Marie Staunton

Marie Staunton is Chair of the board of Crown Agents, an international development social enterprise.

She is also Chair of the Board of Trustees for SOAS University of London.

Marie started her career as a human rights lawyer where she worked with community groups and women’s organisations and as a solicitor in a community law centre in the West Midlands before joining the private sector as a Director of a Pearson Company. She subsequently moved to the NGO sector where she was UK Director at Amnesty, and Vice Chair of their International Executive Committee. Thereafter she became Deputy Director of UNICEF UK, followed by over 10 years as the Chief Executive of the international development agency Plan UK, including latterly a spell as CEO of Plan Canada. She is currently the interim CEO for Power to Change, an independent charitable trust set up in January 2015 to grow community business across England.

Marie served as UK representative to the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency.