Simon Fanshawe is a writer, broadcaster and non-executive director in the public and private sector. He has also co-founded a ground-breaking consultancy (astar-fanshawe), working with organisations on equality and diversity. Simon was a co-founder of the lesbian and gay equality lobby group Stonewall and is a cofounder of The Kaleidoscope Trust; the only British charity working exclusively on gay human rights worldwide.

As a broadcaster he is a regular contributor as a paper reviewer, pundit and panelist on the BBC and Sky. He regularly writes on politics, social policy and on the Arts for the national press. Simon also chairs conferences and speaks on a wide variety of platforms – mainly on diversity, governance, higher education, housing, culture and the Arts. He is also an accomplished after dinner speaker.

In 2005 Simon published The Done Thing, a study of modern manners and behaviour, with Random House and he is currently writing his first novel.

Between 2007 - 2013 he was chairman of the University of Sussex governing Council and he was awarded the OBE in the New Years Honours list 2013 for services to higher education.

1n 2021 Kogan Page published Simon’s seminal work The Power of Difference: Where the Complexities of Diversity and Inclusion Meet Practical Solutions. Following this HR Magazine Hall of Fame voted him The Most Influential HR thinker of 2022.

Simon is currently Rector of The University of Edinburgh.