Andrea Coomber is an inspiring senior leader in the world of criminal justice who has had a remarkable and varied career through many different aspects of the world of law. Andrea shares candid insights about her compelling career path, starting with her early aspirations of becoming prime minister and her experiences working in the field of human rights before going on to be CEO of law reform and human rights charity Justice and, currently, CEO of the world’s oldest prison charity, The Howard League. Andrea discusses the nature of her purpose-driven work, highlights the importance of getting abundant real-life experiences and recognises the struggle of work-life balance as a single parent. She also speaks about the value of asking for help, being open to seizing opportunities and embracing vulnerability as a key part of leadership. Andrea expresses her journey as myriad instances of learning, resilience and adaptability.

01:23 From Prime Minister Dreams to Legal Realities

02:34 The Unconventional Path to Law and Human Rights

07:29 A Deep Dive into Human Rights Work and Its Challenges

13:17 Navigating Career Changes and Global Human Rights Impact

16:49 Life Lessons and the Reality of Human Rights Careers

18:55 Adventures in Egypt and Transitioning Careers

22:13 Making a Mark in International Human Rights Law

25:29 Navigating Challenges with Difficult Bosses

26:14 The Power of Advocacy and Personal Boundaries

29:32 Transitioning to Justice: Advocating for Legal Reform

31:08 Personal Journeys and Professional Shifts

34:35 Embracing Leadership: Insights and Challenges

36:49 The Importance of Coaching and Vulnerability in Leadership

39:45 Advice for the Younger Self: Trust, Vulnerability, and Enjoying the Journey

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so Today I'm really excited to have Andrea Kumar with me. Andrea has had such a varied and interesting career. She is a woman working in the law, but actually in a very different area from some of my previous guests, as she is currently working in the third sector or charity sector in criminal justice.

So very, very different to my private practice and corporate background, but working in an area that I feel very passionate about. As well as her career and thoughts on challenges she's faced during her career and her advice to her younger self, I'd love Andrea to tell us a little bit about two organizations that she has and is currently working for, and they are Justice, where she was previously CEO, and the Howard League, where she is currently Chief Executive.

Andrea will tell us a bit more about the Howard League shortly, but it's a campaigning charity wanting to build a more humane and effective response to crime in England and Wales, which provides justice to all and helps to reduce reoffending. And if anyone can help change things for the better, it will be Andrea.

As you'll see, she's incredibly bright, passionate, committed. Always willing to go out of her way to help other people and act as a connector and absolutely not scared to say what she thinks and to do it in a highly articulate and effective manner. So welcome, Andrea. welcome to the podcast. I was wondering if, you could just tell us a little bit about your career because it has been so interesting.

In fact, let me ask you, let me ask you when you were young and people said, what did you want to do? So pre You know, teenage years. What did you want to

be when you grew up? I always wanted to be prime minister. Oh, did you? Wow. Australia. Yeah, that's never going to happen. Yeah, I always wanted to be, well, I think for a short period of time I wanted to be a ballerina, but then my ballet teacher told me I was a baby elephant.

So I, I then always wanted to be prime minister. I mean, around the time Margaret Thatcher had become you know, Prime Minister here. I didn't, my sort of 10 year old self didn't understand the nuances perhaps of, of her, but, I thought, oh, well, it's possible. So, you know, I'll become Prime Minister of Australia.

So that was my plan. I mean, I'm very interested, obviously, in politics, and in addition, actually, to being at the Howard League, I also sit as a lay member of the House of Lords Conduct Committee, and so I am in that political space, looking at conduct of members of the House of Lords, which

is fascinating.

Yeah, hopefully you've got less to do than in the Commons, but maybe you can't comment

on that. Very different to the Commons, but, yeah, very interesting nonetheless. Yeah,

good. and yeah, so tell us a little bit about your career, how you decided to get into the law. Yeah, how, how, yeah, how it worked out and I'll, I'll ask questions along

the way.

Sure. So, I am I sort of did law by default, I guess, at university and didn't really have a sense of what I wanted to do, except I didn't want to do medicine because I didn't like the sight of blood. so, and at the time I went to the University of Western Australia. And you did a year of another faculty and then then you went into the law school and the top 12 in each faculty, I think, were offered a joint.

Law arts or science arts or whatever. So I, I did arts law with history, and really messed around at uni. I mean, I was, I started clubs. I was involved in debating. I, like, I, I started learning Esperanto and set up the inspir direction, and, and didn't take it very seriously, but happened, but did quite well, I think it's fair to say.

and then went and qualified for practice in a big commercial law firm, although I was in the, Let me just

stop you because, because although you were, I mean, I wouldn't call that mucking around. I think I'd call mucking around like not getting out of bed and doing anything, but you were clearly doing lots of different things and sort of interest.

Yeah,

I was doing lots of, yeah, I mean, I was a member of the University Senate, for example. Yeah, so I was, but I ran as a joke candidate and with a kind of serious angle and I managed to get elected. so yeah, I was, I was. I wasn't like, you know, having breakfast bongs and, you know, getting drunk like some of the people before school.

but, I was busy. I think I've always been quite busy.and then I went and qualified working, in kind of, equal opportunity government practice, did a bit of insurance and absolutely hated it. I mean, I just. The highlight of my day, every few days was sneaking off to have sushi at one of those sushi trains, with one of my fellow friends who's gone on to be enormously successful, in the house.

