James Partridge OBE, DSc (Hon), FDSRCSEd (Hon)

James Partridge is Founder and Chief Executive of Changing Faces, the leading UK charity supporting and representing people with disfigurements, which is now a £1.5 million organisation with a 30-strong staff team. Before setting up Changing Faces in 1992, James worked as a health economist in public health in the NHS in the ‘70s, and established a dairy farming business and taught A level economics in Guernsey in the 1980s.

He launched the charity after the positive response to his book, published by Penguin (1990), ‘Changing Faces: the Challenge of Facial Disfigurement' (available from Changing Faces). He writes and presents widely on disfigurement, disability, inclusion and social entrepreneurship in the UK and internationally. In November 2009, he was a guest newsreader for a week on national TV (Channel Five News), an appearance designed to foster acceptance and inclusion of people with disfigurements in society.  In March 2010 he won the Third Sector award for Most Admired Charity Chief Executive 2010 following his nomination by Dame Mary Marsh, Director of the Clore Social Leadership Programme.

He is a long-time Associate of the Employers' Forum on Disability and holds various honorary posts such as:

• Member of TreeHouse's Development and Public Affairs Committee, 
• Member of the Department of Health's National Burn Care Group, and
• Chair of the Department for Work and Pensions' Employer Engagement Steering Group.

He previously served on the Appraisal Committee of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the Chief Medical Officer's Expert Panel on Cosmetic Surgery. He is also a founding Director of Dining with a Difference, a disability consultancy company. 

Married with three ‘grown-up' children, he lives in Guernsey and London. He was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 2005 and has Honorary Doctorates from both of the Universities in Bristol, his birthplace.

Contact details:

• Changing Faces, The Squire Centre, 33-37 University St, London WC1E 6JN
• Tel: 0845 450 0275
• Fax: 0845 450 0276
• Visiting Fellow, Centre for Appearance Research, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of the West of England, Frenchay, Bristol BS16 2JP