Member of the House of Lords, CEO of Legatum Institute, Chair of Social Metrics Commission 

Philippa Stroud is a member of the House of Lords, CEO of the Legatum Institute and chair of the Social Metrics Commission. Previously, she was chief executive of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a think tank that she co-founded in 2004. Stroud’s life and career to date have been strongly influenced by her passion to tackle poverty and social breakdown. Prior to the CSJ, she was special adviser to Iain Duncan Smith, then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, from 2010-15, and also to the British Prime Minister. In these roles, she was responsible for the development of the social justice agenda, working on the government’s key welfare reform program, the introduction of universal credit, the creation of social investment and the new child poverty measures. Her early career was spent in the voluntary sector, including time in Hong Kong and Macau working with heroin addicts and former gang members who were undergoing rehabilitation. On her return to the U.K., she founded and directed a four-stage project that supported moving people off the streets and into independent living before moving to Birmingham, England, in 2000, where she became executive director of the Bridge Project, a voluntary sector project that provided supported accommodation for homeless men and women.