A fearless campaigner: Polly Neate, Shelter chief executive

After a career as a social affairs journalist, Polly Neate entered the charity sector in 2005 and in August took over from Campbell Robb as chief executive of homelessness charity Shelter. Neate joins the charity at a time when social housing and homelessness are high on the political agenda as a result of rising child poverty levels and the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

What have you focused on in your first four months in post?

I've spent most of the time getting to know Shelter, visiting frontline services, meeting staff and service users and understanding the complexity of our services. We have 12 hubs in most of the major English cities where we work with people at risk of becoming homeless. There's a telephone helpline and webchat service which provides support for issues linked to housing problems. We have drop-in services where people can get advice without an appointment - these are increasingly rare in the UK. We also have 51 high street shops and employ 1,185 staff.