Oxfam's CEO, Leadership and Trustees

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.

Alison has over 15 years of senior executive experience in transformation and technology in a variety of roles spanning commercial, public and not-for profit sectors.

Alison’s skills and experience are in designing and delivering complex transformation for organisations. She has held strategic leadership, programme, project and operational roles for the Cabinet Office, Oxford Brookes University and the Open University amongst others.

She joined Oxfam GB in 2020, in what was a new role responsible for driving the implementation of our new strategic vision. Later that year her role expanded to incorporate the global operations of Oxfam GB and she was appointed Chief Transformation Officer.

Alison is an Independent Governor of De Montfort University.

Fee has a broad range of experience gained in commercial and not-for-profit organisations, most recently as Oxfam GB’s Engagement Planning & Integration Director.

Fee’s love of charity shopping brought her to Oxfam in 2007 to head up the Retail Marketing and Communications Teams. Before this she had spent nine years developing her marketing skills with an international household cleaning products brand.

Fee has led on launching key initiatives such as the M&S and Oxfam Clothes Exchange (now known as Another Life), Tag Your Bag gift aid and Second Hand September.

From 2019 Fee led Planning and Strategy for Oxfam’s Engagement division. In 2023 she joined the senior leadership team as Interim Chief Operating Officer.

Helen brings a wealth of finance and strategic leadership gained with organisations such as Save the Children and Comic Relief.

Helen joined Oxfam as Chief Financial Officer in 2023.

She qualified as an accountant at PwC, where she worked with a range of FTSE 100, private equity and owner-manager businesses and charities. In 2011 she moved into the charity sector as Director of Financial Governance at Save the Children International. Roles followed with Comic Relief, where she was Executive Director of Finance & Resources and Be the Business, a start up with a mission to improve UK productivity, where she was Chief Financial Officer.

Helen is a trustee of the Outward Bound Trust and a director of Blaze Trails CIC, a Community Interest Company supporting parents to get outdoors.

Jan joined in 2021, bringing leadership experience with organisations such as Greenpeace and Save the Children and a skillset including fundraising, market research and brand development.

Joyce is a strategic, dynamic and innovative HR leader and qualified coach, who provides leadership of HR activity, with a strong focus on evolving internal culture.

Charles Gurassa has been Chair of Oxfam GB since October 2020. He has extensive senior leadership and governance experience, including managing transformative change – and a passion for Oxfam’s values and work.

Charles is Chair of the Guardian Media Group, having previously been Chair of Channel 4 until 2022, and has been a Trustee of English Heritage since 2015. From 2005-2014 he served in board-level roles for the National Trust, including as Deputy Chair from 2013-14 and as Chair of National Trust Enterprises (2006-2013). Charles has also supported the Migration Museum in London as Chair since 2021 having been a Trustee since 2014 and chaired Genesis Housing Group, a housing association, from 2010-2017.

Other current and recent non-executive positions include:

2018 – current: Great Rail Journeys Chair

2011– end 2020: EasyJet Deputy Chair

2013 – 2019: Merlin Entertainments Group Senior Independent Director

In addition to not-for-profit and non-executive experience, Charles brings decades of executive experience, including as former chief executive of both Thomson Travel and TUI Northern Europe. He started his career as a youth worker with Youth Action York before moving into the travel and tourism sector. Charles made the decision in 2003 to step back from full-time executive roles for family reasons and since then has held a diverse range of non-executive positions.

Charles lives in London but loves to spend time in Italy. His hobbies include music, theatre, tennis, and football (he’s a Chelsea fan).

Annie Hudson joined the Oxfam GB Board in January 2020 and is the lead Trustee for safeguarding. She has a professional background in social work, safeguarding and children’s services. She is Chair of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (for England). Formerly, she was Director of Children’s Services at Bristol City Council and then at London Borough of Lambeth. She was also previously Chief Executive of The College of Social Work.

Earlier in her career Annie worked as a social worker, and as an academic where she researched and published on child protection and young women’s experiences of care. As Bristol's Director of Children's Services, Annie worked with the BBC on the highly acclaimed 'Protecting our Children' TV series. In 2012 she was given a national Social Worker of the Year award for her 'outstanding contribution to social work'.

As Oxfam’s lead trustee for safeguarding, she chairs our Safeguarding & Ethics Committee; with many others, she has been seeking to make sure that these issues are fully integral to all aspects of Oxfam's vital and inspirational work across the world.