So it didn't do us either of us any harm. but I, I wrote sort of 11 months in, I wrote a list of all the things I was good at and all the things I enjoyed. And I think there were like two of them that I was ticking off by doing. By being at the firm, so

that's quite an intro because actually that is something that I often get people to do is to, in fact, I'm doing some coaching on branding today and even with branding, I get people to think about what are they good at?

What do they enjoy? What gives them a buzz? What do they want to contribute in order to start defining? I mean, I guess. What their goals are, what do they want to be? How do they, and then how do they want to be perceived for branding? But it's interesting that you, with no help, you sort of came up with that on your own, that you'd write this list of like, I'm not happy, so let's have a look at what's really going, going

on here.

Yeah. Well, I figured the things I needed to be happy were to feel like I was good at things and to feel like I was making a difference, so sort of like having, I mean, I've always been very purpose driven, so no question. and, and, and then what I enjoy doing, I mean, you spend a lot of your life at work.

Yeah. So I've kind of very early on realized that I didn't want to spend that time doing, doing stuff I didn't enjoy or that I didn't think was valuable. which is obviously limited to a degree, you know, what you can sort of then do. But yeah, I, I, I wrote a list. I mean, I think one of the things I, that was on the list that I thought I was doing in my job was talking on the telephone.

I mean, that's how base it was. And I looked around at the people who were there. and at the time. You know, it was a magic circle sort of firm, but there was only one female partner.and I'd look at lots of the male partners and just think, really? Like they were good at their jobs, but only because they'd done them for 25 years.

It wasn't like at university, my friends were incredibly bright and sort of engaging and engaged and, and I didn't get that from people who are in the partnership. So they weren't very inspiring to me. I think it's fair to say as I looked at them and thought, gosh, I don't want to be like that. Yeah. so I called up the legal practice board and found, asked them how many, like, did I have to do 12 months?

To qualify, or could I get away with 11 months and a month's leave? and so I was told I could do 11 months and a month's leave. So at 10 months, I actually handed in my resignation. Wow. Okay. I did not want to be there. And with

a few, did you know what you wanted to do at

that point? Had you worked it out?

No, I don't think so. I mean, no, I didn't know. I, so I'd done, honours in law. And so I went back to do honours in my arts degree and I. I just taught, I ended up teaching like trusts and, and commercial law and stuff at a smaller law school, which absolutely is terrible, but, and, and over that time thought, okay, I want to get into human rights, but I mean, human rights at the time were not a thing.

Like in my law degree, there'd been one course that was a six month course called human rights and equal opportunity.and we were all told that, you know, in human rights or international law, which we had to do, was something you were doing for interest only. None of you will ever get a job in it. It was all dreadfully inspiring.

so I decided Why would

you do it then, if it wasn't like sexy at that point? And what, Drew, what, why did you think, oh, no, actually, there's something here that I think I could do,

or I want to do? Because I, I, I want, I wanted to make the world a better place. It sounds stupid, but, I've always been driven by Feeling like I was really very lucky.

Like I grew up around lots of deprivation. I grew up in the bush and most of the kids I went to school with, you know, didn't have, didn't have anything that, that we had. And, and lots of indigenous kids who were dropping out of school and in problems with the law. And, and I always sort of felt like I was very lucky and therefore should kind of make the most of, of what I had, and so, and I, and I guess that's kind of why I did law is it could have been politics or journalism.

but for me, it was kind of law, and I think I saw potential in law, even though that wasn't drawn to my attention. so I'd sort of read, you know, Brown vs. The Board of Education and Roe v. Wade and saw that that law could change things for people, but that really wasn't on offer at the commercial law firm I was working at and also wanted to kind of get away and have an adventure.

And my then partner and I, he was a couple of years older than me. so we, we wrote to 10 NGOs. In Asia and said, we're Australian lawyers willing to come work for nothing and they all rejected us except for one guy in New Delhi who said, sure, come, come on. so, and after 2 weeks, he offered me a full time job earning a princess sum of 5, 000 a year, which was fine more than to live on and that was working for a regional human rights organization.

So,I was very quickly able to put my. My talents to, to use, helping victims of torture and executions and, working on reports on religious minorities, working on a report on prisons in India, which is staying on women's prisons. so, yeah, and it was, I was 25 and it was a completely kind of immersive.

sort of cultural experience.And

how does that feel like leaving home, going off to a completely different country, but also dealing with the subject matter that in itself, you know, can be quite traumatic, I guess.

Yeah. I mean, that's the funny thing is I didn't do medicine because I thought of, I didn't like the sign of blood.

And then I all of a sudden found myself in an office with, you know, grown men coming in and taking off their shirts to show me the scars from their torture. And I don't know, like, I, I just ended up having the stomach for it. a lot of people don't, you know, it's just not for everybody.so it was, it was incredibly rewarding.

I mean, I became pretty obsessive work wise about it.and we'd have these American interns come from Yale and Harvard who were like, so,you know, compared to sort of somebody from small kind of town in Western Australia, you know, who were just completely driven and had a really strong sense of themselves.

