Shahid Malik - Pre-parliamentary Career

Pre-parliamentary Career

Prior to Parliament, his three main areas of work have been in the urban regeneration and development field; the voluntary and community sector; and domestic and international anti-poverty, education, human rights and equalities sector.

In local/regional regeneration terms after graduating Malik initially worked with the East Lancashire Training and Enterprise Council in a business development capacity. This was followed by roles as Group Chief Executive of the Pakistan Muslim Centre (PMC), Sheffield; Head of Policy and Development at the Greater Nottingham Training and Enterprise Council; and then as Chief Executive of Haringey Regeneration Agency, managing a £150 million development programme.

He also served for three years as Chair of the Board of Directors of VONEF (voluntary organisations network for European funding in Yorkshire and the Humber); and served as National Chair of the voluntary sector body Urban Forum (1999–2002) elected annually by the 400 plus member organizations. The Forum was a respected national regeneration policy network made up of residents and community organisations, with the aim of pushing power to local people in deprived neighbourhoods.

Following the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998 he was appointed by then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Rt Hon Mo Mowlam MP, as an Equality Commissioner for Northern Ireland (1999–2002). The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland was born out of the 'Good Friday’ peace agreement and was charged with dealing with equalities issues between Catholics & Protestants, Unionists & Nationalists, and discrimination by race, gender, disability, sexuality and age. Malik served as the only ever person from England, Scotland or Wales (Great Britain) to have been appointed a Commissioner in Northern Ireland.

From 1998–2002 he was appointed as a Commissioner to the Commission for Racial Equality. The organization was a law enforcement agency under the Race Relations Act 1976 and worked to eliminate racial discrimination across Great Britain. It has subsequently been subsumed into the Equality and Human Rights Commission EHRC

He served for six years as an Independent Governor of Sheffield Hallam University; and for several years as a member, Queen Mary University Policy Advisory Board and as an Adviser to Middlesex University.

Internationally, Malik served Vice-Chair of United Nations body, UNESCO UK, working to engage UK civic society in UNESCO's work in contributing to world peace, security, justice and human rights, by promoting collaboration between nations on educational, scientific, cultural and communications projects. Malik also served as an international election monitor for the Palestinian Presidential elections in 2005 (and subsequently, as an MP helped monitor the Palestinian Parliamentary elections in January 2006).

Between 2001-2005 he also worked as an adviser to Government on Community Cohesion and Neighbourhood Renewal. He has also been a Fellow of the Institute of Management (FIMgt) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).