CCSI people

Professor Bell is Professor of Marketing and Director of Executive Education at the University of Melbourne. Previously Simon worked at Cambridge Judge Business School. He has worked extensively with industry for the purposes of research, consulting and executive education. He writes and consults on a range of issues including sales force management, services and relationship marketing, and customer satisfaction and loyalty. His research has focused on the retail and financial services industries and has been published in leading international journals such as the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, Academy of Management Review, Harvard Business Review, and the Sloan Management Review. Simon also sits on a number of editorial boards including the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Professor Doug Creed is a Professor of Management at the College of Business, University of Rhode Island. Most of his research has looked at issues of workplace diversity and organisational change processes for greater inclusion and equity. In the late 1990s, he conducted groundbreaking research on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) work place and career experience and employee grassroots efforts to end workplace inequities based on sexual orientation and gender identity. He received his PhD and MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He has a MA in Religion from Yale Divinity School and a BA, Magna Cum Laude, with Distinction in English, from Yale College.

Tina Dacin is the E. Marie Shantz Professor of Strategy and Organizational Behaviour in the Queen’s School of Business, Queen’s University, Canada. She is the Director of the Queen’s School of Business Centre for Responsible Leadership and Area Coordinator of the Organisational Behaviour group at the school. She is also a member of the University Senate at Queen’s University and Chair of the Principal’s Innovation Fund Committee. Professor Dacin’s research interests include cultural heritage and traditions, social innovation/entrepreneurship, and strategic alliances. Her work has been published in leading management journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Management, Journal of World Business, Organization Science, and the Strategic Management Journal. She has also served as Senior/Consulting Editor for Organization Science, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management Inquiry. She has previously served for multiple terms on the Editorial Review Boards of the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, the Journal of International Business Studies, Strategic Organization and Strategic Management Journal.

Wesley S. Helms is an Associate Professor of Strategic Management at Brock University’s Goodman School of Business. Wes received his PhD from the Schulich School of Business at York University. His research has focused on understanding how “marginalised” organisational actors, rather than being powerless, negotiate, compete, and manage conflict with competitors and sanctioning audiences in order to influence their social contexts. Specifically, he has examined how marginalised actors negotiated and shaped the meaning of CSR, how mixed martial artists used the stigmatising labels that discredited them to garner broader social acceptance, and, most recently, how social enterprises compete with, and contest, new market entrants to control the meaning of social entrepreneurship.

Professor Nelson Philips is Chair in Strategy and Organisational Behaviour at Imperial College Business School.

Prior to joining Imperial, Professor Philips was the Beckwith Professor of Management Studies at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge from 2002 to 2005 and an Associate Professor in the Strategy and Organisation Area at McGill University in Montreal, Canada from 1993 to 2002. While on sabbatical in 2000/2001, Professor Phillips spent six months as the Edward Clarence Dyason Universitas 21 Fellow at Melbourne University in Melbourne, Australia and six months as a Visiting Professor at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. Professor Phillips completed his PhD in Organisational Analysis from the University of Alberta, Canada in 1995.

His research interests lie in four main areas. First, much of his work focuses on various aspects of new institutional theory. His work in this area connects conventional approaches to understanding institutional process to new theoretical perspectives such as discourse analysis or to new empirical areas of study such as entrepreneurship. Second, he has been increasingly engaged in a program of research looking at a range of different but related issues in entrepreneurship, family business and social entrepreneurship. His interest in this area lies in applying social theory to developing deeper understandings of these important forms of organization. Third, Professor Phillips has a strong interest in technology strategy and innovation, where he has been working for several years on various aspects of the social dynamics of technology adoption and the ramifications of these dynamics for technology strategy and innovation.

Dr Natalie Slawinski is Professor of Strategic Management at the Faculty of Business Administration, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and is a co-founder and academic adviser to Memorial’s Centre for Social Enterprise. Dr Slawinski received her PhD in strategic management from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, and was awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal. Her research focuses on business sustainability, temporality in organisations, and organisational paradoxes, in a variety of contexts including social enterprises, industry-wide strategic alliances and multinational corporations. Dr Slawinski’s articles have appeared in such journals as Organization Science, Journal of Business Ethics, Organization Studies and Business & Society.