Les is a chartered accountant with 40 years of experience in various finance roles in the private and public sector. He retired in 2017 as finance director in the Department for International Development. Prior to that, he was finance director at the Student Loans Company and before that, finance director at Glasgow Housing Association. His private sector roles were in British Energy, Scottish Power and PwC.

He was recently a member of the Board of the International Institute for Environmental Development (IIED), the policy and action research organisation which promotes sustainable development to improve livelihoods and protect the environments on which these livelihoods are built. He has previously had non-executive roles with the Scottish Legal Aid Board, which is responsible for managing legal aid in Scotland, and with Quarriers, Scotland's leading social care charity. He chaired the audit committee in all three of these organisations.

In his spare time, Les enjoys cycling and has been spotted in the Alps and the Pyrenees (though finds the hills around Glasgow much easier).

Les joined the Council of Oxfam GB as Treasurer-designate in December 2018 and became Treasurer in July 2019.

Andrew has been engaged with charities and wider civil society for over 30 years and has a longstanding commitment to the INGO sector. He is a chartered accountant and was Finance Director and Deputy Chief Executive of ActionAid UK (1986-1991) and Director of Finance and Corporate Services at Barnardo's (1992-1995). He then moved to the BBC as Chief Operating Officer of BBC World Service (1995-2004). He was the first chief executive of the Charity Commission for England & Wales (2004-2010) and then editor of Charity Finance magazine (until 2015). Andrew's extensive non-executive and trustee experience includes serving as a non-executive board member of the Information Commission (2010-2015), the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (2009-2016) and Chair of the Fundraising Standards Board (2015-2016). He is a former trustee of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, VSO and UNICEF UK, and is author of The Governance and Management of Charities. Andrew received the Outstanding Achievement Award for longstanding commitment and service to the voluntary sector at the Charity Awards 2008.

Currently, Andrew is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at Bayes Business School, London, helping to run its postgraduate MSc course in Charity Studies. Andrew is a member of Oxfam GB's Audit and Risk Committee.

Balwant joined Oxfam GB as Trustee in November 2022. He has more than 30 years of experience leading philanthropic, development and humanitarian organisations and initiatives. He has worked in more than 25 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, North and Central America, and the former Soviet Union, and lived in Singapore, the UK, Vietnam, North Iraq, Russia, Sweden, the US, India, Ireland and Switzerland.

His expertise includes leadership and organisational development, strategy, governance, diversity, impact and programmes for health, HIV/AIDS, education, human rights and humanitarian response. Originally trained as a physician, he holds an MBA with top honours and a postgraduate diploma in health services management.

Most recently, Balwant was the Executive Director of Sphere which establishes, promotes and reviews humanitarian standards for disasters and crises. Before that he was CEO of Kusuma Trust UK, a philanthropic foundation, for eight years. Earlier roles include Global Director of an innovative maternal and child health initiative across Africa and Asia funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Regional Director for South & Central Asia with Save the Children and Executive Director of Doctors of the World in New York.

Balwant continues to advise, facilitate and mentor on leadership, international development, humanitarian programmes, philanthropy, governance and diversity. He is passionate about social justice, volunteers with various organisations and loves cooking, photography and travel.

Hellen Grace Akwii-Wangusa, a Ugandan, a mother and grandmother of 4. She was born to a teacher who was later ordained into Priesthood, and a Mother who did development work as the Mothers Unions (MU) Worker. Hellen was awarded a University Women’s Scholarship, a Fulbright Scholarship and in 2001, a Commonwealth Research Grant.

Hellen’s career path started as a Lecturer at Makerere University in the Department of Literature, as well as working part-time with the Mothers Union (MU), and as a Women’s Provincial worker. After a short training at Manchester University, she was appointed to coordinate the African Women’s Economic Policy Network (AWEPON), which had chapters in 20 African countries. The focus of AWEPON was Economic policy analysis and gender-based research and advocacy. In that position, Hellen trained and secured funding for a minimum of 34 African women annually, to participate in influencing decisions and advocate for pro-poor and gender sensitive economic policies at the United Nations, The World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings and the World Economic and Social Fora.

In 2004, she was appointed by UNDP to coordinate Africa Civil Society Organisations implementing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) programmes in 16 African countries. Next, Hellen served as the Personal Representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion Observer at the United Nations (UN).

Hellen serves as the Chair of the Action Aid International Board, as an advisory member of Christian Aid International and the KARIBU Foundation-Norway, she is also a member of the Technical Task Force of the African Union.

