Mandy Ford

Mandy was brought up in Hong Kong in an army family and educated in Wiltshire. She has always had a passion for the theatre and was a member of the National Youth Theatre while at school. She studied fine art in London, with a view to becoming a theatre designer, but a career change led to training as a teacher. After ten years in education, she retrained in theology and was ordained in 2000. Her first role in the church was in an area of multiple deprivation in Leicester, where among other responsibilities, she was trustee of a number of charities working with excluded and vulnerable young people. Mandy is now the Dean of Bristol, a role which combines leadership of the cathedral with a place on the Bishop’s staff where she has oversight of the church’s concern for racial and social justice. Mandy is a member of the General Synod of the Church of England with a particular interest in training, development and governance issues.