Barbara Stocking

Stocking, during her tenure, built Oxfam's relationships with major, international, private corporations such as Unilever, Monsoon, Sysco, and others, on "many diverse projects,"[10] while also Oxfam grew to become one of Britain's biggest retailers with more than 700 shops and, through its secondhand book outlets, the charity stood among Europe's biggest book retailers. In 2009, Oxfam's shops made a profit of about £20m on £80m of revenue, with the charity posting a record total revenue of £318m.

In a 2010 interview, she stated: "Times have changed, and Oxfam is moving with the times. It took a while for many in the organisation to understand what is happening but since the late 1990s we have seen quite different relationships develop with private business."[10]

In 2011, Oxfam launched a campaign for "food justice in a resource-constrained world." Stocking stated that the organization's focus would be also on helping small land-holders and nomadic tribes to establish their land rights against richer nations "such as China and the Gulf States gobbling up land in Africa."[10]

During Stocking's tenure there, Oxfam faced many humanitarian crises, such as those caused by the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as by natural disasters such as the South-Asian tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake.[1][11]

In February 2018, an investigation by the Times reported that, during Stocking's tenure, Oxfam allowed three men to resign and sacked four others for "gross misconduct" after an inquiry concerning sexual exploitation, the downloading of pornography, bullying, and intimidation by Oxfam's staff in Haiti.[12] The Times stated that an internal, confidential report was produced by Oxfam in 2011. It found that there had been “a culture of impunity” among some staff in Haiti and concluded that "it cannot be ruled out that any of the prostitutes were under-aged."[12]

Among the staff who were permitted by Oxfam's leadership to resign without further actions taken against them was the charity's country director, Roland van Hauwermeiren. According to Oxfam's internal report, van Hauwermeiren admitted using prostitutes at a villa whose rent was paid with Oxfam funds meant for charity. Stocking, Oxfam's CEO at the time, offered Hauwermeiren “a phased and dignified exit” invoking her concern that sacking him risked “potentially serious implications for the charity’s work and reputation."[13]

When the allegations became public in 2018, Stocking stated that her biggest work mistake had been “Not getting rid of people soon enough."[14] Murray Edwards College issued a statement disputing the allegation that Stocking was involved in a "cover up" and affirming that she has the "College’s full support".[15] Stocking postponed a planned February 2018 visit to the Cambridge Union in light of the 'considerable media attention' surrounding her involvement with Oxfam.[16]

Following the resignation of Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's deputy chief executive, Robert Halfon, Conservative MP and Chairman of the Education Select Committee, accused Stocking of trying to “escape responsibility for the Haiti prostitution scandal." Halfon criticized the former Oxfam head who, he stated, had behaved “outrageously” in allowing senior aid workers to "resign quietly from the charity."[17]