Page 75 - Powerlist 2019 - Digital Edition

Baroness Floella Benjamin
Peer, House of Lords; Policy Maker; campaigner Politics, Law & Religion
for children’s rights

Appointed to the House of Lords eight years ago, Baroness
Floella Benjamin has made it her mission in Parliament
to campaign on diversity, equality, education, media and
children’s welfare.
This year she gave her voice and support to the victims of
the Windrush scandal. She used a speech in the House of
Lords to attack the Home Office as incompetent.
The first black female Chancellor of a UK university, she
stepped down from the helm at Exeter after a decade in 2017.
During her tenure Exeter became a top 10 Russell Group
university and a top 100 world-ranked university. This year
(2018) a bronze bust was unveiled on campus in her honour,
making her the only living person of African or African
Caribbean heritage in British history to have their own public
statue commissioned.
Baroness Benjamin started her career in showbusiness
some 50 years ago, first appearing in hit stage musicals
including Jesus Christ Superstar before moving into TV
dramas. She was best known as presenter of the iconic
Play School and has continued to delight children with
appearances in Chuggington and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
She starred in and was critically acclaimed in the 1977
British Cannes entry film Black Joy, and appeared in the films
Run Fat Boy Run and Rendition. In 1987, she founded her own
production company and produced hundreds of children’s
NEW Dr Kathryn programmes for all the major broadcasters.
2019 She spearheaded the creation of the BAFTA Children’s
Nwajiaku-Dahou Awards, now in their 22nd year. Since 1973, she has been
Director, Development Results; Head of campaigning for diversity both in front and behind the
International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and camera and now advises the BBC and other broadcasters on
Statebuilding Secretariat, OECD their diversity policies. She campaigned for 20 years for a
minister of children which became a reality in 2003.
Political scientist Kathryn is co-director of the Paris-based The Baroness is also Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary
consultancy Development Results, which was established Group on Children’s Media and the Arts and works
in 2013 to advise governments and aid agencies on how to with Government to prevent children easily accessing
promote growth with equity in Africa. pornography.
She is also Head of International Dialogue on
Peacebuilding and Statebuilding at the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and is
a recognised expert on conflict, peace-building and the
extractive industries in fragile states.
Kathryn holds a PhD in Politics from Oxford and has acted
as a consultant across NGOs, governments and multilateral
agencies, predominantly in West and Central Africa
including Burkina Faso, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Chad
and Mauritania.
In 2013, she was winner of the Ruth First Prize for Best
African Academic Article, and in a previous position
as adviser to the OECD on Peace and Conflict, she took
responsibility for the publication of its flagship Fragile
States Report (2015).
In her role with Development Results, Kathryn has
undertaken diverse commissions ranging from sector-
specific project evaluations in fragile states (WaterAid
Niger, 2014 and DFID Nigeria 2013) to technical papers on
natural resource governance and civil society engagement
as well as macro level conflict analyses of the West
Africa/Sahel region.

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