And I didn't, I had a really strong sense of myself, but I didn't have a strong sense of what my career trajectory was any sense. I was more just like a sponge soaking up. All of the experiences and learning a lot and had a fantastic boss who really included me from day one in, in the running of the charity, as much as in all of the influencing and, and work that.

So, so I learned huge amounts. I helped a few people, like I got some people asylum and wrote some interesting reports. I wrote a school book for children called A Step in the Right Direction about human rights. Yeah. That ended up, I think not becoming necessarily a big bestseller, but ended up on the curriculum in India.

So that was amazing. Wow.

Okay. Cause I was going to ask you, like, I mean, a bit like working in criminal justice, I mean, when you work in these. In these areas where there's just so much change required, did you ever feel like this is futile because, you know, I help one person and there's, you know, another thousand outside the door?

Did you ever, do you ever suffer from

that? Is that something you I mean, I think I've always had a sense that I, you know, I do what I can. I'm not going to be able to help every single person. and, you know, I, like, Yeah, I mean, people would often say to me, like, you know, why you don't come back from a straight from India to Australia for Christmas or whatever.

I think it was just not a proper job, whereas I felt like I was able to help individuals expose human rights violations in India within the UN system, which was part of my job. so I felt. Like, you know, there was terrible stuff happening in the world and I was doing my little bit to be able to help it a bit.

And I don't think that's really changed. I mean, much as my job now is about kind of revolutionizing the way we approach punishment and imprisonment. And that's the organization's mandate. You know, you don't do that alone and you don't, you don't do that. You can't, you can't possibly try to do that alone.

Yeah.

Can I just ask a bit of a segue, but like a bit of a going on a tangent, in terms of advice for people who, you know, young people at the beginning of their career, because obviously now a lot of people are like, want to be purpose driven and they're like, I'd love to do something in human rights, but it's hard.

What advice do you give people who come to you and say, I want to get involved in campaigning or human rights? Do you talk to them and give them advice?

Yeah, I do all the time. I mean, like, I think last week I gave advice to three or four different people. I mean, often they're people who are, who have been working in a law firm and want to kind of move out.

But anyway, Whereas then kind of 15, 10, 15 years later, I was running a legal team at InterRights, and I was rejecting people with PhDs from Stanford who spoke four languages for internships, because it had all of a sudden become a sexy, more than valid use of a law degree, a desirable thing to do with a law degree.

so that's definitely changed. I mean, I advise people to, to actually get, to, to recognize how competitive it is now. I mean, I think.you know, there are a kind of a handful of jobs for human rights lawyers, if you're being perfectly honest, across the planet. Mm-Hmm. . And so you need to distinguish yourself from all of those other people who are wanting those jobs.

And you do that by guessing. I I don't think you can get by without a decent master's degree from a good university. Right. which I mean, I, I did that. I, I went to the London School of Economics and taught the law course. I, I applied myself in my masters, unlike, unlike my undergraduate. but. But I'd already kind of been in the sector, to learn languages, if you speak languages, learn languages.

But the most important thing, if you want to do international human rights work is you need to, to move internationally. You need to get grassroots human rights experience. And, and that's the thing I think that trips people up. and frequently InterRights, I'd have people calling me up sort of. Quite angry that, you know, they've got a PhD from Oxford and they speak Chinese and Arabic, you know, and why haven't I shortlisted them?

And I'd say, well, you know, these are the people I have shortlisted and I've been working for grassroots organizations in Botswana and like, they have actual experience, of, of what we're talking about when we talk about, you know, torture of people or, or, or denials of rights. So,I think getting real experience.

It is important. You can also, I mean, I think it's, you also can, right? I think it's important that that people who don't go down that route, who choose to go to big firm law or in house can recognize that they can also really make a contribution. Like, you don't have to give up your job and work on fresh air and commitment like me.

You can, like, some of the people I know who've gone to the city, made a lot of money, you know, have done extraordinary things through philanthropy. and, you know, joining boards and all of that sort of stuff. I mean, you do like, you know, you've got, you've built a do good in world on the back of your, your work in the city.

and, and that's also incredibly valid and valuable. and charities like the ones I run wouldn't be able to survive without support from people who have chosen a different path for themselves. Yeah. but, but try to do good through other ways. Sorry. It's just not, it's just not for everyone, this kind of pretty peripatetic, low pay, sort of life that I've chosen.

I'm not sure if I necessarily understood all of those things when I chose to go down that route. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think we talked about like, maybe, well, maybe we'll talk about it later when you're talking about advice yourself, but thinking about. What do you want out of your life longer term when you're starting out?

Can some, I mean, not with a linear plan, because obviously you need to be flexible. Things might change things, completely different things might come up, but what sort of like, are you going to be happy moving around a lot and not getting paid

that well? It's interesting. I talked to one young person last week, she's in her early thirties.

And, and I sort of said, you know, it's this sort of route is. A low pay rate. So,I mean, I can remember years ago having an argument with 1 of my bosses. About my pay when I first joined InterRights and, she said, you, you just, you know, you shouldn't do human rights work, Andrea, unless you have a trust fund or a rich husband.

