The CEO of Pret A Manger will provide strategic leadership to Homewards’ New Employment Opportunities Network (NEON), working with business leaders across Homewards six UK locations to help them to expand pathways into employment for young people at risk of homelessness.
Homewards has announced the appointment of Pano Christou, CEO of Pret A Manger, as the first UK Chair of the New Employment Opportunities Network (NEON).
NEON is a business-led initiative that brings together employers, local businesses and public services to create pathways into employment for young people aged 16-24 who have experienced, or are at risk of, homelessness. Working across Homewards’ six locations, the network is helping employers play a more active role in preventing homelessness by creating opportunities that support long-term stability and retention.
As UK Chair, Pano will provide strategic leadership for NEON, working with the six local NEONs to strengthen collaboration, share learning and help successful approaches reach more communities across the UK.
Pano’s appointment comes at a significant moment for Homewards as the programme moves into its next phase, building on three years of progress across all six locations and accelerating efforts to make homelessness rare, brief and unrepeated.
The role reflects the growing importance of business in homelessness prevention. Through NEON, employers are helping to demonstrate how sustainable employment opportunities can form part of a long-term solution, while supporting the ambition to make homelessness prevention an everyday consideration for organisations across the country.
Through the Pret Foundation, Pret A Manger has a long-standing commitment to supporting people experiencing homelessness through employment opportunities, grant funding and food donations. As a Homewards Activator and founding partner, Pret has committed to expanding its Rising Stars Programme nationally, with the ambition of supporting at least 500 people experiencing or at risk of homelessness into employment. Around 350 people have already been supported into work through the programme.
Welcoming the appointment, Hazel Detsiny, Executive Director of Homelessness at The Royal Foundation, said: “We are delighted to welcome a business leader of Pano’s calibre, whose longstanding commitment to tackling unemployment and homelessness makes him ideally placed to lead the NEON network. This new Chair role will play a vital part in supporting businesses to create and strengthen pathways into employment for people across all six Homewards locations, while helping to scale the initiative nationally. As we mark three years of the Homewards programme, Pano’s appointment reflects our ambition to build on the progress achieved so far and take Homewards into its next phase.”
