Helen MacNamara Chairs Shelter and the Future Governance Forum.

She is the former Deputy Cabinet Secretary and spent two decades in the Civil Service running the Cabinet Secretariat for two stints between 2019 and 2021 and during the coalition government in 2013-15.

Helen was the Director General for Housing and Planning in the Department for Communities and Local Government and spent 10 years in the Department for Culture Media and Sport.

At DCMS she was Tessa Jowell's Principal Private Secretary, set up and ran the response to the Leveson Inquiry and was instrumental in the bid for and organisation of the London 2012 Olympics.

Since leaving the Civil Service she worked at the Premier League and for Robey Warshaw and was one of the Commissioners for the Governance Project. She is co-host of "In the Room" the Independent's politics podcast.

Helen is also one of the founding trustees of the Heywood Foundation.