“I love it when we start making a difference on the ground”

CHANTAL HUGHES, 51, is Chief executive of the hampton trust, which supports victims and tackles offenders in domestic relationships. Chantal and her team design and implement courses and interventions aimed at breaking the cycles of abuse, offending and exploitation. This includes the CARA (Caution Against Relationship Abuse) initiative, which is the first of its kind; it has been so successful, it has been rolled out to police forces across the country. Chantal says “My first career in banking wasn’t really a considered one, but an incident there led directly to my new path. A young woman in my team suffered trauma following the kidnap, rape and murder of her best friend. Management, disinterested in the empathy she needed to recover, tasked me to dismiss her. Instead I dismissed myself, studied psychotherapy and began work in the charitable sector, leading projects for care leavers, young offenders, sex workers and domestic abuse survivors. I went to The hampton Trust to cover a maternity post in 2006 and, 13 years on, I’m now CEO. My role provides opportunities to work more creatively in the area of domestic abuse and criminal justice. The best days are when my team sits around the table sharing ideas. I love it when our ideas become deliverable interventions and we start to make a difference on the ground.”