About our Commissioners
Caroline Waters (Interim Chair)
Currently Vice President of Carers UK and Founder and CEO of CW Consulting Box, Caroline Waters was also Director of People and Policy at BT and has a distinguished record on equality, inclusion, and human resources, and has been the driving force of many diversity-focused groups. She chaired, for example Employers for Carers from 2001 to 2013, was founder and inaugural Chair of the Employers' Forum on Belief, and Chair of the Lone Parents working group. She was awarded HR Director of the Year in the 2009 HR Excellence Awards and has also judged a number of prestigious diversity awards including the CRE Race in the Media Awards and Help the Aged's Living Legends. She was awarded the OBE for services to diversity and equal opportunities in the New Year's list in 2010. She is a Director of Roffey Park and a member of the Whole Education Board.
Ann Beynon OBE (Wales Commissioner)
Ann Beynon, Commissioner for Wales, retired as BT’s Director for Wales in July 2015. She is now Senior Advisor Welsh Affairs for Severn Trent Water; Chair of the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University and a director of the social media company Cwmni Digidol. She sits on the Board of the Cardiff Capital Region. She consults and lectures on leadership and corporate social responsibility. Ann has held a number of senior roles in public and private sector organisations, and was awarded an OBE in 2008 for Services to Business.
Kaliani Lyle (Scotland Commissioner)
Kaliani was appointed as Scotland Commissioner in 2010. Kaliani leads the Scotland Committee which is involved in working strategically with the Scottish Government, Local Authorities, UK Government and Parliament to ensure equality and human rights are at the heart of all work carried out. Kaliani has a track record of delivering strategic change and has worked in a range of senior equality roles.
Kaliani was a member of the Independent Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services in Scotland (Christie Commission) and currently sits on the Board of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. In 2007 she received the Alastair Hetherington award for humanitarian service by the Institute of Contemporary Scotland.
Lord Chris Holmes (Disability Commissioner)
Lord Holmes of Richmond is Britain's most successful Paralympic swimmer, winning six gold medals at a single games and a total of 9 throughout his career. As Director of Paralympic Integration for London 2012 he was responsible for leading the team that planned and delivered the 2012 London Paralympic Games. A lifelong campaigner for equality and inclusion, Chris was appointed to the House of Lords in 2013 as Lord Holmes of Richmond. Chris is supporter and patron of several charities including The Duke of Edinburgh Awards, the Queens Diamond Jubilee Trust, Help for Heroes, the British Paralympic Association and Guide Dogs. Chris undertakes regular public speaking engagements in the UK and around the world.
Evelyn Asante-Mensah OBE
Evelyn Asante-Mensah has worked with a wide spectrum of organisations and partnerships for over 20 years, tackling inequalities and promoting equality, most recently as Head of Equalities and Economic Inclusion for the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA). Previously, as Chief Executive of the Black Health Agency, she grew the organisation from a community group to a well-respected regional organisation with a national profile. She was Strategic Adviser for Community Cohesion and Diversity for the Government Office for the North West and has held several non-executive roles, including Commissioner for the Equal Opportunities Commission, Chair of Race for Health, and Chair of NHS Manchester. She features in the Independent on Sunday's Pink List which names the top 100 most influential LGBT individuals. She was awarded the OBE for services to communities in the New Year's Honours List in 2006.
Laura Carstensen
Laura Carstensen is a non-executive director and chair of the Audit Committee of Park Group PLC and a non-executive director and chair of the Values & Ethics Committee of The Co-operative Bank plc. Formerly she was an equity partner in the City law firm, Slaughter and May and since leaving the firm in 2004 she has held a range of board appointments in both the public and private sectors. She has served as a member of the Competition & Markets Authority since 2005 (formerly the Competition Commission) including as Deputy Chairman. She is a Senior Adviser to the National Audit Office and a Trustee of National Museums Liverpool.
Professor Swaran Singh
Professor Swaran Singh is Head of Division, Mental Health and Wellbeing, at the University of Warwick. He is also an honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Birmingham & Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust as well as Hub Lead of the Mental Health Research Network (MHRN) at the Heart of England Hub. He has worked within the NHS at clinical, academic and managerial levels and is an academic respected in his field, having written extensively on ethnicity and mental health. He has also engaged in voluntary work dealing with human rights abuses in India.
Sarah Veale CBE (Interim Deputy Chair)
Sarah Veale is a member of the Board of the Health and Safety Executive and a member of the Government's Regulatory Policy Committee. Until September 2015, Sarah headed the Trade Union Congress Equality and Employment Rights Department. She was formerly a member of the ACAS Council and the Women's National Commission. Sarah was awarded a CBE in 2006 for Services to Diversity, and in 2011 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Laws by Oxford Brookes University.
Susan Johnson OBE
Susan Johnson was, until her retirement in July 2015, Chief Executive at County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service, where she was the first woman and non-uniformed chief executive to lead a Fire and Rescue Service in the United Kingdom. She previously held a senior position in the Regional Development Agency for Yorkshire and Humber following a career in international marketing in the information technology sector. Susan was awarded an OBE in 2000 for services to New Deal in the North East, and has held a number of non-executive and trustee roles in the private, public and not for profit sectors including Greggs plc, Legacy Trust UK and Durham University.
Lorna McGregor
Lorna McGregor is the Director of the Human Rights Centre and Reader in Law at the University of Essex. Prior to becoming an academic, she was the International Legal Advisor at REDRESS and a legal advisor to the International Bar Association. She holds an LLB (Hons) from Edinburgh Law School and an LLM from Harvard Law School.
Chief Executive
Rebecca Hilsenrath
Rebecca Hilsenrath was appointed Chief Legal Officer to the Equality and Human Rights Commission in March 2014. Prior to that, she was for five years CEO of LawWorks (the Solicitors Pro Bono Group), a national charity facilitating free legal advice to community groups and individuals in need. After graduating from Cambridge, Rebecca trained and practiced at Linklaters, and then moved to the Government Legal Service, where she held roles in the then Department for Education and Skills and in the Attorney General’s Office. Rebecca has also established two schools, set up the National Pro Bono Centre in Chancery Lane and has sat on the boards of a number of charities and advice agencies, including the Bar Pro Bono Unit and the Mary Ward Legal Centre. In 2012, she was listed by the Times among the 100 most influential lawyers in the country. She has four sons and a foster daughter and her hobbies include renovating a listed cottage in Snowdonia and writing e-novels.
Last Updated: 01 Apr 2016