DIRECTOR
Colleen Harris MVO, DL
With more than a 30-year track record of high-level experience, including senior appointments in the Prime Minister’s Office and a Member of HRH The Prince of Wales’s Household, Colleen has also held high profile senior in-house roles in key sectors – in particular, in equality, race-relations, career development, coaching, recruitment, public affairs, public relations, and media management. Specialist thinking in a range of related areas, including engaging hard-to-reach groups and diversity and inclusion policy. This is complimented by broad range of trusteeships in the arts and health.
Winner of Woman of the Year and listed as one of UK’s most Powerful Black Women and Top 100 BAME Business Leaders.
Sandra Paul
Sandra Paul has been in the communications industry for over thirty years with particular expertise in the financial services and diversity sectors. She has run her own consultancy business for over 15 years having previously worked in the City and Government. She brings strategic business skills, corporate governance and crisis management to the table. Her clients have included Zurich, Standard Life, Old Mutual, alongside a large number of smaller companies. Sandra has worked on a pro bono basis on Ethnic Minority and Financial Education & Access issues throughout her career including: working for President Mandela in 2001; currently, she is President of the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments (CISI) Cotswold region; and she is Business Commissioner for Gloucester City Commission to Review Race Relations. Over 20 years ago, she convinced NatWest Group to sponsor the Ethnic Minority Awards as back then, they needed convincing that the ‘black pound’ could be profitable. We are still having the same discussion today.
Charles Crichlow QPM, MA
Charles Crichlow is a former police officer who served for 30 years in Greater Manchester Police (GMP). He was elected President of the National Black Police Association in 2009 and served in that position for four years. He is an experienced community organiser in the Manchester area where he lives and has been instrumental in supporting and developing numerous community organisations and activities. He is a graduate of the University of Manchester School of Law and holds a Masters in Criminology. His research was focused on measures to reduce serious violence within Black communities in the United Kingdom.
Bevan Powell MBE
Bevan Powell MBE is an anti-racist advocate, a campaigner for human rights and racial justice. He has spent most of his working career within the Metropolitan Police Service. He is one of the founding members of the National Black Police Association in the United Kingdom and former Chair of the Metropolitan Black Police Association (MetBPA) in London. In 1998 Bevan was one of three executive members of the MetBPA who gave crucial evidence to the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry and helped to shape the language of ‘Institutional Racism’. In February 2019, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Macpherson report, he again presented evidence to a House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee looking into institutional racism. Bevan specialises in community engagement, particularly where organisations struggle with issues of trust and confidence with local stakeholders. In 2007 Bevan was awarded an MBE for his contribution to policing. Bevan sits on a number of voluntary boards in the third sector, including Citizens Advice, he is also Deputy Chair of Nubian Life, a charity providing day centre facilities for older people from African, African Caribbean and South Asian Communities.
Christine Okiya
Recently Okiya, was the Secretary to the Review into Institutional Racism at Westway Trust. She has worked in the Ministry of Justice, Home Office and Office for Criminal Justice Reform. As a Policy Advisor in the Ministry of Justice she had responsibility for amendments to reference material on the handling of domestic violence and child abuse, ensuring compliance with the Equality Act (2010) liaising with devolved administrations and the Legal Aid Agency. Christine has a degree in Social Policy and Criminology.
Dr Bankole Cole MA, PhD
Reader in Criminology and Human Rights at Sheffield Hallam University. Dr Cole taught criminology and criminal justice at Northumbria, Hull, York and Lincoln Universities (1990 - 2014). He was Co-Director of the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice at Hull (2007 -2009) and Co-Chair of the Centre for Offenders and Offending at Northumbria (2013 - 2014). Dr Cole co- founded the Race Crime and Justice Network in the North East with Maggie O'Neil and Gary Craig.
