Executive Director The Gradel Institute of Charity

Sir Stephen is globally recognised as a leading voice in charity and philanthropy. He has provided advice to governments nationally and internationally. He has led the development of the charity sector in the United Kingdom through his 16-year leadership of the organisation for charity chief executives (ACEVO). He is well known as the voice of charity in the national media and has spoken extensively in international fora. He has worked with successive governments developing public sector and charity policy. He is the only charity leader ever to have addressed a full meeting of the British cabinet. He conducted a major national review into choice and competition in the NHS.

 He founded and became the first Secretary General of EUCLID, the European wide third sector leaders’ network. He was also a prominent member of the Commonwealth civil society committee.

 For a decade Sir Stephen chaired the Social Investment Business, an organisation founded to make social finance available to 3rd sector organisations: at its peak £400 million was invested. He has also had numerous non-executive appointments including six years on the Honours Committee, and as an independent assessor for government appointments. In 2013 he was asked by the Prime Minister to review government policy on people with learning disabilities following the Winterborne view scandal and he has become known as a strong campaigner for the rights of such people.

He is a Patron of the Muslim Charity Forum and a trustee of the British arm of Pro Terra Sancta, an Italian charity working in the Holy Land and of the American Friends of the Oxford Union. After leaving ACEVO in 2016 he co-founded and directed Charity Futures, the leading charity think tank committed to developing a more sustainable sector, which led to his appointment in 2022 as the Executive Director of the Gradel Institute of Charity at New College, University of Oxford.

He has received accolades for his leadership work from former UK Prime Ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron. He was Knighted in 2011.