A native of Kent, England, Simon became fascinated with the field of curating while working part-time in a painting-lined country house. He went on to gain three degrees in art history from UCL, then became a professor at the University of Nottingham, and the first-ever photography curator at the Tate, where he remained for almost a decade. In 2018, he crossed the Channel to became Director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris’s pre-eminent art institution dedicated to contemporary photography, where he’s on a mission to broaden its audience and champion millennial artists.