Wendy Smith earned her PhD in Organisational Behaviour at Harvard Business School, and is currently a professor of management and Co-director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Alfred Lerner School of Business at the University of Delaware.

Her research explores how leaders and their organisations address strategic paradoxes – contradictory, yet interrelated demands embedded in an organisation’s strategy. She has investigated how organisations manage to achieve social and financial performance, explore new opportunities and exploit existing competencies, or enable short term and long term success. Her current research investigates how social entrepreneurs create conditions to sustain both their social mission and business purpose. Her research has been published in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Organization Science. Wendy also serves as an editorial board member for Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal and Business Ethics Quarterly.

Wendy teaches leadership, organisational behaviour and business ethics. She has taught MBAs and undergraduates at University of Delaware, Harvard, and University of Pennsylvania – Wharton. She was nominated for the MBA Teacher Award at the Lerner Business School each year from 2007-2014 and nominated for the University of Delaware Excellence in Teaching Award in 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2013. She has taught leadership to executives.

Wendy lives in Philadelphia with her husband and three children.

Isabel Brüggemann is an Associate Expert at the United Nations. She received her PhD in organisation theory from Cambridge Judge Business School and was a visiting researcher at the Yale School of Management. Her research focuses on strategies and processes that allow social ventures and other forms of organising in support of social progress to drive social and environmental change in challenging institutional environments. Furthermore, Isabel is interested in insider-outsider dynamics concerning social change initiatives. Over the past years, she has conducted fieldwork on a sustainable livelihoods initiative in rural Indonesia and a social enterprise founded in post-revolutionary Egypt. Her research was awarded the Best International Paper Award 2019 of the Academy of Management (OMT).

Laura Claus is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Strategy & Entrepreneurship at the UCL School of Management. Her research focuses on social entrepreneurship, social movements and social innovation. She has a particular interest to understand how organisations can act as social movement entrepreneurs to facilitate social change. As such, her research is positioned at the intersection of organisation theory and social movement theory. Over the past years, she has conducted fieldwork on child marriage in Indonesia, an activist organisation in Nigeria, and an impact investing initiative in Tanzania. Laura holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and was a research fellow at Stanford University. She has worked with organisations, including UNICEF, Plan International, Amnesty International, and impact investment funds. Her work was awarded the prestigious Carolyn B. Dexter Award in 2017.

Christian Hampel is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy at Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London. His research interests lie at the intersection of entrepreneurship and organisation theory. Christian has a particular focus on exploring how new ventures experience and manage social evaluations (e.g. identity, stigma, legitimacy). He currently primarily studies these dynamics in the social innovation and fintech spaces. Christian’s research has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal and the Academy of Management Review, among other outlets. He teaches entrepreneurship and social innovation at master’s and MBA level. Christian received his PhD from Cambridge Judge Business School and was one of three finalists for the Grigor McClelland Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Ella Henry is a New Zealand Māori woman with tribal affiliations to the Far North region. Ella holds a Master of Philosophy, which focused on Māori women and leadership; and a PhD which focused on Māori entrepreneurship in screen production. She is an Associate Professor in the Auckland University of Technology School of Business Economics & Law and is also the Director of Māori Advancement for the Business School. Her role is to enhance the participation and success of Māori students and scholars. She has worked extensively with her own tribe, as a Negotiator for their Treaty of Waitangi Claim, and as Chair of the Post-Settlement Governance Entity. Alongside work with her own and other tribal organisations, Ella has also been involved with the Māori screen industry, helping to develop capability and training within, and advocating for an authentic indigenous voice in and across screen production.

Simone T. A. Phipps, MBA, PhD, SPHR, SHRM-SCP is an Associate Professor of Management in the School of Business at Middle Georgia State University, where she teaches organisational behaviour, entrepreneurship, principles of management, strategic management, human resource management, and leadership. Her research interests include management history, entrepreneurship, HR practices, leadership, and relationships between the organisation and society. Usually, her research involves the exploration or examination of gender, racial, and ethnic minorities, with the aim of highlighting their struggles and contributions, as well as finding possible solutions to improve the minority experience in business and society.

