dorset ICB.
Phil McEvoy
I qualified as a Solicitor in 1980 and was in private practice until 1982 when I was commissioned into the Army Legal Corps. After an attachment with HQ 3 Commando Brigade I completed legal staff appointments in both Germany and Northern Ireland. During this period I assisted soldiers and their families with their personal legal problems. I undertook “Flying Lawyer” duties in Northern Ireland and also headed the Army’s Criminal Injuries Compensation Cell, where I helped soldiers recover compensation for the injuries they sustained whilst on active duty.
On promotion to Lieutenant Colonel in 1992 I served as the Command Legal Adviser (Army) HQ British Forces Cyprus. While in Cyprus I was appointed as a Judge of the Court of the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia. In 1994 he returned to Northern Ireland as the Commander Legal. I was awarded an OBE in December 2000.
Promoted to the rank of Colonel in 2000 I then served as Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff HQ Land Command, the principal legal adviser to the Commander in Chief. In 2003 I formed and commanded the Army’s Operational Law Branch with responsibility for the legal aspects of all military operations worldwide. I was promoted, in post, to the rank of Brigadier in 2005. In 2009 I moved to the Service Prosecuting Authority where I was responsible for the prosecution of the full range of criminal offences from minor military matters to the more serious offences including manslaughter. I hold the Higher Rights (Criminal Proceedings) qualification which I gained in 1994 and regularly appeared in the Court of Appeal on behalf of the Crown in criminal cases.
I retired from the Army in June 2012.
