Richard Hawkes

Richard Hawkes is Chief Executive of disability charity Scope.  Scope seeks to drive the changes in society that will result in disabled people having the same opportunities to fulfil their ambitions as everyone else.  Scope runs a wide range of services for disabled children, adults and their families, including five schools, a further education college, information and advice services and a variety of different types of adult services throughout the country.

Prior to Scope Richard was the International Programmes Director for VSO, with responsibility for programmes in more than 40 countries.  He has also been the Chief Executive of an international charity working for people who are both deaf and blind and has worked for other international organisations, including the United Nations in Vienna.

Richard is a member of the BBC Appeals Advisory Committee, a Trustee of Skills – Third Sector, the sector skills council for the voluntary sector and a Trustee of the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group.  He is Chair of iPartner India, an organisation that enables effective and sustainable giving from the Asian community in the UK and a member of the Programmes Board of Sightsavers International, the leading blindness prevention NGO.  He was Chair of BOND, the umbrella body for UK based international charities, for four years until November 2008, including the period in which BOND co-ordinated the Make Poverty History campaign.