She has published articles in many scholarly, peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Management History, Strategic HR Review, and Society and Business Review. As well as presenting her research at many conferences such as the Academy of Management (AOM), Midwest Academy of Management (MAM), Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA), Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) and the International Council for Small Business (ICSB), she serves as an Editorial Board Member for the Journal of Management History. She and her co-author have been recognised by the Academy of Management for publishing “ground-breaking African-American management history research,” some of which has been included in a number of prominent management textbooks. She and her co-author have also written a book entitled African American Management History: Insights on Gaining a Cooperative Advantage.

Leon Prieto, PhD is an Associate Professor of Management at Clayton State University. His research areas are in African American management history, social issues in management and minority social entrepreneurship, and his research is focused on the contributions of minorities (gender as well as racial & ethnic) to the development of management as a discipline and the interrelationship between organisational management and society.

He has published peer-reviewed articles in academic journals such as the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Management History, Society and Business Review and others. He is also an associate editor of the Journal of Management History. The Academy of Management recognised his (and his coauthor’s) African-American management history research as being ground-breaking, and some of this research has been included in prominent management textbooks. His first book, co-authored with Dr Simone Phipps, is entitled African American Management History: Insights on Gaining a Cooperative Advantage.

Dr Antonios Saravanos is Clinical Associate Professor of Information Systems Management at NYU’s School of Professional Studies, where he co-ordinates the undergraduate degree programmes in information systems management and applied data analytics and visualisation. His contributions to the NYU community have been recognised twice. In 2016 through the NYU School of Professional Studies Outstanding Service Award and in 2019 through the NYU School of Professional Studies Teaching Excellence Award. Dr Saravanos chaired the NYU’s School of Professional Studies Faculty Council between 2015-2017 and between 2017-2020 served as a member of the NYU Senate. He holds a doctorate in instructional technology and media from Columbia University and a masters degree in software engineering from the University of Oxford. Dr Saravanos has over 15 years of experience in managing and developing information systems. His current research interests reside in the field of human-computer interaction at the intersection of technology and social innovation.

Dr Thang is an Associate Professor at the National Economics University (NEU), one of the first universities in Vietnam. She is founder and director of the Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship under NEU. NEU CSIE is among the leading hubs of research, education and incubation of social innovation and entrepreneurship in South East Asia.

CSIE and Dr Thang herself is an ecosystem builder for social innovation and social enterprise in the country. She serves on the advisory board of the British Council South East Asia Social Enterprise, and is the deputy lead for the government taskforce, developing entrepreneurship in high schools and universities in Vietnam. She is also on the board of directors of social enterprises in Vietnam.

Dr Thang chairs the Vietnam Social Enterprise Scholars Network and leads the country’s report on the social innovation and social enterprise sector in Vietnam. CSIE works as strategic partner with the British Council, UNDP Vietnam, Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Korean Social Enterprise Promotion Agency to promote social innovation and entrepreneurship, and businesses for SDGs in Vietnam and Asia.

Dr Norah X. Wang is a Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Applied Social Sciences part of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU).

Her subject areas are social entrepreneurship and enterprise, social capital, human capital development, and research for policy and administration. Prior to joining PolyU, Dr Wang was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong. During her eight years at HKU she developed her research interests in the Third Sector, cross-sector collaborations in welfare provision, and social innovation.

Not only has Dr Wang worked on the management and governance issues of large charities, she has also provided consulting services and served on the board of directors for small charities. Her recent research areas include “Third-party Government/Governance”, “Institutional Analysis on Social Innovation”, and “Hybrid Organising”.