And I said, but I don't have either of those things. But like, she said, well, in that case, you need to get another job, you know, which was, was pretty awful. and it's not like, I mean, obviously we try as much as possible to, we do give people a living wage, but. There's no point pretending that getting a job at the Howard League in our legal team is anywhere comparable to getting a job in a city law firm.

I mean, I am, I think, the same as a newly qualified person at Freshfields and I've been practicing for nearly 30 years and I'm honorary King's Council and, you know, like, I. I know I'm guessing a bit more about some stuff than a newly qualified person. so, but that's just not the work is not valued in that way.

Yeah. And it's easy. This, this girl last week was saying, you know, well, I don't care about earning very much money. We don't care now, but. When you've then got a family or, you know, you find yourself, I mean, I've ended up being a single parent, but you know, you just, you do care about those sort of things, but it's, you know, it is more complicated than what your 20, 30 year old self thinks it's going to be.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you're, so you're in India. What happens next in terms of your career path?

I probably would have stayed forever because I was so happy, and found myself, yeah, really thriving work wise and learning loads.

but my then partner was miserable. So. He got a job in London, working for a gas company somehow. And I got a job in Geneva working for a UN based human rights organization for a year. And the idea was that I'd then go to the London School of Economics and do my masters in international law, which is what I did.

And during that time, he moved to Egypt. So I was commuting between Egypt and Geneva and then London and Geneva. Yeah, it was a bit crazy. I can remember one day turning up to the airport on a Friday afternoon for a flight to Cairo. And, the check in lady saying to me, you know, where's your luggage? And I said, I don't have any luggage.

I'm just going to, for the weekend. And she looked at me and said, my life's very different to your life.which it definitely was. and then after two years of living apart, I moved to Egypt, after I finished my master's, and was. Kind of there, I wasn't legally allowed to work in Egypt, which was incredibly frustrating.

So I rode my horse around the pyramids every morning at 7 o'clock and then red lots. And I did a bit of consultancy for the then High Commissioner Mary Robinson in. Southeastern Europe and Croatia and in Southeast Asia. We

can't,

we can't move on that quickly from riding your horse around the Pyramids.

Oh, so good. I know, Asira, beautiful horse. So I would go out to the Pyramids every morning and And ride her. I'd pick up, I got permission from, from the oil and gas company to, to drive my own car because we all had drivers, but they didn't start that early. so it was a big controversy that, Justin's wife wanted to drive her own car.

I presume at that time there weren't tourists, like it was too early for the tourists to arrive, was it?

It was just all the stable boys getting the horses ready. so it was fantastic. And then I'd go back to the stables and have a cup of tea with the stable owner. And, yeah, it was amazing. I did it seven days a week.

That was a great way to start your day. Oh, it was amazing. It was beautiful, but it only kind of filled in two of the hours. Right. It's like during the pandemic, I was back in Australia and I was, my friends and I do ocean swimming and we'd swim every morning. And it was just beautiful, like to wake up, go for a really long swim.

and this is in Perth and Western Australia. It's glorious. and then go and have a cup of tea and chat and that's all finished by kind of 8. 30 and then it's like, Oh, but now there's the rest of the day, the rest of my day. And, and that's where I sort of struggle. That's where living in my work life in London is better for me.

Cause for the rest of the day, I am happier. Although the mornings are never as good as they were when it was in Cairo. No, I can see that. Yeah. That was amazing. and, yeah, I still go back there and, and ride when I can, I ride like an Egyptian stable boy. So, yeah, and then, the, my relationship came to an end.

I mean, I love the study and I love my friends and everything, but I just thought the UK had was a stupid place to live. Like, the LSE would be a whole lot better if it was in any other location.and then I took a job in London, which we used to call it The Rock. Like, why are you going to go back and live on The Rock?

So I, I got a job on the rock and actually even sort of being very happy here, but, yeah, so that was doing, doing a quality litigation. So, very early disability litigation, the convention on the rights of people with disabilities is being elaborated. So I was involved in that, doing work on, on gender based violence.

rape, domestic violence, homophobic abuse, before regional courts. So we took cases, we supported local lawyers in Eastern Europe to take cases to the Strasbourg court, cases to the African commission from African jurisdictions. So it was an awful lot of travel. Right. And then, like a lot, frequently be out of the country for kind of months at a time.

back for a day to do some laundry and then off to another continent. And you, and you

obviously you've, you were a single mother by

then, so you took your I wasn't, I wasn't a mother, I was just single. I was single. Oh, you hadn't had a baby by then. Yeah, I hadn't had a baby by then, so this is 10 years before my baby, mostly.

Yeah, so I was, Yeah, the baby came from a non husband man, a different man. a non husband man. Non husband man. so yeah, so I was doing that and then eventually I did end up in a relationship and I did end up having a baby. Mm-Hmm, . and that's when that became all a little unsustainable. so he, I was on a, I can remember being on a flight to Nairobi.

as was kind of the way, and my, my then partner had a, a big job. He couldn't possibly have been helping with childcare. So I just take my child on to work with me, in Nairobi or Strasbourg or wherever. And he'd have local childcare. And again, getting on the plane, like the whole of the kind of crew, the service crew knew his name and knew my name and thinking, God, there's something wrong with the whole cabin crew of a flight to Nairobi.

