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The Charity Awards 2006 Outstanding achievement award winner interview 

Lord Victor Adebowale

Lord Victor Adebowale is one of the most charismatic and influential figures in the voluntary sector. He is someone who has made a huge difference not only to the organisations he has worked for, but on the environment they work in and on the sector as a whole.

He jokes that he first became involved in the sector because he was very bad at selling video recorders. More seriously, he decided it was where his future lay when he was still at school, at a time when everyone else wanted to be an airline pilot.

Victor started a career in housing with Newham Council before moving in 1985 to become head of permanent property at Patchwork Housing Association and then regional director of Ujima Housing Association. From 1990 to 1995 he was director of the Alcohol Recovery Project and then became chief executive of homelessness charity Centrepoint. Here, he says he had to make difficult decisions from day one in the full glare of publicity. His leadership skills and vision developed Centrepoint as an important provider of advice in key areas of Government policy around social change, including advising the Social Exclusion Unit and New Deal for Communities.

Victor says he enjoys tough challenges and after six years he took up a new one with Turning Point, the largest social care charity of its type in the UK working with people with a range of complex needs including substance misuse, mental health problems and learning disabilities. 

As well as his influence in the areas of social care and housing, Victor has been an eloquent and vocal spokesperson for the sector generally, especially in the debate over the sector's role in public service delivery, something he considers the single most important issue facing the sector today.

He describes his management philosophy as about 'keeping your eyes on the prize' and he refuses to be complacent. He says 'I am always learning and at no point will I be happy with my skills or achievements as a manager. For everything you have done well, there is the other side that you could have done it better.'

Recognition for Victor's achievements has already come with a CBE in 2000 for services to the unemployed and homeless young people, and his influence further increased when he became one of the first People's Peers in 2001.

As well as his day job and his role in the House of Lords, Victor is patron of a number of organisations, a member of the National Employment Panel, the Demos Advisory Council, the New Economics Foundation board, the Institute of Fiscal Studies council, and a trustee of RNID.

'This stuff really matters,' he states. 'The bottom line is important for a lot of organisations but what really counts is whether you can change lives.'