Julie Mellor

Dame Julie Thérèse Mellor DBE is Chair of the Young Foundation, a Trustee of Involve, experts in public participation, Nesta, the innovation foundation and Clore Social Leadership.

She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 for services to equality. As Chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission (1999-2005) she is credited with transforming a law enforcement body into a catalyst for change on equal pay, pregnancy discrimination and flexible working.

Mellor was born in 1957 and was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford where she studied Experimental Psychology. Between 1979 and 1981, she was Eleanor Emerson Fellow in Industrial Relations Education at Cornell University.

Prior to her appointment as Chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) her career was in Human Resources, working for Royal Dutch Shell (1981–1983), the Greater London Council (1983-1986), the Inner London Education Authority (1986-1989), TSB (1989-1992) and as Corporate Human Resources Director for British Gas 1992-1996). She worked as a consultant on employment and consumer issues until 1999.

Following her time at the EOC she was a partner in the health team at PricewaterhouseCoopers (2005–2011) and pioneered citizen's juries as part of the firm’s contribution to the public sector. She was the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and the Health Service Commissioner for England (Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman) (2012 to 2017) where she increased investigations of complaints about public services tenfold from circa 450 a year to 5000 a year and worked with Parliament to use the learning from complaints to hold government to account for improving public services.

Mellor has served as a non-executive board member on several bodies: Commission for Racial Equality (1996 and 2003); Fatherhood Institute (2004–2008); National Consumer Council (2001–2007), Employer’s Forum on Disability (1994–2009), the Green Alliance (2007–2009) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (2008–2011). In 2003, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Anglia Ruskin University. She was made an Honorary Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford and a Fellow of the City & Guilds of London Institute.