Know your child's name. So, yeah, when it, by the time he was 2 and a half, I thought, oh, no, this, this is not great. And around that time, I was approached for the job of justice. Okay. By then I'd been the legal director at InterRites for 5 years, managing a legal team of 11. People who were taking all kinds of different cases, so lots of the Guantanamo investigation, cases on education, on health rights, all kinds of stuff, torture.

So

that sounds like it was a really fulfilling

time. It was, yeah, it was, it was fantastic. I mean, I learned a lot.I mean, in part, because during that period of time, the organization had really poor, had one in the 10 years I was there, we had one really great chief executive who'd come over from the European commission, but he only stayed for three years because of some kind of.

Then you had to go back to the commission and then the rest of the time there was either not a person in post or the person wasn't so great. So I learned I kind of had to step up a lot and which wasn't a bad thing and had so I had 1 really bad manager a lot from, which was at the time I wasn't. I wasn't loving it, but I did learn a lot from him.

So actually one question that might be interesting to talk through is like your advice on if you have, you know, sometimes you have an amazing boss and that's brilliant. Sometimes we have more indifferent or actually worse than that boss is.

Do you have any advice for people about how to deal with a boss that isn't? The best boss you could possibly

have. I mean, I think you obviously have to try as much as you can to manage upwards. And I've, I mean, I've had some, some great bosses and I've had a couple of ones that are a bit so so, I had one who was pretty bullying, which was quite pleasant.

and in the end with that, I, I sort of thought that I couldn't actually. I wasn't actually going to be able to to do anything about her. So I just had to leave. Okay. So I, so I approached the, the chair of the board and asked for a reference for a job I was applying for and they said, why is that? And in the end decided that she should leave rather than.

So in fact you

did, cause I think one of the things that

often people don't do. I won, but it was, but it was really stressful because they're not going to choose me over her, like, cause, cause they're a senior person. Yeah. but, but yeah, I mean, I just have, I've always had a pretty strong sense of what I'll put up with and what I won't put up with.

Right. so that, that hasn't been a struggle for me.

and I, I think that is one thing that people struggle with. You see them staying in. Very unhealthy situations and not saying this is enough. I have to move on. I mean, I do think like telling organizations, we know it can still be problematic and difficult and people worry about their careers.

Hopefully that's changing with, you know, more of an, a transparent approach to not just whistleblowing, but, you know, raising concerns and giving feedback. But yeah, I think that is one, one thing I would say to

people. I mean, it's something that I've, I get contacted by people who have worked with me in the past.

Not infrequently at all about. you know, about their position that they're in now, and, and I always tell them to, to talk to somebody, you know, ask for help, like, you know, and, and often the, the kind of behavior they're describing is, is really unacceptable and they're kind of putting up with it because they feel like.

That person's the boss. I mean, what's interesting is, like I mentioned, like I get asked to give advice to people. and oftentimes people call me from big city law firms and say, I really want to like, get away from this toxic environment and big city law firm and work for a lovely NGO. And I have to say, like, NGO culture is just bad.

A lot of the time it's really unhealthy. Yeah. It's behaviors that occur in charities that wouldn't last for five minutes at Clifford Chance or Linklaters. You know, because everyone's there driven by, you know, some kind of moral superiority in a weird way. and so you couldn't possibly imagine that anyone be mean to people, but I've seen behaviors and charities that have been absolutely atrocious.

Yeah. so, so I think you really do then just need to work out what you're prepared to put up with and not put up with, and you need to say, you know, I, you, that you said, I'm leaving because of X. And, and realize that you have options. And if it's, the other thing is, I think if it's happening to you, it's happening to other people.

It's really rare that you're the only person that that's happening to. So you do need to kind of, not band together, but you need to say to people, I'm not happy about this. And in the end, it was a couple, like, it wasn't me and another colleague who we kind of, you know, advocated for ourselves in a way that.

That made, we kind of stood the test of time. Yeah,

good. Okay, so, so then on to justice. I was just wondering, could, could you just tell us a bit about justice and, because I think it's interesting, I think the bar, so barristers seem to know a lot more about justice. And then I would say like solicitors and law firms.

it'd be great to do a little plug for justice. What is

and and that's what it's done for more than 60 years. it's it's done that and it does it through drawing together its membership. And as you've said, it's got a really strong membership at the bar. A lot of the senior judiciary retired judiciary have been members of justice. For many, many years, it was just something that, that you kind of was expected to be, you know, you're expected to join justice, of, you know, your values, and then, yeah, so it pulls together it's, it's membership, to come up with ideas for law reform change.

Um, . yeah, it's, and it's done great work since then. So I was the chief exec there from 2013 until 2021 when it's funny. I was thinking back last night because my big kind of career moves have been. Moving from, I guess, Egypt to inter rights, and then moving from inter rights to justice, and then from justice to the Howard League.

And each one of them has been precipitated by something that's been happening simultaneously with something in family life. So, my first was the divorce, obviously, that I Then came to interact, rather than, I guess, going back to Australia, which is what he did to, you know, have very happy family life in Australia.

Now,the 2nd was.having, having a child and thinking, God, I can't keep up all this international travel with the child. And then the third was during the pandemic, I, I was back in Australia nursing my mom through late stage cancer, and this opportunity. I mean, I'd been a member of the Howard Lake for years, and when I was at justice, I used to go and teach at a law program at Warren Hill, which is a prison in Suffolk, found it really rewarding and I really enjoyed spending time with the men and, it's a low, a category C prison.

So, this job, I, I'd always sort of thought that if the job at the Howard League ever came up, I would consider applying for it. And then during the pandemic, it did. So I applied online, my interviews were all online from Australia, while I was nursing mum in my last interview on her 75th birthday, which was her last birthday.

so it just was like funny timing, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, but, but I kind of moved this latest move to the Howard League has been a combination of head and heart. So the course I taught on at Warren Hill was, was run by Jack Merritt, who was killed at London Bridge in a terror attack. and so part of it was sort of thinking, oh, Jack's never going to be chief executive of the Howard League, which is the world's oldest prison charity.

For, like, 160 years nearly has been amplifying messages around how bad prisons are and what's happening in prison. And we've got an incredibly able comms team. Pretty much every story about prisons is somewhere our comms team has got a hand in it. so I wanted to marry those 2 things, marry the policy with the litigation.

and that's kind of where we are. have moved, I've moved the organization to because when I started the legal team only worked on children and young people. So we have an advice for children and young people in custody, which is amazing and is an incredible gift. I mean, everybody listening to this will understand the, the importance of good legal advice.

and kids in prison couldn't really be more vulnerable. No, it's not really anybody more vulnerable. I don't think than 14, 15 year olds.who are taken away from their families and most of them are still on remand.so, and it's incredibly vulnerable. but, but we're now, in addition to doing work with children on the advice line, looking to challenge prison conditions and other things, and

I want to talk to you a bit more about that, but.

Can I ask you before, like what was it like stepping up to be chief executive? Like that's a big move. It's a move obviously a lot of people want to make in their careers. What do you think about it? What did it feel like? What did you

learn from doing that? I mean, I was lucky because in many ways, I'd been the legal director at InterRights for five years, so I'd been involved and I'd been managing a team of 11 people, which was too much of a span of control, but anyway, it had presented lots of, of good management, and human resources challenges.

and for a fair bit of that time, we didn't have a chief exec, so I had had to do a lot of that role already. So I kind of knew what I was doing. I knew what I was doing a bit. When I started at Justice though, there were only five members of staff. so it was a much smaller team, which gave me much more space to, to think and plan.

And, there wasn't, you know, there wasn't really a lot of money, there wasn't a lot of strategy. So I was kind of starting it all afresh. As so, and I've had to do much the same at the Howard League, although there are many more people. My predecessor had been enrolled for 35 years. So there's a lot to kind of, unpack and obviously with any transition in leadership, there comes a refocusing a strategy and.

Setting up lots of back office things. so updated our charitable objects and set up a finance committee and all of these sort of things. In addition to deciding that actually we're going to focus on lifting the lead on how bad things are in prison and doing litigation, comms and policy work around that.

Yeah.

So some management experience is pretty foundational taking on a role

like that. I've also been always really good at asking for help. I'm, I'm a big help asker. I don't, I don't have all the answers to pretend to have all the answers. I'm not even close. but I, I tend to know people who can help me.

So, I, over time, whether that's help, you know, asking people at law firms, like, you know, can you help. We've got this human resources problem. I don't suppose your human resources team would be willing to help us. They are like, they'd love to, you know, just, asking friends who know people who I don't know if they can make connections, all of that sort of stuff, as it has been really helpful.

And then. In like halfway through my time at Justice, I got a coach, so David, who was terrific, and he was helpful at dealing with some, some knotty kind of management y sort of things, I guess, but also in thinking about what I wanted to do, like with my, my time and what I would be good at, and this was not with a view to actually leaving, but just having a sense of, direction of what I should be doing to set myself up, I guess.

and I didn't do any of those things. I mean, they didn't actually, I think probably helped me at all because.I, other than just knowing that I wanted to work in the prison sector,which he did help with, but at one stage, I was thinking about doing a portfolio career because I have the job in the house of Lords and one of my members of that was saying, you know, you should do this.

Like, I'm doing this commission and and with his help, I realized that it's not for me. Like, I just need. More structure than that, if I was to leave myself to have your day, Erica, I'm sure I'd just stay in bed with a book and like, maybe even have a sauna, that'd be it, that'd be done. so I think I do need kind of a bit more routine than that.

What,

what do you think about coaching in terms of like. As a con, you know, how did you find it? How and what do you think about it? Is it, yeah.

I mean, I think it's enormously beneficial. Mm-Hmm. I think it gives you time to like a space and time to step away from whatever crisis you're dealing with.

Yeah. Or you're dealing with on a daily basis and, and kind of interrogate you're thinking and your plans and to set priorities, and all of that. I mean, certainly my, my time at justice, there were periods where I really, really needed it and it was.

