Speaker biographies
Speakers Low - Wor
Tokunbo Ajasa‐Oluwa is the Founder and Managing Director of Catch 22. Catch 22 is a youth media social enterprise that nurtures excluded young talent ‐ those that want experience and a career within the communications industry but can’t get experience due to their lack of experience and social profile.
Tokunbo is a former print journalist with experience working on regional news press and national consumer magazine titles. In parallel to his career in journalism, Tokunbo has been involved with youth development work for over ten years.
Tokunbo is a fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) and in October 2007 he was appointed one of the 35 Social Enterprise Ambassadors on the three‐year Cabinet Office endorsed nationwide programme.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Susan Anderson is Director of Public Services and Skill at the CBI and leads the organisation’s work on public services and supporting public service reform. Drawing on the practical experience of its members as funders, users and providers of public services, the CBI works with government and other stakeholders to advise on how services can be re-engineered to maintain quality and improve efficiency.
Susan also leads the CBI's work in building a strong relationship between business and education to improve prosperity for all - whether in developing graduates with the skills and knowledge to drive business growth, improving the skills of the existing workforce or ensuring that all school leavers possess the right skills.
Susan was formerly Head of Employee Resourcing at the CBI and was appointed Director of Human Resources Policy in June 2000. Susan is also a council member of ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) and sits on the Low Pay Commission.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Emily Astor is part of a team of specialist managers at Natwest who work solely within the charity and social enterprise arena. She has a specialist portfolio of social enterprise customers and focuses on responsible lending and the promotion of income generation for her clients.
Emily has previously worked within generalist banking teams, looking after a range of SME’s and has knowledge of both general trading businesses and specialist knowledge of the sector with which she now works.
Emily has successfully lent to a number of charities and social enterprises and has helped these organisations to both successfully grow and to manage the effects of the economic downturn.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Clive Barton is Corporate Affairs Director at Serco Group plc. He has been a member of Serco’s Executive Team since 2005. As Corporate Affairs Director he is responsible for managing Serco’s key stakeholder relationships around the world.
Clive joined Serco in 1999 he has held a number of strategy roles , was the Marketing Director responsible for Group growth for seven years and was chief executive of the group’s private finance initiative investment business.
Prior to joining Serco he was a management consultant for McKinsey & Company in London. He is active in Pilotlight, a charity that connects senior business people with small, ambitious charities in need of development support. Clive is also a member of the Public Services Strategy Board of the CBI.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Salford’s MP since 1997, Hazel Blears is proud of Labour’s record in transforming the city of her birth. She has helped bring hundreds of millions of pounds of investment in schools, housing and the NHS, and given greater powers to local communities. She is especially proud of progress in education – with Salford currently ranked the most improved area in Greater Manchester for GCSE results.
Hazel has held a number of senior positions including chair of the Labour Party, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and Minister of State for Policing and Counter Terrorism.
She is 54 and has been married for over 20-years. Growing up in the 1960s in a traditional working class street, she attended Wardley Grammar School in Swinton and Eccles Sixth Form College. Hazel was the first person in her family to go into higher education. She went on to become a senior local authority solicitor, and a local Councillor for Eccles before becoming an MP.
She fought this year’s General Election on bringing jobs to Salford and giving communities a stronger say in running local services. Outside of politics she enjoys motorcycling, dancing and gardening.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Hugh is Head of Charities and Public Sector, Major Corporate Banking at the Royal Bank of Scotland. He runs a relationship team looking after large charities, local authorities, NHS and foundation trusts, higher education and government bodies. In addition, he has responsibility for encouraging volunteering across the Corporate Bank and is a member of the Community Banking Steering Committee and Financial Inclusion Group.
Previous roles have included establishing and growing the Bank’s UK market leading businesses in private healthcare, professional practices and education. Hugh is a trustee of Crisis UK which runs the Ethical Enterprise and Employment Network (Ex3). Ex3 brings together organisations using social enterprise and supported employment models with organisations working with unemployed people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless .
