Andrew Wallis

Andrew Wallis, OBE, FRSA, is the founder and CEO of Unseen, a multi award winning charity, working towards a world without slavery. He is the Chairman of the Working Group for the Centre for Social Justice’s landmark report: ‘It Happens Here: Equipping the United Kingdom to fight modern slavery’ which gave a comprehensive road map for government, statutory authorities and business to eradicate slavery in the UK and now acknowledged as the catalyst for the UK’s Modern Slavery Act. He advises and collaborates with statutory agencies and businesses on how to combat and eradicate modern slavery. In 2013 he won the Influencer Award from the Directory for Social Change and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in recognition of his work in combatting modern slavery and human trafficking. He is a fellow of the Centre for Social Justice. In 2015 he was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to the Eradication of Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery. Unseen have been shortlisted for Charity of the Year 2015 by the Charity Times and Andrew has been shortlisted for Rising Star CEO 2015.

He has also worked with politicians to bring the Transparency in UK Company Supply Chains (Eradication of Slavery) Bill before Parliament and was a member of Frank Field MP Review Panel that worked on the Modern Slavery Bill. He works internationally with NGOs and businesses to develop a coordinated response to modern slavery. A former member of the UK Government’s Inter Departmental Ministerial Group (IDMG) on Human Trafficking and Chair of the Human Trafficking Joint Strategy Group at the UK’s Home Office. He is a member of the EU Civil Society Platform on Trafficking in Human Beings. Works regularly with media outlets such as: BBC News; BBC News 24; Radio 4 Today; Sky News; Local BBC News; Al Jazeera; CNN International; The Guardian (Print and Broadcast); The Sunday Times; Radio 5 Live; LBC; and BBC World Service

Prior to founding Unseen Andrew had a career in business analysis followed by commercial management in the retail sector, project management with the University of the West of England, and led a church. He currently serves on the board of a number of charities.