Maeve Sherlock has been Chief Executive of The British Refugee Council since August 2003. The Refugee Council (www.refugeecouncil.org.uk) is a large charity working to support refugees and asylum-seekers and to defend asylum as a human right. Maeve had previously spent three years as a full-time member of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Treasury, where her role was to advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, on a range of social issues including child poverty, welfare reform and charities. Maeve has had a long-standing interest in understanding and tackling social exclusion, and she previously headed a a charity working to support lone parents. She is a former President of the National Union of Students. Maeve has variously been a charity trustee, a university governor and a member of government committees. She is now a member of the Advisory Board on Naturalisation and Integration, which advises the government on interesting issues such as citizenship. She is also a trustee of the excellent think-tank, Demos which is in the inspiring business of what it calls “building everyday democracy”.