Tom Levitt set up Sector 4 Focus to build on his extensive experience working with community and voluntary sector organisations: as an MP, a teacher, an activist and a councillor.
Sector 4 Focus advocates ‘using the tools of business to create public good’ and works with businesses and others to make this happen. Tom has written three books on the subject.
As an MP he collaborated closely with community and voluntary organisations in Derbyshire, Britain and developing countries for 13 years (1997-2010).
In December 2011 Tom was awarded the title of Honorary Doctor of the University of Derby. He was a judge in the Third Sector magazine’s Business-Charity Awards in 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017. Tom’s previous third sector experience includes:
- chairing the Community Development Foundation, 2004-2010;
- a non-executive trustee of a major charity (RNID, 1998-2003);
- patron of READ International, the 2010 International Charity of the Year;
- a member of the Commission on the Future of Volunteering in 2007-2008;
- chairing the all party group on the voluntary sector
- chairing the body advising Government on commissioning services from the third sector
- chair of trustees at the international development charity Concern Worldwide UK (2011-14).
As Parliamentary Private Secretary to Hilary Benn, as Secretary of State for International Development (2003-2007), Tom worked with ministers and other decision makers, seeing for himself how the third sector, not least as partners to responsible businesses, could make life better for the world’s poorest communities. From 2008-2010 he was deputy minister for the East Midlands with an economic regeneration brief and a member of the DWP select committee.
Tom is currently:
- a member of the Walgreen Boots Alliance Advisory Panel on Sustainability
- a non-executive director of Outreach Solutions
- a director of Good Measures ethical business consultancy
- chair and trustee of the Coalition for Efficiency
- Chair of the Fair For You charity, non-executive director of the social enterprise
- a member of the BSI (British Standards Institution) committee looking at frameworks and measurement of social value
- an adviser to West London Business on responsible business