Paul Streets OBE is stepping down as CEO to retire

After a long and impactful career in public service and the charity sector, both in the UK and overseas, and more than 10 years of leading Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales, Paul Streets has decided to retire from full-time senior executive work and will leave the Foundation on 31 May 2024.

11 December 2023

Paul Streets, CEO Lloyds Bank Foundation announces retirement

Over the last decade, Paul has led the Foundation through significant change so we can best support and advocate for small and local charities, people and communities across England and Wales. Under Paul’s leadership, the Foundation has grown, strengthened and innovated to:

Provide unrestricted funding that is flexible and rooted in trust for small and local charities tackling complex issues.
Offer a wide range of support for charities to help them learn, develop and strengthen skills and capabilities.
Ensure the voices of small and local charities are heard among Government and decision makers through sharing insight, championing their role and value, highlighting the challenges they face and critical role they play within communities and society.
Embed collaboration so the Foundation now works on the ground, bottom up in communities, bringing charities, public sector agencies and others together to identify and overcome challenges.

Paul steered the Foundation through Covid and the cost of living crisis and worked with the team to prioritise and take action on equity, diversity and inclusion. The Foundation has worked hard to diversify our Board and have committed 25% of our frontline funding to charities led by and for communities who experience inequity because of their race and another 25% for d/Deaf and Disabled people’s led organisations. The Foundation has also sought to share power by designing funding programmes with the frontline organisations who are likely to apply for them, whilst also making assessments and funding decisions with people outside the Foundation with lived and learned experience.

The Foundation is funded by the profits of Lloyds Banking Group and whilst an independent charity Paul recognised the value of that relationship. Paul led the creation of a volunteering programme through which over a thousand Banking Group staff have shared their skills and knowledge with charities the Foundation supports to their mutual benefit. The deeper relationship Paul fostered has led to the Foundation and Banking Group working together to shape and inform how the Group supports its customers, particularly those who might lack ID due to homelessness or other circumstances or survivors of domestic abuse.

Paul says of his time with Lloyds Bank Foundation:

I have loved my role at the Foundation. And loved working with the thousands of incredible small and local charities we reach right across England and Wales. We are blessed in having the opportunity to connect with Britain at its best addressing the consequences of Britain at its worst. I am proud of the work we have done together to reshape the role of Foundations, to set charities free through unrestricted funding and providing support that works for them. And using our own power and influence to help bring people together locally and nationally to influence policy and practice as well as sharing power over how we ourselves make decisions. EDI is vital and I am proud of making tangible progress in my time at the Foundation, in particular through our commitment to charities led by communities themselves. There is still so much more to do, but after just over 10 years the time has come for me to bring my own role to a close and find out what life beyond full time work has to offer. I look forward to continuing to move the Foundation’s strategy forward over the next six months in preparation for my successor.

Chair of Trustees of the Board, Dame Ann Limb paid tribute to Paul’s leadership of the Foundation over the last decade, saying:

Paul is rightly acknowledged across the charity and grant funding world to be one of its outstanding and most dedicated leaders. Staff and charities the Foundation has supported have hugely benefitted from his strategic knowledge, policy insights, and wide networks and connections. He will be missed and on behalf of the Board and all our partners, I thank him sincerely and wish him well in the next stage of his life. With a clear Strategy, a strong team, stable finances and a resolute focus on working to best support people, charities and communities in these ever more challenging times, we look forward in the New Year to recruiting a successor to build on Paul’s legacy and take the Foundation forward into its 40th year and beyond.

The Board of Trustees will shortly begin the search for Paul’s successor through an open recruitment campaign led by Saxton Bamfylde and is looking to appoint a leader who will build on the Foundation’s achievements, continuing to push for change and a more just and compassionate society.

ENDS

For media enquiries please contact Aferdita Pacrami on APacrami@lloydsbankfoundation.org.uk

Paul Streets OBE is stepping down as CEO to retire

Sign up to our newsletter

Follow us