Dr Omar Khan
Director
Runnymede Trust
Omar is Runnymede’s Director. Prior to this he was Runnymede’s Head of Policy and led the financial inclusion programme.
Omar’s other advisory positions include chair of Olmec, chair of the Ethnicity Strand Advisory Group to Understanding Society, chair of the advisory group of the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity at the University of Manchester, Commissioner on the Financial Inclusion Commission and a member of the 2014 REF assessment, the 2011 Census, and the UK representative (2009-2013) on the European Commission’s Socio-economic network of experts. Omar was previously a Governor at the University of East London and a 2012 Clore Social Leadership Fellow.
Omar is the author of Financial Inclusion and Ethnicity;Caring and Earning Among Low-income Caribbean, Pakistani and Somali People; Who Pays to Access Cash?;Why Do Assets Matter?; A Sense of Place; and The Costs of ‘Returning’ Home.
Omar has also published many articles and reports on political theory and British political history for Runnymede for over a decade and has spoken on topics including multiculturalism, integration, socio-economic disadvantage, and positive action. These include giving evidence to the United Nations in Geneva, the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, academic conferences in Manchester, Oxford, Paris, and Warsaw, the CRE Race Convention, the Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights, a Treasury/DFID conference on remittances, St George’s House (Windsor Castle), Wilton Park, and many other engagements in the UK and Europe.
Omar completed his DPhil in Political Theory from the University of Oxford, a Masters in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Masters in South Asian Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies.