The Santa Barbara Symphony has elected three new members to its Board of Directors: Nancy Golden, Palmer G. Jackson, Jr., and Simon Knight. The appointments reflect the shared commitment of the organization to expand its community impact and deliver on the symphony’s mission to bring joy, engagement, and connection through symphonic music.

Golden returns to serve on the symphony’s board of directors. Originally from Southport, Connecticut, she graduated from Russell Sage College with a degree in English. She worked in London for three years for an American publishing consultant, then held various management positions at Time Inc. for 21 years.

In 1987, Golden and her husband moved to San Francisco, where she established a fundraising consulting business; she retired in 2019. Golden worked with a range of San Francisco Bay area clients including the California Symphony, CAL Performances, Merola Opera Program, and the Philharmonic Baroque Orchestra.

She served on the Opera Santa Barbara board for several years and as board chair from 2016-18. She previously served on the Santa Barbara Symphony Board from 2014-16, and is a member of the League of American Orchestras.

Golden has driven for Meals on Wheels since 1998 and encourages students in K-4th grades to read in the summer through the Santa Barbara Public Library programs. She is a member of the Santa Barbara Yacht Club and the Santa Barbara Club.

Jackson, a fourth-generation Santa Barbara native, is a graduate of Yale University and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He has spent his career in consumer marketing, high technology, nonprofit management, and fundraising.

Jackson currently serves as executive chairman of the Granada Theatre. He also serves as managing trustee of the Ann Jackson Family Foundation. He helped found American Riviera Bank in 2005, and served as a director until 2009.

He spent 11 years as a trustee of the Lobero Theater Foundation, serving as chairman from 2007-10. He has been a trustee of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History since 2006, serving as chair from 2011-13; he chaired its successful $20 million capital campaign, and was designated a life trustee in 2018.

Jackson has served on the board of the Santa Barbara Foundation Roundtable since 2016, as board chairman from 2018-20, and chaired the organization’s annual summit, The Partnership For Excellence Conference, since 2016. Jackson joined the Granada Theatre Board in 2014, served as chairman from 2017-18, and executive chairman starting in 2019.

Knight is the founder and president of Satya Analytics, a provider of innovative marketing and psychographic analytics to multiple industries and economic development organizations. The Satya Foundation, an offshoot of Satya created to support organizations that cannot afford the high costs of big data, also provides analytical information and insights to local non-profits such as Women’s Economic Ventures.

Knight is a graduate of the Warwick Business School, with an MBA focusing on data science. He has some 30 years of global information technology experience including working as U.S. president of Jensen and Partners International, building ground-breaking software development tools.

Later, as global CIO of IKON Office Solutions, he implemented enterprise business intelligence and data analytics tools, led international operational reorganization initiatives, and was responsible for strategic relationships with major corporate accounts in the IT industry.

In his musical life, Knight studied with Kerry Camden, the bassoon professor at the Royal College of Music, and currently plays in amateur orchestras and chamber groups.

He is a board member of the Santa Barbara Chamber Music Society and a co-founder of the Garage Chamber Orchestra, a group created during the pandemic to provide performance opportunities for local musicians while fundraising for nonprofits.

For more information, visit TheSymphony.org.