Thief,
Prisoner,
Soldier,
Priest.
Paul Cowley MBE is Managing Director of the Second Chance Partnership, an ordained Anglican minister, and the founder of one of the UK's largest prison-to-employment programmes. His life's work is the second chance — the one he was given, and the one he now gives to others.
Employing prison leavers isn't charity— Paul Cowley
— it's good business.
The Second Chance Partnership began inside Iceland Foods. In 2022, founder Sir Malcolm Walker asked Paul to build the retailer's Second Chance Initiative — hiring prison leavers directly into Iceland stores, with a guaranteed job waiting before release. With more than 1,000 UK stores and 30,000 employees, Iceland had the scale to make the test meaningful. Since then, it has offered employment to more than 700 prison leavers, becoming the UK's biggest retail new hirer of ex-offenders in 2024. In 2025 Paul founded the Second Chance Partnership to extend the model beyond a single employer — a growing coalition now including GXO and 2 Sisters Food Group.
This initiative presents a prison leaver not only with the hope of a job, but the hope of a new life.— Paul Cowley
- 1976
- Enlisted in the British Army — given a second chance.
- 1994
- Attended an Alpha course at Holy Trinity Brompton — given another.
- 2002
- Ordained priest in the Church of England.
- 2022
- Appointed Iceland Foods' first Director of Rehabilitation.
- 2025
- Founded the Second Chance Partnership.