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Caron Bradshaw is Chief Executive of the Charity Finance Directors’ Group, a charity that champions best practice in finance management in the voluntary sector. CFDG’s training and development programmes enable finance managers to give the essential leadership on finance strategy and management that their charities need. With more than 1,700 members, managing over £21billion, CFDG is uniquely placed to challenge regulation which threatens the effective use of charity funds.
Caron originally qualified as a Barrister. Prior to joining CFDG,she spent 16 years working for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), in a variety of roles from Head of the Ethics Advisory Service, policy work as a Business Law Manager and latterly as the Head of the Charity and Voluntary Sector.
Last year Caron was elected to NCVO’s Assembly and is a member of their Task and Finish review group. In addition Caron was recently appointed as a Trustee of the Directory of Social Change as well as serving on the CIPFA Charities Panel and as a trustee for Bedfordshire based charity, the Full House Theatre Company.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Miia Chambers is Director of Development at P3, a social inclusion charity and social enterprise - a provider of enterprising, innovative and transformative services across homelessness, criminal justice, youth provision and IAG services working with people with complex needs and chaotic lifestyles.
Previously Miia lead Camden Council’s ‘Invest to Save’ project on outcomes based commissioning, third sector policy and social innovation. Miia has also worked as a Policy Advisor on social inclusion at the Countryside Agency, as Development Manager for the Westway Development Trust initiating major expansion of the facilities and development programmes, and as a lecturer and a consultant.
Miia is an advisory group member at NCVO’s Public Service Delivery Network and NESTA’s public service innovation projects.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Sam Conniff is Joint MD of Livity, a social enterprise harnessing the power and influence of marketing, media, business and brands to transform the lives of young people. Livity’s clients include Google, Coca Cola, PlayStation, O2, Channel 4 and Penguin. Sam is also co-founder of LIVE Magazine, an award winning training program that engages over a thousand young people every year directly into Livity’s Brixton offices.
Sam was a Social Enterprise Ambassador for the Cabinet Office for three years, is a fellow of the RSA, a governor of the Livity school and in a previous life, set up Don’t Panic, once a flyer pack and now an international youth culture brand and community.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Craig Dearden-Phillips MBE is the Founding CEO of Stepping Out, a new venture helping public services to become social enterprises. A serial social entrepreneur, Craig is also the Founding Chair of the UK disability social enterprise speaking Up (now VoiceAbility) and co-founder of five smaller civil society organisations. Craig is the author of a best-selling business book for social entrepreneurs and a regular columnist for The Guardian and Third Sector magazine.
Craig has a Masters in Business (MBA) and is a Fellow of the Centre for Welfare Reform and a Visiting Fellow of Ashcroft International Business School. An elected Councillor, Craig serves as the Liberal Democrat Spokesman for Communities on Suffolk County Council.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Peter Dench is a Relationship Manager with NatWest, one of the UK’s leading banking providers. NatWest works with businesses, and the people behind these businesses with the aim of providing a truly exceptional service and support to help your businesses grow and develop.
Peter began his career managing departments within the leisure industry before joining Natwest, where he has experienced a variety of different roles ranging from front line private customer facing and advising roles, to branch management before moving in to business relationship management.
In 2007, Peter was approached to move in to the business channel where he has successfully managed complex relationships, whilst taking responsibilities to sustain growth.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Simon Devonshire is the General Manager of the Small & Medium Business division of Telefonica O2 UK Ltd, providing telecommunications to businesses across the UK who employ 1-2000 employees.
In addition to his role at O2, Simon is also actively involved with a number of small businesses, and is co-founder of One Water. One Water is a social enterprise that sells products in the developed world in order to fund related projects in the developing world. To date, the One portfolio has generated and donated more than £6m.
The business division of O2 has delivered consistent growth for the past four years. More than a third of UK business now depends on O2’s communication services. Simon is the champion of business within O2, who share his passion for the success of British business.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Rob Dougan is a Senior Strategic Planner at VCCP where he has continued to grow his brand and B2B experience working with O2 and Texaco
Rob began his career as a graduate trainee at DDB in his home city, Sydney. While there he fostered some of that agency’s most prestigious brands – Volkswagen and Gatorade.
