Trevor Phillips Varied Career

Trevor Phillips is perhaps best known as the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). He was formerly the head of the Commission for Racial Equality. Having previously worked as a factual TV producer and presenter, he has served as President of John Lewis Partnership Council, chairs a recruitment company and leads a data analytics business. While Sophy Ridge was on maternity leave he covered the Sunday morning programme on Sky News, rebranded as Trevor Phillips on Sunday.

Beginnings

A student activist in his home city of London, Trevor Phillips became the first black president of the National Union of Students. He then went to work in LWT’s current affairs department where be became a producer and presenter. He was a reporter on This Week and rose to become LWT’s head of current affairs.

Trevor Phillips: Television Presenter

He has been involved in some of the most talked-about programmes on television, including Has Political Correctness Gone Mad? (2017) and Things We Won’t Say About Race That Are True (2015). He is also a regular panellist for Sky’s The Pledge (2016-), its flagship debate show. As well as appearing on political programmes including Question Time (1980-) and Radio 4’s Today programme, Trevor regularly writes for the UK’s biggest newspapers, including The Times, The Daily Mail, The Sun and The Sunday Times, and has written about race, diversity, politics, mental illness and grief – Trevor lost his daughter in 2021 aged 36 from anorexia.

Positions

Trevor Phillips served as chair of the Runnymede Trust, a think-tank promoting ethnic equality, as well as on the boards of a number of charities and commissions. He was a Greater London Assembly member before leaving to join the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE). When the CRE was dissolved, Trevor headed its broader successor the EHRC. A defiant campaigner for equality and human rights, he led the organisation through a politically and publicly sensitive period. Shortly after completing his second term at the head of the Commission, Trevor was appointed President of John Lewis Partnership Council. The Council is the elected body representing all John Lewis employees in its famous partnership structure whereby all staff have a stake in the flagship retailer’s business.

Trevor has co-founded a consultancy working with business and not-for-profit leaders who want to serve citizens, consumers and colleagues better. He has also returned to broadcasting, fronting programmes on race and society. He remains an occasionally controversial commentator on diversity and immigration, and has written books on the Windrush generation and Britain’s slave trade.