Matthew joined Depaul International as Group CEO in September 2021. Depaul International oversees the Depaul family of charities – made up internationally of seven subsidiary charities, the Institute of Global Homelessness and the Famvin Homeless Alliance.
Prior to Depaul International, Matthew worked within the international humanitarian sector for over 35 years undertaking numerous senior country leadership positions in many of the world’s most complex humanitarian crises. He spent twenty years as CAFOD’s (Caritas) Humanitarian Director leading their humanitarian responses in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin/Central America and the Pacific.
He has been a strong advocate and practitioner for building national and regional humanitarian capacity, advocating for the international community to better support community and locally based organisations, and leading greater interfaith work. Throughout Matthew’s international career he has been an outspoken and strong advocate in promoting greater accountability to those people affected by crises and ensuring their protection. Through this work on accountability, he helped lead the development of the international humanitarian standard, Sphere and the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS), and remains the External Independent Advisor and Chair to the CHS Alliance. He is passionate about the environment and integrating an environmental perspective into humanitarian action and ensuring a systems-based approach.
Matthew has worked as Country Director in DRC for Concern Worldwide, as a technical advisor with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Bosnia, Somalia, SoUth Sudan and Mozambique, and in Romania as Director of the Ungureni Trust. Matthew started off his international career working as a water engineer with VSO in The Gambia.
More recently, Matthew was founding member and chair the global START Network, which provides humanitarian innovation, local and community level humanitarian funding. He was the former Chair of Caritas Internationalis Global Humanitarian Committee and Caritas Europa, and is currently an Advisory Board member of Bristol University Cabot Institute. Matthew holds an MSc in International Relations and Management.
In June 2023, Matthew was awarded an OBE in HM The King’s first Birthday Honours list for services to the global humanitarian sector.