And then I went for a few years where everything was kind of cruisy and it was still really nice just to touch base. And that's when we started thinking about, you know, what I actually might want to do, do next, but it does, I mean, look, as you know, I'm frequently referring people to you for coaching because I'll be in conversations with people who I care about or whose work I care about.

and I just don't think I'm the best person to give them advice because in any, I have skin in the game in one way or another, in a way that a coach doesn't have skin in the game.

Yeah. And I mean, I think that's because although people, you know, people come to you for advice when in coaching, as you say, the biggest thing.

Is the space getting away from the day job, thinking much more strategically about your life and your career and having someone there to support, but also challenge you who doesn't have any sort of agenda. And then for me, the biggest thing is people hearing themselves talk out loud is they, they, they most.

You know, most issues and problems you can give, you know, you can give, you know, talk about your experience or talk about psychology, but a lot of it, it's within people. They just need to bring it out and have that support and challenge. So that is the great thing.

so now, we're coming towards the end of the podcast. So I want to ask you, can you think about what three pieces of advice would you give to your younger self?

How much younger? I'd be loath to give myself advice. I mean, I think I've done quite well to get where I was in all of the circumstances because there wasn't, there wasn't really a set route, like there wasn't a plan.

I just kind of seized opportunities. So, I guess the first thing would be just to continue to. Follow your instincts and trust yourself to, to do different things and to see value in, in building up skills and experience that might be objectively leading nowhere and not part of a proper job. the 2nd, 1 would be to ask for help just to.

Asking for help. and I mean, I think probably pretty early on, I was quite a vulnerable leader, I guess, because I sort of had to be like, even at justice, I can remember, you know, because I was a single parent for most of the time I was at justice. If that all the time justice, there would be things I couldn't do.

And I just have to say, look, I can't do that because I've got a small child and I have really seen you judges say, well, in that case, like, why don't we go to McDonald's for our meeting rather than to the Jelani? And I'd say great on a school holiday, like. Henry would come along to a meeting with a really sainty judge at McDonald's, Kings Cross.

That's amazing. I mean, just, can I just say, cause I think

that, I think it's getting better, but I think a lot of women feel like they, they can't say that sort of thing. They can't, they have to basically pretend they can do everything and they can perform in exactly the same way, exactly the same hours as someone who isn't, doesn't have childcare or isn't looking after.

Parents or have some other issue in their life, which might be the menopause, for example. I think having that, having, being brave enough to say, I can't do it that way. Because most people think that means that you're not going to have a job or a client or, but look at you with the most senior judges at Kings Cross.

I love that image.

Yeah, I, no, but I think it's also important for, for the people you manage, particularly the women you manage because, You know, I think there's a danger if you make it all look easy and that you can just easily balance everything and like that, that women will look up to you and think, I can't possibly do.

Yeah, I'm never going to be able to, and I, I don't in any way pretend that any of it's been easy. It's not easy at all. I'm just doing my best on a daily basis every day and some days are definitely better than others, but I'm pretty good at giving myself slack and I'd very much hope that the people who I managed to do that as well.

But, I don't think there's any point in pretending that our lives are as simple as, as men who have, you know, a stay at home wife. There's nothing wrong with that, but like that they have that kind of support structure. Yeah. Yeah. and. You know, that, that, that it's the same and like, in my case, it's been single parenthood.

It's been not earning huge amounts of money. So I've never been able to afford a nanny or, I mean, I had an amazing child minder. I still do. She's looking after Henry this week, but, you know, I, I've had amazing support from her and I've got great friends and all of that, but I don't have family around because my family are all in Australia.

so I've been quite alone. I don't think it's any point pretending. About that, really, and, and I think people, like, even really senior people, recognize. Recognize that they know that life's that it's not easy and then they'll look at me and say, like, how, like, it's impressive that you can do all of this and I'll be like, that's great.

And the people who are, I can remember once going to something, like, cause I have to go out a lot of evenings for work still, but when I was at Justice going out for an evening thing and, and this. Old person saying to me, oh, you know, why weren't you at this event last night? You know, I would expect the director of justice to have been at this thing.

I just remember looking at him and thinking, well, I've already been out 3 nights this week and I've got a 4 year old child. Like, I can't possibly be at everything. So you might expect that. You're just not going to see me. Like, I just, there are times that you have to choose that. So, but again, I think it comes back to having a pretty strong self, a sense of.

Yeah. And what I think is right and wrong, what I'm prepared to do and what I'm not prepared to do. And, so, so yeah, but I think, you know, being, being vulnerable, it's not in any way a weakness. I've never thought it's a weakness. And I don't, and I think now there's increasing like recognition of that. and yeah, much as I'd love to be completely kind of self contained and in control all the time.

I just think you're like, everyone does better if they're themselves. Yeah. And for me, that's. Being a bit stupid and being a bit, making jokes and, yeah, like being human, being human. Yeah, not being, I mean, I remember talking to a friend, in fact, the same friend I used to go and steal sushi with, not steal, we didn't steal the sushi, but still time to have sushi when we were doing articles, she was working for a very big oil and gas company in senior role.

and we were laughing and I just said, I love your laugh. Like, to hear. And she said, Oh, I like to hear it too. I never laugh in the office. I was like, what are you talking about? And then she told me about how she like never laughs in the office. She has her different accents. She uses, like, she has a different voice that she uses.

