Simon Andrew Woolley, Baron Woolley of Woodford (born 24 December 1961), is a British politician and activist. He is the founder and director of Operation Black Vote (OBV) and Trustee of the charity Police Now. Woolley has been a crossbench member of the House of Lords since October 2019, and has been Principal of Homerton College, Cambridge, since October 2021. He was chair of the Government of the United Kingdom Race Disparity Unit Advisory Group until July 2020. Early life and education Woolley was born in Leicester on 24 December 1961, and was raised by his adoptive parents Phillis and Dan Fox. He grew up on the St Matthew's estate which he described as, "a working-class council estate but it was a hard-working council estate. You never felt that you were short of anything." Woolley's adoptive parents fostered a number of other children during his childhood. Dan Fox died when Woolley was fourteen years old. Woolley left school without A-Levels and started his working life in an apprenticeship as a car mechanic. He moved to London at the age of nineteen and spent four years in advertising for The Rank Organisation in Wardour Street, before deciding to study Spanish and Politics at Middlesex University. During his studies, Woolley spent time in Costa Rica and Colombia. He studied at Queen Mary University of London, and was awarded Master of Arts in Hispanic literature from the University of London in 1994. Career Woolley became engaged with British politics, joining the campaign group Charter 88. He started to research the potential impact of a black vote, which Woolley argued could influence electoral outcomes in marginal seats. These findings encouraged Woolley to launch Operation Black Vote in 1996. Operation Black Vote has launched voter registration campaigns, an app to inspire and inform black and minority ethnic (BME) individuals and worked with Saatchi & Saatchi on a pro bono advertising campaign. Woolley also worked to empower communities and to integrate better politics education into the school curriculum. The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation estimated that Woolley's efforts encouraged millions of people to vote. Much of his work has been around nurturing BME civic and politic talent: the then Home Secretary Theresa May said in a speech in Westminster in 2016, "Today we celebrate a record number of BME MPs in parliament - 41. British politics and British society greatly benefits when we can utilise diversity’s teeming talent