Meet the Leaders: In Conversation with Shane Ryan for Black History Month

Shane Ryan is Senior Advisor to The National Lottery Community Fund and the former Global Executive Director of the Avast Foundation. He previously served as Deputy Director at The National Lottery Community Fund and was Chief Executive of Working with Men (now Future Men), where he led the organisation to national recognition for its evidence-based work on conflict resolution, fatherhood, masculinity and youth development.

With more than twenty-five years’ experience working with young people and communities, Shane has held senior roles across the voluntary and public sectors, including managing the UK’s first mobile healthcare facilities for the NHS and serving on a Home Office secondment. His work has taken him across the UK, the USA and Japan, shaping policy and practice in youth engagement, equity and inclusion.

A frequent advisor and public speaker, Shane continues to champion community-led solutions and inclusive leadership across civil society.

Could you share a little about your leadership journey and how you got to where you are today?

I did not really have a chosen career path. I have always been more of a quest person. I have always worked where I have had a burning desire to change something, to work with others and to make a difference.

Where I am now is the result of choices made at different times based on what mattered most to me in that moment. I have always asked myself where I could be useful, where I could be helpful to my community, and where I could create connection between people. Sometimes that has been because I had the social or community capital to move things forward, and sometimes because other people believed I did.

What experiences have most shaped your leadership and the values that guide your work today?

Several experiences have shaped who I am. My time in care as a young person was one of the first. It influenced my understanding of systems, power and fairness. Long before I began working in the voluntary sector, I volunteered in it for about ten years. That pro-social drive has always been part of me.

I have always wanted to create platforms for others to have a voice rather than seeking one for myself. I worked in children’s homes, in the homelessness sector with St Mungo’s, and on housing estates with people struggling with addiction. Later, I worked with young fathers, many of them teenagers.

I remember one young father in Greenwich who was fifteen. He was doing an extraordinary job as a parent, but there was simply no system designed for him. There were mother and baby hostels but nothing for fathers. It showed me how rights and opportunities that are written in law can vanish in practice when systems fail to recognise you.

Those moments taught me to focus on inclusion, fairness and humanity – not in abstract terms, but in the details of people’s lives. My career since then, including my time at Future Men, has been about ensuring that those who are often excluded can access real opportunity.

Those moments taught me to focus on inclusion, fairness and humanity – not in abstract terms, but in the details of people’s lives.

How has your identity as a Black leader influenced the way you approach power, leadership, and inclusion in the communities and institutions you’ve worked within?

Throughout my career, attitudes toward race have shifted, but often it feels like one step forward and two steps back. Many of the freedoms and progress we fought for thirty years ago are being fought for again today.

In my early years, I focused on being a good leader first rather than a Black leader. Over time, I realised those two things cannot be separated. Many of my experiences were shaped by race. Ignoring that meant I could not properly support others navigating similar spaces.

Leading as a Black man in the voluntary sector is complex. Sometimes the very institutions that see themselves as progressive can still limit or silence the communities they claim to serve. That makes the work harder because you find yourself negotiating not only external resistance but also the contradictions within the sector itself.

When you are often the only person of colour in the room, everything you say carries a different weight. The higher you go, the more that isolation can grow. It takes confidence and self-belief to keep contributing meaningfully in those spaces.

Race has undoubtedly shaped my trajectory and opportunities. But I have also learned that being right is not enough. In this work, you can have justice on your side and still make no progress. What matters is building movements, changing minds and creating the conditions for lasting change.

What matters is building movements, changing minds and creating the conditions for lasting change.

Where do you see the biggest tensions around power and equity in the social impact ecosystem today, and how do you personally work to address them?

The biggest challenge is that real inclusion takes time, intention and effort. Many people underestimate how much work it takes to bring communities together and to ensure equity in practice. It is easier to design for people than to design with people.

Working in a way that genuinely shares power is messy, slow and demanding. But that is also where the transformation happens. True inclusion cannot be reduced to consultation or tokenism. It means redistributing power, inviting new voices to shape outcomes, and being willing to sit in the discomfort of that process.

Real inclusion takes time, intention and effort.

From your perspective, how can organisations move from symbolic gestures to genuine, sustained inclusion and equity – particularly in how they fund, partner, and make decisions?

Symbolic gestures are easy. Genuine inclusion requires understanding, value and intention. I remember challenging my son’s school one Black History Month when they focused on Thierry Henry. There is nothing wrong with footballers, but it showed how shallow the approach can be when institutions only know how to celebrate visibility rather than substance.

When people truly understand the value that Black people bring to every sphere of life, inclusion moves from tokenism to truth. Black History Month should not be an add-on. It should be a reminder of how deeply our stories, work and brilliance are woven into this country’s fabric.

Our involvement in British life is not ornamental. It is foundational. From the industrial revolution to the present day, our contribution has been immense, yet often untaught and unacknowledged. Inclusion is not a moral favour. It is about recognising excellence, equity and value – for everyone.

Our involvement in British life is not ornamental. It is foundational.

How do you sustain your sense of resilience and balance amid the demands of leadership, and what practices help you stay grounded?

The fewer people who look like you in a space, the more microaggressions you experience. They erode confidence and energy. Being the most senior Black person in an organisation often means carrying additional, invisible labour. Colleagues come to you with their struggles because they trust you to understand. That is not in your job description, but you take it on because it matters.

It can be heavy. I rely on family and friends to ground me. They are why I can cope even when things feel overwhelming. Their support allows me to keep giving to others.

It is also important to recognise the limits of what we can change within systems. Sometimes those of us working inside them end up reproducing the same patterns we set out to dismantle. That is why reflection and community matter so much.

Family, friendship and solidarity with other leaders keep me steady. They remind me why I do this work and what it means to show up with integrity.

It is also important to recognise the limits of what we can change within systems.

What advice would you give to emerging Black leaders who are working to build their voice, influence, and impact across social change spaces?

Be true to what you believe in. That belief will keep you going when nothing else does.

Build and nurture your networks. They open doors, provide support and create opportunities you might not even see yet. Get a mentor. Mentorship is powerful. It accelerates learning, offers perspective and keeps you accountable.

And above all, do work that inspires you. Life is too short to be committed to things that do not move you. I am near the end of my career and it has gone quickly. But I can look back and feel that I have used my time well. I have worked on things that mattered, that carried conviction, and that moved people and systems forward. That is all you can ask for.