The Progress 1000: London's most influential people 2015 - Campaigners

Justin Forsyth, Save the Children UK
16 September 2015

John Sauven

Executive director, Greenpeace UK

Sauven, a trained economist, has headed Greenpeace UK since 2008. He has led the group’s campaigns over the past two years against fracking in northern England and against oil drilling in the Arctic. In 2013 the latter campaign saw Russia arrest 30 Greenpeace activists aboard their ship Arctic Sunrise and hold them for two months.

Virginia Gardiner

Chief executive, Loowatt

Loowatt is a London company with an answer to a tricky problem: how can poor developing countries install desperately needed sanitation when they don’t have enough water? Its answer is a waterless toilet that seals waste into a biodegradable lining — a design that won £1 million in Gates Foundation funding. Gardiner founded Loowatt in 2008 after developing the design for her masters in Industrial Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art.

Dilys Williams

Fashion designer and teacher

Williams spent 10 years designing collections for Katharine Hamnett before becoming Professor of Fashion Design for Sustainability at the London College of Fashion. She established and leads the LCF’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion, “designing transformative solutions that balance ecology, society and culture” — for example by championing organically and ethically produced materials.

Giles Gibbons

Founder, Sustainable Restaurant Association

Working with shopping centres, train operators and a major airline among others, almost 4,000 restaurants, pubs, cafés and takeaways are now looking to offer a more sustainable dining experience with Gibbons’s help. The SRA also works with the Mayor to help restaurants reduce food waste through its FoodSave programme.

Erik Fairbairn

Entrepreneur and founder, Pod Point

Fairbairn’s training is as a mechanical engineer, but he is a serial entrepreneur, now dedicated to making possible a large-scale shift to electric vehicles. Pod Point is Europe’s leading electric car-charging company, installing charging points in public and private parking places. The Mayor has set a goal of 100,000 electric vehicles, supported by 1,300 public charging points, in London. Earlier this year Pod Point crowdfunded more than £1.45 million to invest in its network.

Andrew Simms

Economist

Simms is no ordinary economist, working at the New Economics Foundation to come up with radical and green solutions to the challenges of the last recession. His most recent book, Cancel the Apocalypse: The New Path to Prosperity sets out a sustainable and equitable path to economic growth.

Simon Birkett

Director, Clean Air in London

A sober fiftysomething former banker, Birkett does not fit the standard image of an environmental activist. But for the past five years he has been one of the most tireless campaigners for the capital’s air quality, amassing evidence and lobbying for action. After widespread coverage of breaches of pollution limits this year, and the Supreme Court’s April judgment that government plans to clean up our air are inadequate, it seems he might be getting through to people.

Nafeez Ahmed

Director, Institute for Policy Research and Development

International security analyst and consultant who has spent much time looking at how environmental risks and terrorism threaten our eco-security and well-being. His book A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It was made into a critically acclaimed documentary.

Lily Cole

Model and campaigner

Best known for her career in modelling and film but Cole has helped to support a string of green-tinged charities. She championed WaterAid’s End Water Poverty drive and has campaigned with the Environmental Justice Foundation’s Climate Campaign. In 2014 she visited Yawanawá tribes in the Amazon to highlight the impact of climate change on indigenous peoples and the plight of climate refugees.

Lily Cole Getty Images

Ashok Sinha

Chief executive, London Cycling Campaign

A physicist with a doctorate in renewable energy, Sinha led the Stop Climate Chaos coalition before the London Cycling Campaign. He was responsible for the LCC’s influential Go Dutch initiative for Dutch-style cycle lanes and junctions during the 2012 mayoral election and it is now finally starting to become a reality with construction beginning on TfL’s new east-west cycle superhighway and other segregated cycle lanes and roundabouts.

British environmental campaigner: Ashok Sinha
Rebecca Reid

Baroness Helic

Government adviser

She gave the world Will.i.Ange and now this Bosnia-born baroness has just taken her seat in the House of Lords. Helic, who was William Hague’s special adviser for a decade, introduced the former Foreign Secretary to Angelina Jolie before the two launched their joint mission to end sexual violence in conflict zones. “Minky” to her friends, Helic was a punk rocker at university, and the first person from her home town to graduate in English.

Christine Chinkin

Director, Centre on Women, Peace and Security

A professor of international law at LSE, she postponed her retirement to set up the centre which aims to end war rape. Believes men as well as women must sign up to study at the centre, which she launched alongside Jolie and Hague. Wants to end the “tolerance” towards war rape and shift the blame from the victims to the perpetrators.

