April Riddle Gow has held numerous executive positions in her more than 30-year career in corporate marketing and communications and in the non-profit sector. A consultant since 2001, she has advised numerous organizations in strategic reviews, strengthening programs, brands, messaging and functions in marketing, communications and fund raising. In recent years she has developed a specialty in advising foreign nonprofit organizations which seek to build their brand and patronage in the US.
In the corporate sector April has worked for Alfa Romeo and Toyota in Los Angeles, California; Estee Lauder in Tokyo, Japan and Aetna in New York City. In the nonprofit arts sector she has worked in leadership roles for the Music Center of Los Angeles as Director of Corporate Sponsorships and Japanese Corporate Relations; in New York for the Fund for Dance as Executive Director, Theater Development Fund as Director of Development & Marketing, and founded and ran the American Friends of the London Symphony Orchestra as Executive Director and President as well as the American Friends of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra.
In addition to the arts, April has also been involved with NGOs and policy organizations. She advised the NGO Education for Employment on forming strategic corporate partnerships, working in seven Middle Eastern countries to provide underwriting for skills training and jobs for young people. Mrs. Gow has advised Turquoise Mountain, an NGO based in Kabul, Afghanistan, which is one of HRH The Prince of Wales’s charities, and created opportunities to build their brand through strategic partnerships with major institutions in the US and UK and increase their ability to fund raise. She has advised the UK’s Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, founded by Sir Robin Knox Johnston, in cultivating new sponsorship opportunities through strategic partnerships and the creation of a CSR program to leverage brand awareness.
April has served on several nonprofit Boards including: The College Women’s Association of Japan; the Japan Society of Southern California, Blue Light Theater Company in New York, the Advisory Council of the London Symphony Orchestra and Governor of St Marylebone Church of England School in London, the Welsh National Opera and the Global Partnership Forum. Her volunteer activities currently include: the Board of Urban Stages in New York, Vestry of Trinity Episcopal Church, Southport, CT, the Advisory Council of the Asia Scotland Institute and the US foundation Board of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
She has been a Council Member of the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. and the Foreign Policy Association in New York. She has also been involved with Oxford University’s Said Business School and has performed the role of Master of Ceremonies for two past Oxford India Business Forums in Mumbai and New Delhi, which were filmed by CNBC.
While an Art History student at San Diego State University, she was chosen for the Junior Year Abroad program to study at its campus in Florence, Italy, staying for a second year to take courses at the University of Florence. She returned to California to work on the President Ford Campaign and UCLA to study Political Science and International Relations.
April is a dual national, holding both UK and US passports. She and her husband Roddy Gow live in New York, Connecticut and Edinburgh, Scotland.