After driving DDB’s integration and producing some of the agency’s first ever truly cross media campaigns Rob moved to London and start-up agency HMDG where he expanded his experience with B2B marketing for Auto Trader and consumer advertising with Reveal Magazine.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Rebecca Dray is the Founding Director of The Healthy Hub Community Interest Company (THH). THH is a social enterprise running a series of businesses in Lincolnshire that support disadvantaged people to turn their lives around. She is also Director of a sister social enterprise called Working Gardens CIC. Both companies are in the final stages of a merger with a national social enterprise and Rebecca will become Managing Director of the new organisation on 1 April 2011.
The Healthy Hub and Working Gardens have supported over 300 disadvantaged people in just two years and their turnover has increased by over 500% in this time. THH took an innovative approach to becoming self sustaining and does not rely on any grant funding at all – it works differently from most social enterprises in the UK with its open door policy and no need for client referral.
Rebecca started her career in the hospitality industry on the Island of Arran in Scotland before moving into support work in Edinburgh and mental health support in Lincolnshire in 2005.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
James Elias
James Elias is Head of Business Marketing at Google UK. He has been at Google for three years heading up business marketing for the UK & Ireland and helping businesses, small and large, take advantage of being online. During his time James and his team have helped tens of thousands of UK SMEs discover the benefits of online advertising and the value of the internet as a growth engine.
In 2010 they launched the Getting British Business Online campaign working in partnership with government in a bid to get 100,000 UK businesses to create their first website. So far more than 80,000 businesses have signed-up.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
David Fairhurst is a Founder and Director of Mutual Ventures, a social enterprise which works with public service commissioners and front-line teams to support the delivery of public services through independent social enterprises and co-operatives.
David’s career has spanned public service, corporate finance and public sector consultancy. He specialises in alternative delivery models for public services has worked extensively with the Department for Education on their pioneering Social Work Practice pilot programme which enables groups of front-line social workers to form their own social enterprises.
David is a mentor with the Cabinet Office's mutuals pathfinder programme which supports entrepreneurial public sector staff to form independent public service delivery enterprises.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Claire Fox is the director of the Institute of Ideas (IoI), which she established to create a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. Claire initiated the IoI while co-publisher of the controversial and ground-breaking current affairs journal LM magazine (formerly Living Marxism). The IoI has since worked with a variety of prestigious institutions in Britain and abroad.
Claire is a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze and is regularly invited to comment on developments in culture, education, politics and the arts across the whole range of media outlets: such as BBC Question Time, BBC Any Questions?, SkyNews Review, and BBC Breakfast.
Claire has a particular interest in education and social issues such as crime and mental health and has previously worked as a mental health social worker and as a lecturer in English literature.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
William Greenwood is a Director of the Hope Street Centre (HSC), a leading social enterprise consultancy. HSC provides consultancy, research, training, performance analysis, and a full range of business start up services. It also provides bespoke distance learning materials for new start up businesses. William leads on HSC’s work with the Department of Health’s Right to Request programme and is currently working supporting clients on the Right to Provide and Any Willing Provider policy programmes.
Prior to joining HSC William worked for the NHS as a senior manager and director. He is a member of the Institute of Healthcare Management and the Social Enterprise Coalition’s health forum.
On a personal level William has been active in the hospice and church based voluntary sector for a number of years.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Dan Gregory runs Common Capital. He has experience of funding and financing mutuals and social enterprises, developing policy and delivering in practice at Cabinet Office, Treasury, Futurebuilders and for the Department of Health’s Social Enterprise Investment Fund at Local Partnerships.
Dan has led pioneering developments including supporting over 50 ‘spin-out’ mutual and social enterprises; developing innovative ‘equity-like’ investment products; helping create the Mutuals Information Service; building consensus in government around a social investment bank; publishing Treasury’s Guidance to Funders and Purchasers; agreeing investment in the first social enterprise risk capital fund; and co-creating the first UK social investment conference and Good Deals Almanack.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Richard Jacobs is the Director of Yes And Training. He has been designing award-winning culture change programmes and effectiveness training for the last 17 years and has personally trained over 100,000 people. His clients range from Google, Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Co to government bodies, charities and not for profit organisations.
