Gurbux Singh is born in the year 1944 in Punjab in India, his family came to britain in 1950 when he was six years old. He was brought up in Wolverhampton and did his degree at Sussex University. Gurbux became the Chairman of Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) in February 2000, he succeeded Sir Herman Ouseley who was the Chairman for seven years.

He was chief executive of the London borough of Haringey from 1989 to 2000, having previously been the borough's director of housing. He also worked as a senior housing officer at the CRE from 1977 to 1983.

During his tenure the CRE has been involved in a series of high-profile public campaigns, including one in which celebrities were changed into different ethnic groups using photo wizardry. In it, Spice Girl Melanie Brown and boxer Lennox Lewis were turned white, London mayor Ken Livingstone became Asian and TV presenter Gail Porter was depicted as Chinese.

He served as an adviser to the Association of London Government and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. He has chaired a number of national working parties commissioned by government departments and is currently a member of the Home Secretary Jack Straw's Race Relations Forum.

Mr Singh also contributed to a number of policy documents on housing and chaired a working party which oversaw a Department of the Environment research project on racial violence.  He speaks Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu and lives in north London.

The following gives details of his journey towards becoming the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.