Richard Akerele is the founder of a widening participation charity, East London Connect, helping young people of ethnic heritage achieve their full educational and career potential. He is also a diversity consultant working across different industries to provide innovative and effective solutions to improve representation in organisations.  Richard have recently launched a podcast called Teaching at the top: Black men in Academia, to challenge and inspire young people to consider a career in research. Richard holds an MSt in Social Innovation from Cambridge Judge Business School and is currently a PhD Candidate at Bristol University School of Management. His research focusses on Black British history and Black entrepreneurship in the 18th century.

Dr Nick Milner is the first Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation graduate research associate. He originally trained and practiced as a human factors/ergonomics research scientist and joined BT Research Labs directly from a PhD in Occupational Medicine (University of Nottingham). His early research interests were on physiological and psychological issues associated with sedentary work and human computer interaction (HCI). A paper on his doctoral research won the International Ergonomics Congress prize.

He was part of the first MSt in Social Innovation cohort at Cambridge Judge Business School where his dissertation investigated managing mission and money in social enterprise using behavioural economics. His current research interests at Cambridge are further exploring how people’s decision making on behalf of others is influenced by prosocial factors and prospect theory framing.

Nick is the CEO of TranQuality which uses EEG to identify brain activity associated with anxiety and depression (phenotypes) prior to treatment using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). He is currently leading an Innovate UK-funded development using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyse brain activity and propose treatment protocols to support clinicians. Outside his research and consultancy work, he lectures on marketing at the University of Bristol’s Quantum Technology Enterprise Centre (QTEC), the Cambridge University Maxwell Centre Impulse programme and Cambridge Judge Business School’s Ignite programme.

Jessica Rose is the Director of Philanthropy & Development for the Spanish National Cancer Centre (CNIO) in Madrid. Her work has spanned the government, higher education and charity sectors in Australia, the UK and Spain. In 2018, Jessica completed her MSt in Social Innovation at Cambridge Judge Business School, where her pioneering research explored donor-perpetrated sexual harassment of fundraisers and the pervasive dynamics of gendered harassment in the charitable sector. Jessica is continuing her research on power in the charitable industry via a part-time PhD at the University of Cambridge, whilst actively working with academic and industry bodies to confront sexual harassment in the third sector.

A graduate of the MSt in Social Innovation, Sarah is currently serving as an Equity Fellow with CEO Action for Racial Equity, a business-led coalition with a mission to identify, develop and promote public policies and corporate engagement strategies that will address racial inequity, systemic racism and social injustice. Sarah’s professional and research backgrounds are in technology, innovation and gender equity.

Belinda Bell was Programme Director  of Cambridge Social Ventures (2014-2021), part of the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation, supporting a wide range of businesses making social and environmental impact.

The programme was founded in 2014, as a partnership between the University of Cambridge, Allia, Foundation East and Keystone Development Trust.

She is a social entrepreneur herself having established a range of social ventures over the last decade including those focusing on finance, ageing and young people. She has acted as a mentor, advisor and supporter to many more social entrepreneurs and as such has developed a broad knowledge of business models for social innovation.

Her specific interest is in the social finance market and leveraging capital for social impact. She was Founder and first Chief Executive of Foundation East, a groundbreaking community finance organisation where she remains a Director. She has also undertaken research at the University of Cambridge focusing on the social finance sector and continues to write on this topic.

Belinda holds a masters degree in Community Enterprise from the University of Cambridge and a bachelors degree in Social Anthropology from Goldsmiths College, University of London.

“In my role at Allia I have been able to help advance the fields of social investment and support for social enterprise. We are a social enterprise which issues social investment bonds nationally and provides support for social ventures through business centres and programmes. I led the development of Allia’s ‘Future Business Centre’, an £8 million purpose-built social and environmental business incubator opened in Cambridge in late 2013, and led the bid for the Social Incubator East programme which is delivering a full package of support for the most promising scalable social ventures in partnership with Cambridge Judge Business School.

“I regularly contribute on social enterprise at Cambridge Judge Business School and Anglia Ruskin University, and have been a judge for the Cambridge University Entrepreneurs (CUE) £1k and £5k Business Plan competitions since 2011. I have also represented social enterprise on various bodies including the Greater Cambridge Partnership and Cambridge Council for Voluntary Service, as well as the advisory boards of e-Luminate CIC and the Cambridge Student Hub.