Duchess of Cornwall

The future king’s consort once vowed she wouldn’t touch royal duties “with a bargepole”, yet she has become a powerful campaigner. An unexpected feminist, she has highlighted the work of domestic violence charities and rape crisis units, as well as becoming president of the Women of the World festival at the Southbank. The Duchess, a voracious reader, has also championed the Evening Standard’s Get London Reading campaign.

One in a camillion: Duchess of Cornwall Getty Images

Aneeta Prem

Magistrate

Bethnal Green-born Prem founded Freedom, a charity which campaigns against modern day slavery, forced marriage and FGM. Freedom was instrumental in the 2013 rescue of the three women who had been kept as “slaves” for a decade in Lambeth. The magistrate also has a black belt in karate.

Ken Olisa

Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London

Her Majesty’s new representative in the capital is determined to use his role for the greater good. Technology entrepreneur Olisa was the first British-born black man to serve as a director of a FTSE 100 company, but philanthropy dominates his CV of late. He is chairman of Thames Reach, a homelessness charity, and the Shaw Trust, which supports the disabled and chronically unemployed to find work. His Powerlist Foundation is opening its own City academy.

Solomon Smith

Co-founder, Brixton Soup Kitchen

Known as “Fat Boy” to his friends, this man mountain co-founded Brixton Soup Kitchen with fellow volunteer Diane Adenuga. The 29-year-old, a former support worker at Lambeth Youth Centre, sometimes gets up at two o’clock in the morning to ride around London on his motorbike delivering flyers to spread the word about the soup kitchen. As a teenager, he set up a football match between Peckham and Brixton gangs to improve relations.

Tracey Ford

Founder, JAGS Foundation

Ford’s son, Andre, was just 17 when he was gunned down at Streatham Ice Rink in 2007. She responded by founding the JAGS Foundation, in tribute to her son, which fights youth violence and provides training for young people and support for bereaved families.

Nikandre Kopcke

Founder, Mazi Mas

A half-Greek, half-German gender studies graduate and chef, Kopcke founded Mazi Mas, which runs pop-up restaurants employing female refugees and migrants. Based in Hackney, Mazi Mas means “with us” in Greek; Kopcke was inspired by her godmother who taught her how to cook, and wanted to open a bakery but was stopped by her husband who believed business was not for women.

Hayley Carr

Founder, Lauriston Lights

After attending a state primary school in Hackney, Carr won a scholarship to City of London School for Girls. Now, she tries to bring the same “inspirational, mobilised ethos” she experienced at City to children from deprived backgrounds, with her Hackney summer school, Lauriston Lights. The camp offers mentoring and focuses on encouraging students to think critically and be curious. Carr also helped research Anthony Seldon and Peter Snowdon’s book, “Cameron at 10” and is a trained massage therapist.

Alex Smith

Founder, SouthLondonCares and NorthLondonCares

Once an aide to Ed Miliband and the editor of LabourList, Smith has reinvented himself helping the elderly. SouthLondonCares and NorthLondonCares encourage young professionals to spend time with older neighbours, offering practical help and companionship. “Camden head, MUFC heart” states his Twitter bio.

Samantha Sparrow

Director,Task Squad

On her Twitter profile, Sparrow describes herself as a “social entrepreneur who is always innovating”. Oh yes, and a yogi. She works at vInspired, a charity which encourages young people to volunteer, running Task Squad, which then helps those young volunteers to find work. Probably has the best fringe in the social enterprise sector.

Baroness Lawrence

Campaigner

Elevated to the peerage in 2013, the mother of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence has continued to fight for the underprivileged. Lady Lawrence of Clarendon has called for legal aid for trafficking victims, and spoken out about the lack of opportunities for the young and spying by the police. She says she spent a whole weekend wondering why Ed Miliband had called her, only to ring back and discover it was about a peerage.

Baroness Lawrence

John Caudwell

Philanthropist

The Phones4u founder is the billionaire it’s fine to like: he’s a philanthropist who also believes he’s Britain’s biggest individual taxpayer. He has said he won’t be leaving much cash to his children: his ambition instead is to “leave two billion to charity, maybe three or four”. Caudwell, who has been known to dress in head-to-toe Versace, moved into the fashion business last year, and also has a stake in the London-based couture house Ralph & Russo.

John Cauldwell Rebecca Reid
Rebecca Reid

Sajda Mughal

Director, JAN Trust

On July 7 2005, Mughal was travelling to work on the Piccadilly Line when Jermaine Lindsay detonated a bomb. She is the only known Muslim survivor of 7/7, and quit her job in recruitment to combat extremism. As director of the JAN Trust in Alexandra Palace, she works with women to spot the signs their child is being radicalised, as well as working alongside the community to eradicate FGM and forced marriage.