Richard is the author of ‘What’s your Purpose?’ and the forthcoming book ‘Getting your Shift Together... the Art of Changing Culture’.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Scott James is Director for Business Banking, NatWest. With a team of 19 staff serving 6,500 customers in the City of London, his team look after all business propositions from start up to the more complex businesses that turn over up to £2million.
Scott began his career in NatWest in 1997, working his way up through the business to his current level, covering many aspects of banking and finance on the way including collections, fraud, systems administration and business banking.
Scott began work in the City on 1 January 2011 after being in Kent for the majority of last year and spent the rest of his banking career in Essex.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Arjumand Kazmi is a head of policy at Voice4Change England. In this role she leads the Voice4Change England (V4CE) policy team and is responsible for monitoring developments in public policy and assessing the implications of these for the BME voluntary and community sector including social enterprises. She supports the promotion of V4CE’s key policy messages to government and other policy makers and assists in setting strategic priorities for V4CE.
Arjumand has previously worked for Voice East Midland a regional BME third sector organisation in a policy and research role. She provided capacity building support to locally based community organisations in Nottingham and worked to support asylum seekers in Warwickshire. Arjumand has also worked in Pakistan for non profit organisations championing rights for women and children.
Arjumand holds a masters degree in politics and an LLM in law in development.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Nigel Kershaw OBE is Chief Executive of Big Issue Invest (BII) and Chairman of The Big Issue (TBI).
BII, a subsidiary of TBI, provides finance to some of the most innovative social enterprises in the UK offering a range of investments, from loans to royalty agreements to equity from £50,000 to £500,000.
BII is creating a Social Merchant Bank 'By the social entrepreneurs – for the social entrepreneurs'. Like BII it will be led by the social entrepreneurs and backed by the social financiers.
Previously CEO of TBI, Nigel originally trained as a lithographic printer and founded three employee owned printing and publishing companies.
He is a Council member of the Social Enterprise Coalition and was a Cabinet Office Social Enterprise Ambassador. In 2008 he was the winner of the IOD Good Director award and in 2010 was been made an OBE for his services to social enterprise.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Richard Litchfield is the Founder and Managing Director of Eastside, a firm that provides business support services to help organisations to grow and increase sustainability. Eastside provide a range of services in fields such as mergers and collaboration, organisational change, enterprise development, business planning, and finance.
Richard started his career in financial services and worked in Citigroup’s mergers and acquisitions team. When he left the City, he identified a need for a socially-focused advisory firm with strong finance and entrepreneurial credentials and launched Eastside shortly after.
Richard is passionate about seeking ways to help social enterprises to scale up. Most recently, he has led the development of 3SC, a national initiative to enable third sector organisations to bid for and deliver public sector contracts. Richard leads Eastside’s work with central, local government and housing associations about how to use new models of commissioning and financing to invest in communities.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Michelle Livingston is a Director of Real Partners CIC, a company in the East Midlands that helps organisations improve performance through effective and focused leadership and organisation development. The company also provides innovative solutions in strategy development, change programme design and high performance teams.
Michelle began her career in human resources management with Boots plc and has held senior management roles in both the public and private sector. She now specialises in leadership development.
In 2010 Real Partners was delighted to be awarded the contract to deliver The ‘Social Enterprise Leadership Development programme’ in partnership with the Social Enterprise Coalition.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
Thea Longley is a Partner at Bates Wells and Braithwaite LLP, leading legal advisors to the social enterprise sector. BWB pioneered the introduction and use of the Community Interest Company (CIC) structure and is leading the way in advice on innovative funding for social enterprises and government outsourcing.
Thea trained at Bates Wells and Braithwaite and was seconded to the Cabinet Office to work on research that lead to the introduction of the CIC, reform of the industrial and providence society legislation and the Charities Act 2006. She co-wrote ‘Keeping it Legal – a guide to legal forms for social enterprises’ published by the Social Enterprise Coalition.
Thea currently gives advice to social enterprises on establishment, restructuring, outsourcing, governance arrangements, funding and contractual matters.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
