Dame Suzi Leather

Dame Susan Catherine Leather, DBE, DL (born 5 April 1956), generally known as Suzi Leather, was chair of the Charity Commission from 1 August 2006 to 31 July 2012. She was succeeded by William Shawcross. Previously she chaired the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. She was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in January 2006.

She was educated at St Mary's, Calne, Tavistock School, and Exeter University where she received a BA degree with honours in Politics in 1977, followed by a BPhil degree in social work. She then took an MA degree in European politics in 1978 from Leicester University.

In 1979–84, she was a senior research officer for Consumers in Europe. In 1984–86 she was a trainee probation officer. In 1988–97 she was a freelance consumer consultant. In 1997–2001, she was chair of Exeter and District NHS trust. From 2000–02, she was first deputy chair of the Food Standards Agency. From March 2002 – July 2006, she was chair of Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. She joined the board of the United Kingdom Accreditation Service in 2006 (a political recommendation from the Downing Street office of then Prime Minister Tony Blair) to improve their quality standards regulation.

From May 2005 – July 2006, she was chair of the School Food Trust. She gave up the HFEA and School Food Trust positions for the Charity Commission position. She felt her qualification for that position derived from her experience as a regulator rather than any expertise with charities; "My main contact [with charities] has been through volunteering – I have no experience personally of working for charities. I don't think I had a very well developed sense of what the Charities Bill was going to do, so I can't describe myself as a charities expert in any sense", and therefore spent her early months in the post absorbing information about the sector.

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