“I am passionate about using social enterprise to tackle social problems, and am the author of The Social Entrepreneur Revolution (Marshall Cavendish 2009) which aims to popularise social entrepreneurship.

“I am excited by the potential impact that will result from getting social innovation higher on the agenda of the business school in one of the world’s greatest universities.

“Through my Fellowship I hope to develop a two-way link with Allia’s work on social innovation, through research in action which both informs and seeks to better understand key areas especially:

• How social investment finance can best support social ventures;
• The difference that effective provision of space, funding and business support makes to the success and impact of social ventures;
• Developing and testing social innovations capable of addressing key social and economic challenges.

“I am interested in how social entrepreneurs in all sectors create systemic change in key areas of domestic and international economies, especially in:

• strategies for reducing unemployment, maximising employment and meaningful activity
• new models of affordable housing benefiting young people and first time buyers
• finding ways to enable citizens to build an asset or stake in society, and the extent to which this changes their economic status and social wellbeing.”

J. William “Bill” DeMarco, Colonel USAF (ret), serves as the Director Air University Innovation and Leadership Institute, Chair and Dean of Education Leadership Department, and Professor of Leadership Studies Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) Maxwell AFB, Alabama. His Leadership and Command experiences include command at the squadron, group, and region level, as well as serving as the Staff College’s 44th Commandant.

Bill is an adjunct professor with Auburn University in Leadership. He served as a National Security Affairs Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and is a fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, as well as a senior associate with GiANT Worldwide leadership consulting. He also contributes as a leadership consultant for the National WWII Museum’s Corporate Leadership Academy in New Orleans, LA, and is the founder and CEO of the Mastermind Century Group

A command pilot having qualified in five different weapons systems (C-23A, C-12F, C-141B, KC-10A, and the KC-135R), he holds three masters degrees and is a graduate of the USAF’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies.

“Public service provides many services crucial to fulfilling citizens, needs, safety and aspirations. However, our public services must be more innovative and entrepreneurial-ensuring we collectively tackle the many issues facing us. I am committed to working with the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation to engage with public services to this end. For me, leadership is a key aspect of innovation. I will work with the Centre to bring leaders together to share, learn and engage.”

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Noa Gafni is the CEO of Impact Squared, a movement building consultancy. Impact Squared has advised clients, including United Nations Foundation, the George Lucas Education Foundation and Estee Lauder, on their digital strategy, social impact and millennial engagement.

Noa began her career as an entrepreneur, founding a social network for women in 2005. She then joined the founding digital team at Hearst Magazines as Head of Social Media. Noa then spent several years as an independent digital strategist with a client roster that included Real Madrid, Xiaomi and Lloyd’s of London.

During her MBA at London Business School, Noa became deeply interested in social enterprise as a driver for change. After completing her MBA, Noa joined the World Economic Forum as a Global Leadership Fellow and the Head of Communications for the Global Shapers Community, which brings exceptional young people together to impact their local communities and shape the global agenda.

Noa has spoken on issues of social impact at the World Economic Forum, Financial Times and Harvard Social Enterprise Conference. She holds a Bachelors Degree (High Honours) in Psychology from Dartmouth College and an MBA from London Business School.

Nicole Helwig heads the Centre for Social Enterprise at Memorial University of Newfoundland where she is responsible for setting strategy and direction to fulfil the centre’s mandate to nurture social entrepreneurs, strengthen social enterprise and drive social innovation in Newfoundland and Labrador. Nicole is also the programme co-ordinator for Memorial’s MBA in Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (MBA-SEE), which is the only MBA programme in Canada purposefully designed to develop business leaders who are committed to sustainable and social business practices. Nicole’s circuitous career path has provided her with a wealth of experiences and exposure to societal issues around the world. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University (humanistic studies programme) and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Strathclyde (Malaysia International Centre). With a background in performing arts, Nicole also holds a classical ballet pedagogue diploma from the Hungarian Dance Academy.

