Sir Damon Buffini was a founding partner of Permira (www.permira.com) and was Chairman and Managing Partner from 1997-2010. Under his leadership Permira’s funds under management grew from €1.9 billion to over €20 billion and the firm’s number of offices rose from four to twelve.  Permira was named European Private Equity Firm of the decade 1996 – 2006. He remained a partner at Permira until the end of 2015. Damon is a senior adviser to the firm.

In 2015 Damon was appointed Chair of the Royal National Theatre (www.nationaltheatre.org.uk)   whose mission is to create world class theatre and make it available to everyone. In 2019, the "NT" had a global audience of over 7 million.  As part of its mission the NT operates a national outreach program which includes delivering the National Theatre Collection to 50% of UK secondary schools - 3.5 million young people - for free.  

Damon is Chair of the Royal Anniversary Trust (www.royalanniversarytrust.org.uk)  which works to promote world class excellence in UK universities and colleges through oversight and management of The Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education, part of the UK honours system. 

Damon is  a Non-Executive Director of Schroders plc (www.schroders.com), a global Investment Manager responsible for over $500 billion of investor assets.

In 2020 Damon was appointed by the Secretary of State for DCMS as Chair of the £1.6billion Cultural Recovery Fund (www.gov.uk/government/groups/culture-recovery-board) which is granted and invested to ensure the survival and sustainability of the UK’s culturally significant organisations. 

He is also Chair of the Ryder Cup Committee for the European Tour.   (www.europeantour.com)

In 2005 Damon became  a founding Trustee of the Buffini Chao Foundation  (www.buffinichao.com) which promotes and funds access to education and activities for young people. 

Damon was a Governor of the Wellcome Trust (www.wellcome.ac.uk) from 2012 - 2018.   Wellcome is £25 billion global charity dedicated to improving global health and wellbeing.

From 2010 - 2015 Damon was a  Main Board Governor and Chairman of Investment Committee – Royal Shakespeare Company (www.rsc.org.uk)

Damon was Knighted in 2016 for philanthropic and voluntary services.