WordNet
n. a person used as a cover for some questionable activity [syn: front man, front, figurehead, straw man, strawman]
Usage examples of "nominal head".
There's usually a nominal head and a de facto one, someone for show and someone for scheming.
Her big Victorian house lately emptied of all companionship but that of her scolding cats, she was supplied by her job with an adequate measure of human commerce, mother to her girls (love lives of Byzantine complexity) and father confessor to two guilty and confused generations of the Chace family, whose nominal head arrived each day about this time, facetiously declaring his affection, begging for her hand, imploring her to make him a happy man.
Carune was nominal head of the Jaunt project until he died ten years later, but he was never really in charge of it again.
You were the one who decided the major issues even though Lionel was nominal head of the Clan Burdon.
I am the nominal head of the company's private detective force, and though I have some pretty clever fellows on my staff we've got a case that, so far, none of us has been able to unravel.
Arris has been elevated to the position of nominal head of our scientific station here, for the duration of the project.