We Are PoWEr Podcast
The We Are PoWEr podcast spotlights voices and perspectives that need to be heard. Our weekly podcast, with listeners in over 60 countries, delivers PoWErful conversations that inspire, challenge, and empower... from personal life stories to business insights and leadership lessons.
We share diverse experiences, bold discussions, and real solutions. Whether you're looking for career advice, topical themes, or stories of resilience and success - this is where voices spark change.
We Are PoWEr Podcast
From Abuse to OBE: Alison Lowe’s Story of Resilience and Power
The brilliant Alison Lowe OBE joins the We Are PoWEr Podcast - bringing energy, honesty, and a lifetime of serving others with courage and compassion. Based in Leeds and named on the 2025 Northern PoWEr Women Awards PoWEr List, Alison has spent her career challenging injustice, leading with heart, and showing that authenticity is a strength, not something to dial down.
From growing up in a political household to becoming Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime in West Yorkshire, Alison has always refused to be a bystander. She shares how her mum’s confidence inspired her to embrace her true self, why living your values matters more than titles, and what receiving her OBE meant as both a daughter and a proud Black woman.
Alison also opens up about the pain of childhood abuse, her journey through healing, and how honesty and openness helped her turn wounds into light – for herself and for others. Whether through her leadership at mental health charity Touchstone, her advocacy for inclusivity, or her belief in kindness above all, Alison reminds us that poWEr is not about status, but about creating spaces where people can thrive.
In this episode:
From political roots to Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime
Why bringing your whole self to work is a superpower
Living your values, not just talking about them
Healing, honesty, and transforming wounds into wisdom
The day she received her OBE and why it mattered so deeply
Building thriving communities through openness and kindness
What she’s learned as a mum, nanna, and leader
⚠️ Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussion of childhood sexual abuse.
Find out more about We Are PoWEr here. 💫
Hello, hello and welcome to the we Are Power podcast. If this is your first time here, the we Are Power podcast is the podcast for you, your career and your life. We release an episode every single Monday with listeners in over 60 countries worldwide, where you'll hear personal life stories, top-notch industry advice and key leadership insight from amazing role models. As we Are Power is the umbrella brand to Northern Power Women Awards, which celebrates hundreds of female role models and advocates every year. This is where you can hear stories from all of our awards alumni and stay up to date with everything. Mpw Awards and we Are Power Hello and welcome to the podcast. Every week, I get to chat with Never imitated, never replicated, singularly wonderful, everybody's wonder girl. Hello and welcome to the podcast. Every week, I get to chat with brilliant legends, and this week is no exception Alison Lowe, obe, and on this year's 2025 Northern Powering Awards Powerless Welcome. Welcome Yorkshire into the mix.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here.
Speaker 1:I'm delighted you're here. You are literally someone who is that inclusive leader who lives by your values. But how on earth do you describe what you do? Because it's endless.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've always, always, had more than one thing to do in my life, you know, whether that be a parent, whether that be a chief exec, a counsellor, politician, uh, more widely, and it's because, uh, you know, I love it, I'm very passionate, um, I've got a lot of energy and I like to serve. You know, I feel like I'm the archetypal public public servant, and that's what makes me, um, feel happy, it makes me feel satisfied and it's good for my mental health.
Speaker 1:And you talk about. We talked about where you are in the world today, but you were forged in Leeds, east Leeds.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I'm a Seacroft girl proud of my East Leeds roots. My mum's Irish heritage and many people in East Leeds were from Ireland. You know they came over to help build Leeds build the roads, the A64, et cetera, and many of those communities settled in East Leeds. And then my dad came from the Caribbean, from St Kitts. So I'm a fusion of the Caribbean, ireland and Leeds and I think that that combination has really contributed to the person that I am today.
Speaker 1:It's the recipe, isn't it that makes you who you are, and along the way, you've had lots of dishes, haven't you in that recipe, and have done lots of very big, difficult roles. How have you found yourself on that adventure where? Where did it all start?
Speaker 2:So I think it all started with first of all having a really strong mother, a very political mother. She was a trade unionist. We had lots of political debates, arguments, and that made me interested in the idea that change was possible at that really local and grassroots level. I remember moving to Chapel Town having two tiny children and being really angry because the community centre next door it was about three doors up kept on playing the blues every Friday and Saturday night had big parties, and it occurred to me that I could do something about that, and so I joined the management committee, became the chair of the management committee and I stopped those blues and so I could sleep and so could my kids. And so that local influence that you could have by getting involved rather than standing and carping on the sidelines, that really showed me that when you get involved, you throw yourself in, that you can make a difference and a change.
