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Unseen CEO Named Charity Founder of the Year

On Thursday 20 November, Unseen CEO, Andrew Wallis OBE, was honoured with the Founder of the Year Award at the Benefact Group Charity Heroes Awards 2025. The awards took place at the Tower of London and brought together various leaders, fundraisers, trustees, and community champions within the third sector to celebrate the extraordinary work being done across the UK and Ireland.
The 2025 Charity Heroes Awards

The Charity Heroes Awards bring together small charities from across the UK and Ireland to celebrate the powerful work they do to transform lives. This year, the Benefact Group has honoured 21 charities.

Leaders, trustees, fundraisers, and community champions gathered together to enjoy a day of celebration. The awards ceremony took place at the Tower of London and was hosted by Dr. Andy Cope from the Art of Brilliance with speeches from Annasley Park, former professional racing cyclist and solo adventurer, and Mark Hews, CEO of the Benefact Group.

The team at Unseen proudly nominated CEO, Andrew Wallis OBE, for the Founder of the Year Award. An honour that celebrates individuals who have built impactful charities through vision, dedication and a commitment to meaningful change. And we’re thrilled to share that he won.

Driven by a relentless commitment to end modern slavery and trafficking, Andrew Wallis established Unseen 17 years ago with the mission to support survivors and disrupt cycles of exploitation. Starting with a women’s safehouse in Bristol that accommodated eight women recovering from exploitation, Andrew now leads one of the most influential anti-slavery organisations in the UK with over 70 employees, directly reaching 5,000 survivors across our frontline recovery services and the UK Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline a year, and trailblazing with countless policy and advocacy campaigns to influence key stakeholders.  

Andrew’s leadership has not only shaped Unseen’s direct impact on the lives of thousands of victims, empowering them to exit exploitation and recover from trauma, but it has also catalysed national change. In 2013, Andrew chaired the Centre for Social Justice’s landmark report It Happens Here, which became the foundation for the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015. That same year, he was awarded an OBE in recognition of his outstanding contribution to tackling human trafficking.  

A decade on from the Modern Slavery Act, Andrew remains committed to holding the government to account and pushing for stronger protections for victims. He recently co-chaired the Home Office’s Modern Slavery Engagement Forum, providing input on responses to exploitation, and plans to lobby for improved legislation this year. 

Andrew Wallis exemplifies how passion, persistence, and purpose can build a movement. Through Unseen, he has created a legacy of tangible change, not only transforming lives but influencing systems and policy at the highest levels. 

Unseen is deeply honoured to receive this award and would like to extend sincere thanks to Benefact Group for recognising their work, and to Access Insurance for generously sponsoring the Charity Heroes Founder of the Year Award.

Congratulations is also extended to all nominees and winners, whose dedication and impact are truly inspiring.

Unseen also expresses gratitude to its supporters and the wider team, and recognises the leadership of CEO Andrew Wallis OBE, whose ongoing commitment continues to drive the mission to end exploitation and modern slavery forward.

What is the Benefact Group?

The Benefact Group is a specialist financial services group with a purpose to donate all available profits to charity. Owned by the registered charity Benefact Trust, the Group encompasses a range of businesses providing insurance, investment management, and advisory services across the UK, Australia, Canada and Ireland. As the UK’s third-largest corporate donor to charity over the last decade, Benefact Group has given more than £250 million to charitable causes since 2014.

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Justine Currell

As I came to understand more about the issue, including through a visit to an Unseen safehouse, I knew I needed to do more to stop this abuse and exploitation.

For the last five years of my Civil Service career, I was the Modern Slavery Senior Policy Advisor in the Home Office and led on development of the Modern Slavery Act, including the transparency in supply chains provision and business guidance.

I joined Unseen to lead the development of the Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline, and Unseen’s work with businesses. I am regularly called upon to present at national and international conferences and use my experience of working with Ministers to influence other governments internationally to take action to address modern slavery and, in particular, business supply chain issues.

In my spare time I enjoy keeping fit, music, reading and travelling.

Andrew Wallis

What ultimately compelled me to act was a report on how people from Eastern Europe were being trafficked through Bristol airport to the USA. Kate Garbers, who went on to be an Unseen Director, and I wrote to all the city councillors, MPs and the Police Chief Constable challenging them on the issue. The challenge came back to us: this city needs safe housing for trafficked women. And so Unseen began.

But we never wanted Unseen to be just about safe housing. We wanted to end slavery once and for all, and that remains our driving focus.

I chaired the working group for the Centre for Social Justice’s landmark report “It Happens Here: Equipping the United Kingdom to Fight Modern Slavery”. This is now acknowledged as the catalyst behind the UK’s Modern Slavery Act of 2015. It was a great honour to be awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours that year. On the other hand, I’ve also been described as “the loveliest disrupter you could ever hope to meet”.

This job has taken me from building flat-pack furniture for safehouses, to working with businesses to address slavery in supply chains, to delivering training, raising awareness and advising governments around the world.

When not at work, I enjoy travelling, spending time with my dog Harley, cooking, supporting Liverpool and Yorkshire CC, music (I’m a former DJ) and endurance events such as the Three Peaks Challenge and Tribe Freedom Runs – which I vow never to do again. Until the next time.