Jaime Bautista

Founder, SMart Network

For 15 years, Colombia-born Bautista’s SMart Network has helped the disadvantaged and marginalised through art, hosting workshops and exhibitions. “Obviously not every homeless person can succeed as a painter ... but art gives them the self-respect to find other jobs,” Bautista has said. SMArt has developed partnerships with Tate Britain, the Courtauld and the British Museum.

Junior Smart

Founder, SOS Project

A former gang member who ended up in jail, Smart founded the St Giles’s Trust SOS Project nine years ago. His twin missions are to stop prison being a “revolving door” where ex-inmates end up re-offending, and to help young people escape gangs. He is a key player in the Evening Standard’s London United campaign.

Miriam González Durántez

Partner, Dechert LLP

Husband Nick Clegg may have stepped down as leader of the Liberal Democrats but she is influential in her own right. The high-powered international lawyer has become an increasingly public figure as a tireless promoter of the Inspiring Women campaign to get female role models into schools. She also has her own cookery website.

Miriam González Durántez
Dave Benett

Cherie Booth

Barrister

The leading silk’s eponymous foundation helps female entrepreneurs in emerging markets and has reached 118,000 women in 80 countries in the last seven years. Booth, the wife of former PM Tony Blair, has now left the human rights practice Matrix Chambers to concentrate on her international consultancy, Omnia Strategy, which advises governments and big business.

Henry Dimbleby

Co-founder, Leon

Dimbleby is the man who’s made Londoners swap their lunchtime sandwiches for lamb kofte salads at his nutritious fast food chain Leon. Now the father-of-three is trying to bring this approach to schools, overseeing the government’s review of what children are served. Though he’s a kind of posh Jamie Oliver (he went to Eton), he says there’s no rivalry. The son of BBC broadcaster David and cookery writer Josceline doesn’t touch white bread or refined carbs, instead opting for a caveman-style diet.

Jemima Goldsmith

Campaigner

The heiress and former Mrs Khan (her marriage with cricketer-turned-politician Imran ended in 2004) is now a journalist and campaigner. She was one of six people to post bail for Julian Assange back in 2010, though she has since criticised the “cultish devotion” that surrounds the Wikileaks co-founder. She is the associate editor of the New Statesman and Vanity Fair’s European editor-at-large, yet supported Hacked Off. The 41-year-old has dated Hugh Grant and Russell Brand.

Russell Brand

Comedian and activist

The former-Mr Katy Perry is media Marmite. Having made his name as a comedian and then an actor, it’s now his political activism that makes more headlines, including his calls for revolution and declaration of apathy where he encouraged others to follow his lead in not voting. He launched a political-comedy web series The Trews last year, famously interviewing (and talking over) Ed Miliband before the general election. Despite being thrice crowned the Sun’s “shagger of the year”, he has now fallen out with News UK.

Charles Jencks

Co-founder, Maggie’s Centres

An architecture critic, designer and sometime sculptor, Jencks co-founded the charity Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres with his late-wife, Maggie Keswick Jencks, who died of cancer 20 years ago. The 13 centres provide psychological and social help for patients as they struggle with the disease, in appealing settings close to — but separate from — NHS hospitals. Jencks is a great believer in the ability of beautiful buildings to comfort and raise the spirits.

Anna Wilson

Head, Department for International Development’s humanitarian response team

Wilson leads the superheroes who go into areas facing emergencies and ensure aid is distributed effectively. Still only 32, she led the UK’s response to the earthquakes in Nepal, joining the Secretary of State Justine Greening on her visit to the country. Her husband is in the military — the pair met while in Helmand.

Hugh Milroy

Chief executive, Veterans Aid

Outspoken, pragmatic and compassionate, Dr Milroy is the man behind one of the charities at the heart of the Evening Standard’s Homeless Veterans campaign. A former RAF Wing Commander, his no-nonsense attitude has made the charity indispensable for veterans in crisis. With his blond hair and strong Scottish accent he is instantly recognisable to the many veterans who drop into the charity’s Victoria HQ every day.

Comfort Momoh

Midwife

“It’s child abuse,” Momoh says about FGM. “We’re talking about human rights here.” The midwife has spent half her life working with women who have undergone FGM, and set up a clinic for survivors at St Thomas’ Hospital 17 years ago, as well as lecturing on the subject. In 2008, she was awarded the MBE for services to women’s health.

Comfort Momoh of the McNair Centre at Guys Hospital, London Bridge Matt Writtle
MATT WRITTLE

Leyla Hussein

Psychotherapist and co-founder, Daughters of Eve

For many she has become the face of the anti-FGM campaign. She fronted the Channel 4 documentary The Cruel Cut, which marked a watershed moment in the fight against FGM. Works with survivors who need psychotherapy, and travels to schools to speak out against the problem.