Speaker 1:Because you can be a bystander, right, Courtney? Oh yeah, but who wants to be a?
Speaker 2:bystander. Right, can't you? Oh yeah, but who wants to be a bystander? Because bystanders are moaners for whingers, you know. They're those people who have always got an opinion about everything that everybody else is doing. But what are you doing? How are you contributing to the change that you want to see in the world?
Speaker 1:and it resonates with me because I always talk about we focus on the things that we can do, rather than finger point about all the things that you can't do, although something else is doing that you don't agree with, but you're not doing anything to.
Speaker 2:You know, live your own values. I don't have a problem if people don't like what I'm doing, but do something instead. Don't just moan about what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Do what you believe is the right thing and what is making you proud right now? Because you've got a big role, haven't you? Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime for West Yorkshire Police Just that little job Keeping Tracy in check, quite frankly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tracy and I work really well together. I love working with Tracy. She's so authentic and she's got my back. You know I've learned over the years that I'm not your average Joe. Thank goodness I've got ADHD.
Speaker 2:I sometimes struggle with the filter that everybody else sees the world through. I don't always manage myself as other people do in meetings and all the rest of it, because I bring my whole self to work all the time and that's a bit much for some people. But for Tracy she really embraces that and recognizes that my authenticity adds to the role that we're doing together. So what I'm really proud of is the partnership that we forged, the authenticity of the work that we're doing, the truth that we bring to the role of PCC she's the PCC, but I deliver most of that function and the relationship that we forged with West Yorkshire Police, the honest conversations about what they're doing well but also what they could improve, because I see myself particularly as a bridge between West Yorkshire Police and the communities of West Yorkshire and I want to tell them straight you think this, this, but this is the reality. Let's work together to change that perception, to improve performance and deliver for the people that you're here to serve because we're all public servants.
Speaker 1:And have you been told along the way that you need to dial down some of that authenticity or just yeah, how do you, how do you get over that? How do you manage that?
Speaker 2:um, I think it goes back to my Irish heritage mother. You know, my mother was always dominant. She wasn't just prominent I like to see myself as prominent my mum were dominant. You know, she was always on stage at working men's clubs singing uh. When it would open mic. She was always center of every party, every coming together, no matter who it was. She loved herself, she loved to make people laugh and I think that that confidence that I saw in her, obviously it's given me the confidence to be myself.
Speaker 2:I've not always felt comfortable being myself. Sometimes I thought I'm too much, um. There was a word that um, that I used to long to be, uh, which was uh, you know proportion. I wanted to be. I wanted to be that quiet, gentle person who just dropped in those wise words from time to time. I never was that person, um, and I always used to think I was too much. But um, by being too much, by being me, I have made a lot of good things happen for a lot of people. I fought the good fight, not for me but for other people, and if it works, then obviously it's something that I've got to embrace and I've got to keep on doing and I've come to accept myself. I love myself now. I didn't love myself when I was younger. You know I've talked a lot about my childhood, the childhood trauma that I experienced, the domestic abuse that I lived with for 10 years.
Speaker 2:You know that does hack away at your confidence, at your self-esteem, at your belief system, but you can overcome those things. You know, and as I like to say, hugh Rumi, the poet and philosopher, long gone now, but he says, the wound is the place where the light enters. Without the pain, you don't get the light. Without the dark, you don't get the sunshine. So all of us learn that we're not perfect. Bad things might happen in our lives. It's how you deal with those bad things, it's how you turn them into success and help then other people to deal with the challenges that they face is and that's what I've tried to do use it for good.
Speaker 1:And you have had. You talked about the trauma. You had trauma as both a child and, later on, as an adult how did you?
Speaker 2:I was sexually yet, and how?
Speaker 1:you talked about that, how, and you've talked powerfully about this as well, and there'll be people listening or watching today thinking I don't know how I deal with that, I don't know how I survive this or I don't know how I move forward. What advice would you tell your younger Alison?
Speaker 2:You've got to come to terms with what happened. So I was very young I was five years old taken out of the garden, sexually abused by a neighbour, and because I had this big Irish Catholic family, you know, I didn't feel able to tell about what happened. I held it inside and then I began to convince myself that, a it hadn't happened and, b it didn't matter anyway. But it did matter. It did happen and it really began to impact my mental health. In my 20s I was very unwell, I was very distressed. It all came flooding back to me and I didn't deal with it. I internalized it. I was very angry. I was always angry, angry because I was a victim and I hadn't been able to get justice.
