Lesley Abdela is the Senior Partner on her own consultancy Eyecatcher Associates/ Shevolution and is Chief Executive of Project Parity, a UK-based NGO.

Journalist, activist and CEO, Lesley became involved in politics in the late 1970s, when she became aware of the lack of female representation in the British government. In 1980, Lesley worked with a group to set up the all party 300 GROUP campaign to get more women elected to Parliament and local councils. Their long-term aim was at least 300 women in Parliament (approximately 50% of MPs.) The 300 GROUP ran a high profile grass-roots advocacy lobbying campaign and by 1985 the 300 GROUP had 43 branches around the UK and Northern Ireland. Within 4 elections the number of women MPs increased from 19 to 122. Many of the thousands of women who joined the 300 GROUP are now elected Members of Parliament, the European Parliament and local councils.

From 1985 onwards Lesley Abdela worked as a freelance journalist and broadcaster in her own Partnership called Eyecatcher Associates. She was actively involved in Project Liberty, a group aimed at developing democracy in former Communist Central Europe, and interviewed women for Cosmopolitan Magazine UK during the war in former Yugoslavia. In 1996 Lesley Abdela and Tim Symonds set up ‘Project Parity’ a European based NGO to help to build capacity for women to have their voices heard at all levels of politics and public life in the transition from Communism to Democracy. Lesley Abdela is CEO for Project Parity, which worked closely with partner NGOs in Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, Ukraine and Russia to help women be elected to parliaments and local councils.