Julia Lalla-Maharajh

Founder, Orchid Project

She set up her charity with a vision of a world free from FGM. Before that she spent 18 years in business but left to volunteer in Ethiopia, where she came across FGM for the first time, and went on to volunteer in Senegal and The Gambia. In 2009 Lalla-Maharajh stood on the Trafalgar Square plinth to raise awareness and in 2010 she spoke about the issue at Davos. She writes a blog about her efforts for the Department for International Development website.

Eddie Stride

Chief executive, City Gateway

A human dynamo who built City Gateway into an award-winning social enterprise which helps disaffected young people into jobs or apprenticeships. The 34-year-old believes youth unemployment and child poverty is still dangerously high in parts of the capital. Born in Tower Hamlets, he went to Cambridge university and turned down a job in the City to spend his life helping young Londoners. His organisation is a partner for the Evening Standard’s Ladder for London campaign.

Justine Roberts

Co-founder, Mumsnet

Leader of the all-powerful mumsnetters who are courted by politicians and able to offer comments on everything from penis beakers to biscuit choices. Targeted by internet hackers in a “Swat” attack when armed police arrived at her door, Roberts’s other half is the editor of Newsnight, Ian Katz.

Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts
Daniel Hambury

Jane Scott

Founder, Professional Boards Forum

The number of women on FTSE 100 boards has almost doubled in the last four years — and that’s partly thanks to Scott. The former marketing director of Wolff Olins founded the Professional Boards Forum, which fights for greater representation of women at the top of British business.

Justin Forsyth

Chief executive, Save the Children

Forsyth called for humanity to be put above politics as fleeing migrants, including children, drowned in the Mediterranean. He has led Save the Children for five years, increasing income by more than £150 million. Began his career as a policy adviser with Oxfam in South Africa and was one of the driving forces behind the Make Poverty History campaign when he was recruited to No 10 by Tony Blair.

Lord Adebowale

Campaigner

A cross-bench peer, Victor Adebowale runs the charity Turning Point which helps addicts and those with learning disabilities. The 53-year-old father of two is also chairing the London Fairness Commission, asking residents how to ensure the capital is meritocratic and just. He plays the ukelele and has just ticked off one “bucket list” ambition: DJing.

Maggie Norris

Artistic director and chief executive, Big House Theatre

An actress-turned director by trade, Norris runs Hackney’s Big House Theatre. She works with young people leaving care, giving them a platform to perform, mentoring and long-term support. The idea came to Norris after working with ex-offenders and in prisons, and discovering that almost half of all inmates under the age of 21 had lived in care.

Justin Welby

Archbishop of Canterbury

An Old Etonian ex-oil executive, Welby swapped Mammon for God more than 25 years ago. Since his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury, he hasn’t shied away from difficult subjects — criticising the impact of austerity on the poor, and calling for Europe to take responsibility for the problems that drive migrants onto boats in the Med. On Desert Island Discs, he picked The Lion Sleeps Tonight (which he sings to distract his family during cards), while his luxury was a West Wing boxset.

Cardinal Nichols

Archbishop of Westminster

Vincent Nichols now has his red hat and robe after being made a cardinal by Pope Francis in the first such appointments of his papacy. The 69-year-old has spoken out against welfare cuts, which he said left people facing “hunger and destitution”. In May, he celebrated mass with a “pastoral outreach” to LGBT Catholics in London. Before his calling to the priesthood, he wanted to be a lorry driver.

Dr Giles Fraser

Priest-in-charge, St Mary’s Newington

The former canon chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, Fraser resigned in 2011 when the church made steps to remove the Occupy protesters on their doorstep. He is now the priest-in-charge at St Mary’s Newington and a journalist, writing for the Guardian and appearing on Moral Maze. He has written about struggling with depression, and described “assisted dying” as the final triumph of market capitalism.

Ephraim Mirvis

Chief Rabbi

The successor to Lord Sacks, the South African-born Tottenham Hotspur fan has warned that anti-semitism is on the rise. He spoke out against the Chasidic group who banned letting children into its schools if their mother had driven them, calling it a view of women “which is both objectionable and at odds with Jewish values”. His Twitter handle? @chiefrabbi.

Richard Chartres

Bishop of London

Chartres is famous for his environmentalism, leading the Church of England’s “shrinking the footprint” campaign and having a chauffeur-driven hybrid car. The father-of-four has declared that much religion is “really dangerous and lethal”, and called for Christians to live more simply to help eradicate poverty.

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