Speaker 2:And what I now reflect on is in my 40s I finally got some coaching and I absolutely confronted that little girl that was still sat next to me. She was walking with me, I was dragging her around with me and she didn't want to be there. But I was forcing her to be there because I'd never allowed her to go. I'd never dealt with that pain and that distress. And when I went through that horrible process in my 40s, when I was again having a major mental health episode, I was able to confront what had happened, acknowledge that I had been a victim, that I now gave myself permission to move to survivorhood and not just being a survivor, but thriving and using that lived experience for good. So if I could use it to help other people in that same experience, then I knew that I'd been. I didn't want that thing to happen to me, but it happened to me for a reason because I could help other people by talking about what happened to me. So you've got to confront it, you've got to acknowledge what's happened and then you've got to be open about it, because actually now I see it as my superpower.
Speaker 2:I can tell people about what happened to me, not in a oh feel sorry for me kind of way, but bad things happen to different people all the time and it can be, um, sometimes a reason, um, an excuse maybe for some people to not live the lives that we're supposed to live, to give up, to give up when really we should have pushed on. And I want people to know there is no excuse. People might try and bring you down in all sorts of ways. Don't let them win. You don't have to them win. You can win, no matter what happens to you in your life. You determine your destination, nobody else. The journey might have other people interrupting it from time to time, but the destination is yours to decide. So decide where you're going and get there.
Speaker 1:And it's not easy to get you talked about going from victimhood to survivahood and now you see that as a superpower. But it's not an easy. It's not. You can't just go the the pharmacist and get prescribed that to make that easy it takes time, it takes self-love, it takes openness, openness and honesty.
Speaker 2:I've got a really lovely friendship group and a family group that I can talk to. Um, and since I started talking about it in my mid-40s, I tell everybody now and it is very, very therapeutic for me, it is like a talking therapy and I've got to be really careful that it's on my terms that I talk about this stuff. When I want to talk about it, when I'm ready to talk about it, I don't let other people make it part of their story. Because you know I've had people who have tried to label me and pigeonhole me. And you know I'm had people who have tried to label me and pigeonhole me. And you know I'm not just a woman, I'm a black woman and I'm a working class woman and people always want to minimize you, minimize your successes, label you to suit their stuff, you know. But I say to them that's your stuff, you keep it. Thank you very much. I know who I am and I'm going to be who I am, irrespective of what you're trying to do to me, because that's about you, it's not about me.
Speaker 1:And how does that? How do people react to that? Because sometimes people want that. They think oh, but you're.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it depends on where the person is on their journey. Many people find it inspirational and think, wow, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to not allow other people's, whatever it is, to impact on me. I'm going to be the person I want to be. I'm going to live the life that I want to live. I'm going to be respectful of other people's views, but I'm going to move forward with the confidence that my beliefs are enough, good enough, they're mine and I'm going to live them. I'm going to want to run for other people.
Speaker 2:It becomes adversarial, but I don't engage. It's not my battle, it's their battle. It's like you want to have a fight. See you later. You know I don't need to engage because you know can only have a battle if two sides agree. I don't agree. I know who I am, I know what I'm doing in the world, and if other people want to have a fight, let them get on with it. You see, from my social media I get a lot of stuff. I don't engage. I don't engage. Let them wallow in there, whatever it is bitterness, sadness, whatever I don't need to engage in a war and what parts.
Speaker 1:social media is interesting, isn't it? Because it can be amazingly powerful and positive to amplify and to support and convene, but it can be so toxic. Is that your advice? Just don't even throw any fuel on it, just ignore the negativity.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I don't block anyone, but I mute lots of people. If people send me messages or say something, if there's a challenge mate, I don't have a problem with that. I'll respond, but if people are horrible or, you know, defamatory or verging on the offensive, I just mute them. I just mute them because it's like I don't need you in my life, but I follow all the lovely, happy people. I like all the things that make me feel good about myself. I'm constantly on social media looking for the people that connect with me and that I connect with and the stories, because there's some beautiful things on social media. It has a huge power for good. And also, don't let's forget that, for all the, there's some negativity on social media. Lots of it is bots. It's not real people, and also that real people, in the main, are good. Most people are good in the main.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, we might have misunderstandings. We might have, you know, stories that mean that we believe certain things that are not true. Um, and that's an opportunity to have a conversation, isn't it? To say, oh, that's an interesting perspective on the world. Let's have a conversation about that. Let me put a different mirror. Let's have an opening on this conversation, and then that pleases me if I'm able to help somebody see the world through a slightly different lens, to be kinder to people that may be going into the conversation they felt quite hostile towards. I'm all about love. That's my mantra. You're here once, you're here for a very short time, and then you're gone. Please, you're here once. You're here for a very short time and then you're gone.