Hellen holds a BA/DipEduc from Makerere University, an MA in Modern Letters and Women’s Studies from Tulsa University, USA, an Hon. PhD in International Relations and a second Hon. PhD in Civic Law.

Martha Mackenzie is the Executive Director of the Civic Power Fund, a new pooled fund dedicated to community organising.

The Civic Power Fund aims to build the power of communities to win change that matters to them. It does this by raising resources from large foundations, trusts, and philanthropies and redistributing them to grassroots community organisers and activists. The Fund prioritises communities excluded from full participation in democracy because of their race, gender, disability, class, sexuality, or immigration status. It aims to break down barriers to funding for these communities and provides long-term support to build bottom-up social movements.

Martha brings a background in organising, campaigning, fundraising and charity leadership. Prior to joining the Civic Power Fund, she was Head of Global Humanitarian Advocacy at UNICEF headquarters in New York. Here she led UNICEF's Global Covid-19 Advocacy and helped to establish UNICEF's Advocacy Capacity Building Initiative; boosting the campaigning capacity of their country teams. Before moving to the USA, she was Head of Government Relations and Director of UK Poverty Campaigns at Save the Children UK. Here she led a major sector-wide push to strengthen safeguarding and streamline criminal record background checks. She also helped to establish the Aid Alliance, a group of 46 international development who are still working together to build public and political support for UK Aid.

Martha has been an Oxfam supporter for as long as she can remember. From taking part in bakesales at primary school to joining the Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh and volunteering in her local Oxfam shop. She is thrilled to be part of Oxfam's work to shift power to the communities they serve.

Mitesh Patel joined Oxfam GB as a Trustee in November 2022. He is an entrepreneur with significant executive-level experience in large retail groups.

Mitesh is the co-founder of Lenstore and developed the business from a broom cupboard above his parents' shop into one of Europe's largest online optical retailers. He was a member of the Vision Express Executive Team, and at the age of 35 became the youngest member of the GrandVision Global Management Team - at the time the world's largest optical group.

He brings plenty of non-executive and charity experience, having previously been a non-executive director at Pizza Hut Restaurants, a member of the Companies Committee at the General Optical Council, and a Trustee of DePaul UK - the youth homelessness charity where he was also Chair of the DePaul Trading Company.

Mitesh lives in London with his wife, three children and two dogs. His hobbies include creative writing, village cricket and visiting Oxfam shops in search of a bargain.

Nana was called to the Ghana Bar in 1996 and the plan was to go into private legal practice until she found herself in the Gambia working as a Legal Officer with the African Commission for Human and Peoples Rights. It was there that she discovered her true calling. This was 1997/98 - at the height of Sani Abacha's excesses, and several civil society organisations (from Nigeria especially) engaged the Commission actively and fought for democracy and the respect for and protection of human rights in their countries. This fight for social justice was one Nana fully identified with and wanted to be a part of. She has not looked back since.

In 2004, she coordinated the work of the over 200-member coalition that pushed for a legal framework to protect survivors of domestic violence in Ghana and she has been an active member of the women's movement.

Through her work with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) as Governance Program Officer and Country Coordinator for Nigeria Nana pushed for an enabling environment for civic engagement, consolidating democracy, transparency and accountability in governance, the respect, promotion, protection and fulfilment of human rights in the sub-region. As the Regional Policy Advisor for West Africa for Ibis West Africa, she contributed to the organisation's work on improving natural resource governance, local governance and education, especially in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Currently, Nana heads the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), an organization with a mission to strengthen the capacity of civil society primarily in West Africa, but also beyond, to become more effective, efficient and sustainable in the fight for social justice and contribution to development.

Tunde is a Senior Partner with McKinsey & Company, Inc, a global management consultancy firm that advises leading institutions on a range of issues. He is based in London and leads the UK Digital Practice for the firm. He primarily works with Financial Institutions and Public Sector clients on strategy, operations, technology and organisation topics. He holds an MEng degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College, London.

He has been a supporter of Oxfam for more than a decade - working with members of the LT and Oxfam colleagues on topics spanning the set up of Just Energy, Shop logistics improvements, Fundraising Innovation, Culture and Private sector collaboration amongst many topics. Tunde has been a member of Oxfam's Trustee Audit & Finance Group since 2015.

Tunde is energised and impressed by the passion and commitment Oxfam colleagues bring to tackling critical social issues. He is excited to together find ways to amplify this impact, taking advantage where helpful of the insights he has gained seeing the practices and techniques employed by many highly effective organisations.