The sector was collectively dumbfounded when it was announced earlier this year that Richard Hawkes, the ebullient and popular Scope chief executive, would be leaving the charity within the month.  

He’d spent more than five years at Scope and was in the midst of overseeing a difficult but carefully planned and executed programme of care home closures and resettlement of clients in more appropriate accommodation, when a strategic review kicked off by the charity’s new chairman led to a change of leadership.

Hawkes was given the same advice over and over by well-meaning friends and colleagues - “You should really enjoy having this time and space to sit back, reflect and decide what you really want to do with the rest of your life”.  At the time, he admits, he found this advice highly irritating – but in time came to realise that it was spot-on.

“I ended up having the most amazing summer. I spent six weeks with my kids and took six holidays, and was really able to think about what I want to do next.  I realised I didn’t want another job running a big UK charity, I wanted to do something really different, something that had the potential to bring about real transformational change.”

Between holidays, he met with and sounded out numerous peers and colleagues, one of whom was Chris Mathias, a trustee of the British Asian Trust.  The Trust was established by the Prince of Wales in 2007 to match up wealthy Asian donors with effective development programmes in South Asia, and since then has amassed a list of patrons, friends and ambassadors that reads like a Who’s Who of high net worth individuals and high British Asian culture and showbiz - actors, athletes, businesspeople.  Yet its total income is still only forecast to reach £3m this year, and Hawkes says the staff and trustees were starting to feel frustrated that there was enormous potential that wasn’t being tapped.

So Mathias invited Hawkes to spend five days in the charity, meeting its staff and examining what it does, and at the end of that it was decided that a new role of chief executive would be created and Hawkes would be appointed to it.

Enormous potential for growth

He is brimming with enthusiasm at the opportunity.  “Just look at the potential.  We’ve got some brilliantly successful individuals involved, with access and contacts across the whole South Asian community; a list of patrons and friends that any charity in the country would give anything for; there’s an annual dinner that raises a huge amount of money, and there’s the convening power of Prince Charles. The basis is there to enable this to really explode and become something that is much, much bigger, that becomes known as the vehicle for all Asian giving in this country.”