John is a serial entrepreneur who builds businesses that achieve social innovation. He created a new model for accounting firms that was radical at the time and continues to thrive with its mission for CPAs to “pursue their profession while promoting the public good.” He is founding director and vice chair of a community bank that reinvests in the community as a “locally owned, locally loaned” bank which has grown 600 per cent in a decade that witnessed the disappearance of 2,000 local banks in the US. John created a pop-up corporation to accomplish agricultural exports to a cooperative in a developing country with the goal of triggering market behavior to improve price and availability of imports.

John, a member of the House of Representatives for Pennsylvania since 1997, currently chairs the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee and has served as Speaker pro tempore during five legislative sessions. John believes that governments on all levels perform best when the public can keep an eye on things. His open records law was the first expansion of the public’s access to state and local records in more than a half century. His lobbying regulation law ended Pennsylvania’s sad distinction as the only state among the United States to have absolutely no law concerning lobbying behavior and disclosure. His legislative accomplishments are heavily geared toward, “Benefits that will endure long after my public service is complete.”

In the NGO sector, John has served on the Board of Trustees that governs the University of Pittsburgh since 2004 and served a decade as a member of the Board of Overseers for the University of Pennsylvania – School of Veterinary Medicine. He has served as a board member for many other NGO’s and helped guide innovations to alter business models so that their missions could be sustained.

John earned a bachelors degree from Duke University, magna cum laude, with departmental honors in Management Sciences & Accounting and undertook non-degree scholarships at Oxford University and the Australian Graduate School of Management.

John began his professional career in Sydney, Australia, with an international accounting firm and advanced through Pittsburgh to the US National Office where, in addition to addressing issues for Fortune 500 firms, he interfaced with the profession’s standard setting bodies and conducted some negotiations for a world-wide audit approach for the firm.

“Opportunities for social innovation surround us in every sector. Sorting out which sector might best serve the mission should be a carefully considered, early decision in every case.”

Jody Day is the British Founder of Gateway Women, the first global friendship and support network for childless women and the author of Rocking the Life Unexpected: 12 Weeks to Your Plan B for a Meaningful and Fulfilling Life Without Children (2013). In addition to the online community, she also runs retreats and workshops for childless women and contributes widely to print and broadcast media on issues relating to childlessness. She is a training integrative psychotherapist, a Founder Member of the Ageing Without Children collective (AWOC), an Ambassador for the ‘What I See Project’ (a global film project to recognise and amplify women’s voices) and in 2013 was selected by the BBC to be one of 100 women chosen to represent 100 years of feminism.

Childless and childfree women (‘childfree’ is the term for chosen childlessness) make up 1:5 of the cohort of women born in the 1960s, and there are signs that it may rise to 1:4 for those born in the 1970s. This is twice the number of their mother’s generation. However, the status of childless/childfree women in society is extremely problematic.

In Jody’s work, she calls those born in the 60s and 70s (broadly Gen X) as ‘the shock absorber generation for the sexual revolution’. It is clear that we are living through a profound moment of social change in both men and women’s lives in the area of relationships and identities – one that merits both research and support. The reasons for not becoming a parent (for both men and women) are diverse, and don’t reflect the received notion that it’s a question of ‘didn’t want’ or ‘couldn’t have’ and include broader socio-economic and structural factors such as social infertility and economic and housing insecurity.

Furthermore, childless adults are expected to make up circa 25 per cent of the ageing population by 2030 and face a grim prospect in terms of the attitudes towards ageing and the state’s current reliance on the provision of informal social care to ageing parents. Jody is a Founder member of AWOC (the Ageing Without Children collective), which is creating a platform for informed discussion to develop creative solutions. This is a prime area where social innovation can really make a difference.

Never before in Western history have there been so many intelligent, educated, financially independent women not involved in the day-to-day responsibility of bringing-up children. Gateway Women aims to liberate and mobilise this group so that they can take their place in the vital work of shaping a fairer and more diverse society for all our children to inherit.