Speaker 1:Please bring love and kindness while you're here, and that is just tremendous leadership as well, isn't it? And before your roles, multiple roles, and your existing role. Now, you've had a previous life right, or many previous life, but you were chief exec of Touchstone and that's a charity. Tell us about that charity, because you grew that immensely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So Touchstone is a mental health charity specialising in working with diverse communities so black minority ethnic communities, lgbt plus communities, refugee, asylum seekers and we really developed an expertise for working with people who came to us in all their glorious differences and connecting them with mental health services and responses that met their needs. And we did that across the whole of West Yorkshire and parts of South Yorkshire and I grew it from a 1 million to a 10 million pound charity over 17 years. We won multiple awards for inclusion, were IIP Platinum twice, still IIP Platinum. The last year I left, we were in the Stonewall Top 100 from 2013.
Speaker 2:So lots and lots of different plaudits best companies, top 10 in best companies. And we won the Giving Back Award five years running and that was about the work we did to recruit people with different lived experiences. And then the Giving Back Award we won that three years running and that was about the work we did with our communities to give back and to build resilience in those communities. So we were like a family. We were like, yeah, a bit dysfunctional from time to time, but because I talked about my mental health, I talked about my childhood abuse, I talked about my domestic abuse.
Speaker 2:I talked about the things that I wasn't very good at. It meant other people could talk about their stuff. It gave permission and everyone was open and honest and everyone came through the door knowing that they were good enough, no matter what they'd been told by whoever in their lives. They came to Touchstone and they weren't just tolerated which I don't like that word they were accepted and they were loved, and that meant people thrived, the work they did was outstanding, the connections with the communities we worked with were second to none, and the communities we worked with they also benefited from that approach.
Speaker 1:What is the biggest leadership lesson that you learned during that time at Touchstone? Because not only did you grow the business, you were very present and public, with all of that acknowledgement awards, not to mention all of the tremendous good work you do. But as a leader, what did you learn most?
Speaker 2:Juggling, oh, absolutely. You know. You know you can't have it all. That is not true. You can't have it all. You've got to live your values. So if I'm saying the policy is this or the belief system is this, then everything we do has got to speak to that value, that policy, because otherwise you're a liar, you you're a hypocrite, and once you're exposed as a liar or a hypocrite, everything that you have said and done before falls. You're on a bed of sand. Never say one thing and do another. Always have harmony about what you're doing and the way that we were able to do that.
Speaker 2:Because obviously, when you're up the career ladder, you're getting further and further away from the people that you're there to serve, from your staff on the front line. Sometimes you think you're doing the right thing, but you don't understand the implications of what you're doing. So you have to have that two-way conversation constantly so that staff will feel able to say do you really mean to do this? Because you do know that if you do that it'll lead to X, y and z. You know something the labour party, I think, would learn very well from you know you've got to have that honesty and transparency, that open door policy, um, that connection with all your staff. It don't matter if you're the cleaner I've been cleaner for burtons, you know I did it well because you've got to do every job well, um or if the chief exec.
Speaker 2:We are human beings and no one is better than anybody else. So I constantly used to say to my staff you are our last line of defence If you do not have bravery and raise issues with us when you see that we're heading off a cliff and we're not living our values. You are the last line of defence. We need you to tell us when we're doing things wrong. So if it feels wrong, if it feels incongruous with what we're saying, I'm begging you, please don't let us make that mistake. Tell us. There's no punishment, there's no detriment, there's love and thanks that you're giving us that perspective, because at top you can't know everything. So allow yourself to be constantly learning, not just from your employees, but also from the people that you're there to serve, because if you don't, you will make a mistake that will be counter to your stated culture and values. You won't mean to do that, but then nobody will believe you ever, ever again.
Speaker 1:Lifelong learning, and it strikes me that you're someone so positive and I could sit and chat all day long, right and you want to spotlight others and help and support others. So the moment when you got the brown envelope through it might have been an email actually, because it was during COVID wasn't it when you got your recognition from Her Majesty, getting your OBE, and that was for services to mental health and diverse communities? Wasn't it for your work at Touchstone? Did you naturally think, oh, but what about everyone else? Or did you embrace it? You know what? Actually, I'm proud of this.
Speaker 2:I really embraced it, I was really proud of it. I had a little tear because my daddy wasn't here to see it. Oh, I love him and I miss him every day, but my mum was here and I was really proud that my mum was able to see. She came from Ireland. Well, her family came from Ireland. She'd been in Holland more, you know, she'd been a clippy on the buses, she'd worked in the kitchen and her daughter was going to to be honored by the queen.
