Dr Halima Begum, Chief Executive, Oxfam GB

Halima is CEO of Oxfam GB. Much of her career has been spent working in international development with DFID (now the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office), the British Council and LEGO Foundation, with extended overseas postings to countries including China, Nepal, Indonesia and Pakistan. Prior to joining Oxfam, she was CEO of ActionAid UK.

Halima has headed major civil society, research and policy programmes in various fields, among them education, gender equality, poverty reduction, human rights, food insecurity, public health and post-conflict reconstruction, and is a well-known thought leader on civil rights and equalities.

She serves on the board of Demos, and is a member of both ITV and Burberry’s Cultural Advisory Councils. Halima is also a recent serving member of the board of the National Council for Civil Liberties (Liberty) and the IPPR Commission on Health and Prosperity, as well as an expert advisor to Cambridge University and the Institute for Government's Review of the UK Constitution. Born in Bangladesh and raised in London’s East End, she has been identified as one of the most influential disabled people in the UK, and one of the most influential British South Asians.