Page 83 - 2018 Powerlist

NEW Dr Margaret have opted for a career at the UN, her formidable business Public Sector & Third Sector
2018 brain and passionate championing of diversity have seen
Casely Hayford her lauded in her field.
Chair, ActionAid UK In 2014 she was appointed chair of the international
NGO ActionAid, whose aim is to tackle poverty and
injustice worldwide. She came to the role from eight years
When Dr Margaret Casely Hayford was a child, she wanted as company secretary and director of legal services at
to become Secretary-General of the United Nations. John Lewis Partnership, saying: “I wanted to work with
For a girl from such a high-achieving family, such an organisation that not only carries out humanitarian
ambitions may not have been altogether off the scale. Her work, but is also focused on establishing rights and
grandfather Joseph’s 1911 novel Ethiopia Unbound is cited responsibilities; because that is where individual dignity
as influencing pan-African politics and 20th-century civil and opportunities for individuals to be involved in the
rights activists, her uncle Archie helped write Ghana’s realisation of their own destiny spring from.”
constitution after independence from Britain in 1957, while In 2015 Dr Casely Hayford launched the charity’s
her father trained as a lawyer and her mother worked for Fearless grassroots campaign to end violence against
the British Council. women and girls, winning £6 million in funding from the
And while former barrister Dr Casely Hayford may not UK government.

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