Speaker 2:In the end it was prince charles, now the king, of course, um, and she was really proud and it was. It was also about being a black person, um, and thinking that it's not about being part of the establishment, it's about, um, countering that racism and different treatment that my dad experienced, that I was creating that link between, uh, you know, the uk and uh, the windrush generation and the children who came from the windrush generation, and that I was proved positive that our forefathers my dad, you know, all those people who came in the 50s and 60s, as my dad did, they did the right thing. They placed the trust in the UK, they worked hard and they did the right thing because we're thriving. So that's what.
Speaker 1:I thought, and who did you take to the palace, or was it Windsor Castle? Where did you go?
Speaker 2:It was Windsor Castle. It was amazing. I took my best friend of nearly 50 years, tanya, who I went to school with, and, yeah, we had a brilliant, brilliant day and I was so proud to be with her because it was Covid. I couldn't take anybody else because I would have taken my mum and my sisters, but my mum was quite frail at that point and the sins passed. But, yeah, it was a great moment and everybody, even the secret service who were searching your car for bombs even they were happy and joyous. It was a very, very surreal experience.
Speaker 1:And you are. You've got such a story and such energy and positivity. It's hard to fit everything into this conversation. What do we not know about you? What's your secret? Little talent?
Speaker 2:Tell me you're on a unicycle, a flute yeah, I learned it when I was a child at school. I've still got a flute and I've got bronchiectasis, so I'm not so good at the breathing anymore that I have got a float. But I think the secret thing that people will be surprised is is that I'm a nana and I love being a nana. I love my grandchildren. They bring me so much joy and happiness and now that I'm getting to the twilight of my years I was 60 last year I'm really reflecting on family, the importance of family and what next, and you know I'm still working really hard with Tracy for this term and thinking about what will come after. But I have no fear because, whatever happens, I've got my beautiful little family, my little rainbow family, because both my children are gay and both happily married and living great lives. I've got my lovely grandchildren to look forward to and I'm really looking forward to being an honor for as much as possible when that time comes.
Speaker 1:And if you had a superpower and also endless budget, right and then what would you do with it? We know your superpower. You've got your superpowers. Have you had the magic wand?
Speaker 2:I would feed every child. I would feed every child every day because, you know, child poverty is something that I feel very passionately about. I come from Seedcroft. We didn't have a lot of money, we didn't have a lot of food, but we had just enough to, you know, to eat every day, and that that shouldn't be a gift in the 21st century, that that you're expected to have a meal every day. So I would love to feed every child in the world, but definitely in the UK, every day, for every meal time, and if I could do that, I would.
Speaker 1:And personally, what's left on that bucket list because you said earlier you know we only go this way once. Right left on that bucket list because you said earlier.
Speaker 2:You know we only go this way once, right? Um, so I've done lots of things. I've jumped out of an airplane, I've climbed the Himalayas. Um, you know, I've met the king, I've met the queen, I've met Nelson Mandela. You know I've met lots of beautiful people, um, and so I don't have any burning ambition to oh, you know, I need to um, do this out of the other.
Speaker 2:Now I want to travel to beautiful places, often with my sister. Me and my sister go all over the place together. We just went to Jane Austen's house. It doesn't have to be in another country, um, and I just want to see, uh, places in the UK that I've never seen before, um, and maybe in Europe that I've never seen before, and uh, just really, um, you know, understand the beauty of the surroundings that I've never seen before, and just really. You know, understand the beauty of the surroundings that I'm fortunate enough to live in, and I just want to give thanks for everything that I've got. I'm very grateful for everything that I've got and I want to enjoy the things that I've got for as long as is possible, because that's what peace looks like.
Speaker 1:Wow, what a way to end. Alison, you are amazing. Can't wait to hop over to Leeds In person. I'll be hand delivering that powerless badge. We'll need to write out the whole afternoon. I'm pretty certain.
Speaker 2:Yes, Thank you, I'll go to Liverpool.
Speaker 1:I love shopping in Liverpool.
Speaker 2:Well, there we go.
Speaker 1:Liverpool won. I love it. This episode is brought to you by Liverpool won. They'll love that. Thank you so much. It's great to spend time with you today. Keep being amazing. Keep being awesome and keep that energy. That energy is phenomenal. Thank you so much, alison. Thank you, simone. Subscribe on YouTube, apple, amazon Music, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a review or follow us on socials. We are Power underscore net on Insta, tiktok and Twitter. We are Power on LinkedIn, facebook and we are underscore Power on YouTube.
