Andy Keen-Downs has been Chief Executive of Pact since 2005, steering the charity through a period of great change and growth. Since 2015 he has been Group CEO, following the establishment of Pact Futures CIC as a wholly owned, independent subsidiary. Andy has worked in the voluntary sector for much of his working life, and was previously Deputy Director at Gingerbread (One Parent Families), where he developed services and secured the support of JK Rowling.

Previously, Andy held senior posts with the National Childbirth Trust and with Centrepoint. Andy’s first job with a charity was as one of a team of three staff, running The Gatehouse Project in the Hulme & Moss side area of Manchester during the late 1980s, which involved supporting adults with literacy issues and developing a social enterprise community publishing operation. This followed a dramatic career change from his previous role with Reuters in the City of London.

Andy undertook a PGCE at Roehampton University following a degree in English and Theology at the University of Kent. His other qualifications include being arrested as a juvenile offender at the age of ten, and the experience of imprisonment of both friends and relatives.  In 2015, Andy received the Longford Prize on behalf of Pact, and secured the support of Michael Palin for the charity’s work for prisoners’ families. Andy acts as a pro-bono advisor to Lord Michael Farmer and to Roman Catholic Bishop for Prisons, Richard Moth, and is regularly sought for his expertise on criminal justice reform, most recently for BBC Radio 4’s ‘File on 4’.