Mike Allen

I've long been a senior strategist in the Voluntary and Community Sector (read: Charities & not-for-personal-profit organisations) in the UK.

I've just got a new post as Chief Executive of Age UK Berkshire, based in Reading and covering the whole County from past Newbury across to Slough... I don't know the area very well as yet!
Born in London, I unsuccessfully studied Architecture in Portsmouth until the radical housing movement of the 1970's grabbed me and fired my politics.
My paid career took off with Adventure Playwork, followed by youth work management, then community development, work with a Pakistani Muslim education organisation, leading ICT strategy for a national housing charity, CEO with an older people's organisation and Chief Officer for a CVS (charities-support organisation) in the Midlands.
Along that path I somehow acquired a MBA from the University of Birmingham.

Outside of the Voluntary Sector I have intense passions for music - from Elvis Costello through Alton Ellis and The XX via Damien Rice and Captain Beefheart - cooking, cycling and Italy, although not in that order.