All of this stuff, which was, I just thought completely exhausting. you know, and in the end. You know, she realized she just couldn't continue on doing that. Like it's, you know, she did it for nearly 30 years. But, yes, I've never had to, to bother with that. I just think it's just, it's tiring enough without being somebody who's not you.

and then the final thing is to, it sounds stupid, but to enjoy the journey more. Like, I think I, particularly at Justice.but even now, like, there are things I'll do where it's just a question of getting through. So I can remember organizing big, like a really big dinner to celebrate Justice's 60th anniversary.

and everybody was having a really lovely time. And I can remember really seeing, then Master of the Royals coming up to me saying, Andrea, like, you know, this is all so wonderful. Are you enjoying yourself? And I was like, No, I just want it over. Like, I just, I just wanted everything to be like, I want it over.

I want it to be finished. Everyone to have had a good time us to embrace. Like, that's what I feel like far too much of the time. I mean, and I, I struggle with that now. Like, I just think, okay, I'm doing this fantastic piece of work for the Hadley. I'm doing a big interview on television. I just want it over.

Like I'm not going to actually let myself enjoy it, because I just needs to be a success and head over. so I need to sort of still work on that. So I did that 20 years ago, but also last week.

Yeah. I mean, that's, I talked to a lot of people about reframing and. I know, like, it comes up most obviously in public speaking, where what people are saying to themselves, and I know you're, you're a very experienced public speaker, but most people who are doing it and aren't that comfortable with it, or hate it, are saying, I hate this.

Why have I agreed to do this? I can't bear it. I don't want to do this. I wish this wasn't happening. And I, and I talked to them about trying in their head to say This is an amazing opportunity. How lucky am I that all these people are willing to come and listen to me? I've got things I really want to share.

So you just switch what you're saying in your head and maybe like with that sort of thing, because it's on your to do list. It's yet another thing that you've got to do and could go wrong. I want it all to go right. I want it to be done. It's like stopping and going. No, this is amazing. I'm going to now sit back and enjoy it because it's all happening.

It's that sort of, can you, can you start practicing, I guess, like stepping back. Not that you can't do it all the time, but I'm saying I'm going to look at this and enjoy it and think how amazing that I get to do this because there may come a time

when I'm, you know, I don't have this opportunity. I mean, my job now involves doing a lot of media.

What much more media work than I'd ever done before. And it used to fill me with dread. Mm-Hmm. . Whereas now it'll be like, oh, the channel four news crews coming over. Like that's good. Like I'm looking for, like, I'll have a tea cup of tea ready for them. because.it's an opportunity to share how bad prison policy is, with a really broad audience and, you know, the, the flavor of prisons now, I think it's getting reasonably favorable.

so, I mean, even, even the, when I've been on kind of hostile territory, I'm like talk TV or whatever, I've now got to the stage where I quite enjoy it. Really? That's amazing. Yeah. Well, they're like, you know, they're just going to say what they're going to say. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I, look, I don't take any of it personally.

And you're not

worried about how you're going to be judged for your performance on that thing now? That doesn't No,

I mean, I, I regret if I say anything that's kind of sounds stupid or gets edited to sound stupid, which is, but no, I mean, I'm pretty confident on the subject matter. And then there are some things that we're just not going to agree on.

I was doing a hilarious one last summer, which was on talk TV with this sort of shock jock. Man, and it was about shoplifting. and I think the government announced they were going to make sentences from shoplifting up from 14 years or something was third. and, and we were having the interview and as we were doing the interview and I was explaining that like most people who shoplift are shoplifting to feed addiction or because of mental health problems or these sort of things.

And, you know, locking them away for 14 years is not the answer. they put some footage on, which was of a big four wheel drive. Banging into a 7 Eleven and just people jumping out with guns and like grabbing. And I just say, look, this is what you're showing. This footage is not shoplifting. Like this is holding up somewhere at arms.

Like these people are getting custodial sentences. And even he was like, oh, no, you're right. Like it was just, so no, I'm not, not too worried about all of that stuff now. I mean, you don't want to do a bad job. I'm. I'm, and I guess that's the thing is that, the press and media work, you know, the media work particularly does expose you as, you know, it is quite exposing.

for most of my day, I can sit here and do a so so job. not that I want to do a so so job, but nobody's really going to judge me. It's not like I'm a surgeon, like we're not surgeons. There's, there's, You don't have to be on a hundred percent of the time, you really want to be, and you put that pressure on yourself to be, but I'm not a perfectionist and I've always thought that near enough is probably good enough.

And it's not if you're doing, if you're on the top story in the ITV news, like you don't want to come across as a moron. Yeah, yeah. No, I think I'm now in a position where I don't do that. It's like, it's slightly scary, but I am starting to enjoy it. And if I can enjoy that, I can probably enjoy most things I think.

Yeah.

Amazing. Well, look, thank you so much for your time and it's been such an interesting conversation. It's been really fun. Yeah. So everyone who's listening, sign up for justice and sign up to the Howard League, get their newsletters, go and look at what they're doing. yeah, do both of those things.

You'll get an awful

lot out of it. So thank you, Andrea.