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Watch Jody at the 2013 Women of the World Festival

Craig Dearden-Phillips MBE is the Founder and Managing Director of Stepping Out a Cambridge-based business founded in 2010 to helps English Councils and National Health Service (NHS) bodies to plan, develop and launch ventures across sectors ranging social care to woodland management.  Ventures range in size from three person micro-enterprises to large firms employing thousands of people who used to work for the state.

Craig is a passionate advocate of the potential for enterprise as a force for good in the public sector.  He is the author of How to Step Out the leading text on the creation of new public sector enterprises.  He also works for the UK Government as a Public Service Mutuals Ambassador.

Beyond the business, Craig chairs the Stepping Out Foundation, an angel fund which recycles a portion of profit from Stepping Out into start-up social ventures. He is also a member of the Investment Committee of Impetus-PEF, the UKs biggest venture-philanthropy fund.  Finally, Craig lectures at London Cass Business School where he leads their new Masters module on social enterprise.

Before all this Craig spent 15 years growing VoiceAbility, a social enterprise helping disabled people to shape their own lifestyle, from local beginnings in Cambridge to a large, multi-award winning national organisation that now employs over 300 people.

A serial entrepreneur, mentor, angel investor and one of the UK’s leading authorities on female entrepreneurship, Beverly Hurley, CBE, has spent more than 30 years building successful businesses – and sharing her expertise to create and grow others. With a wealth of experience in enterprise creation and growth, sustainability and innovation, diversity and inclusion and capacity building consultancy, Bev has devoted herself to projects that create social and economic impact and offers an approach underpinned by social innovation values.

As Chief Executive of YTKO Group, Bev’s commitment to product and service innovation and relentless customer focus has driven strong year-on-year growth. Clients range from disadvantaged individuals to new knowledge economy entrepreneurs in science and technology to SME and corporate clients in the UK and Europe. Bev has spearheaded a mission to create 6,000 new businesses by 2020 and generate £1 billion for the UK economy, with over 50 per cent delivered on a non-profit basis.

As part of this pursuit, Bev has pioneered a range of core services:

• Outset, the enterprise creation and support service that helps people develop the skills and confidence to start their own business, has been internationally recognised as a best practice model.
• GetSet For Growth works with ambitious entrepreneurs and business owners to help them meet their growth potential, become investment ready and ensure their survival beyond the critical first three years.
• Enterprising Women is the largest community devoted to growing female entrepreneurship in the country and was awarded the Prowess Flagship of Flagships award for excellence in supporting women’s enterprise.
• The Outset Foundation – most recently Bev set up The Outset Foundation, an independent charity charged with raising finance through a range of channels, to ensure the future of services like Outset and GetSet.

Bev offers a rich network of connections and has a proven track record of working with a variety of partners to deliver innovative solutions and strategies. Among other things, she is a Member of the Secretary of State’s Entrepreneurs’ Forum and a board member of the Institute of Economic Development and she was made a Commander of the British Empire in the Queen’s 2014 Honour Roll.

“For me, social innovation means ensuring a clear focus on social principles coupled with strong commercial sustainability; the creation of multi-dimensional and cross-sector partnership; the development of new, integrated models, tools and services to stimulate new opportunities; and a commitment to being effective, inclusive, replicable and scaleable in your approach in order to ensure value and impact.”

Jen Morgan is the co-founder of The Finance Innovation Lab – an award winning social innovation organisation empowering positive disruptors to transform the financial system.  With 20 years practical experience working at the nexus of civil society and business, Jen previously led WWF’s global partnership with HSBC. She has also held product and service innovation roles at British Airways and The Body Shop where she was responsible for large scale change programmes which inspired new boundaries in travel and health and wellbeing.

She is a Sustainability Advisor to Earth Capital Partners, a member of UK Values Alliance and has been a Board member of ShareAction and BankTrack. She is professionally acknowledged as a speaker, writer and mentor on systems change, values based leadership, sustainable finance and innovation processes. Jen has an MSc in Responsibility in Business Practice from Ashridge Business School – and her thesis focussed on ‘the relational reality of change’.  Outside of work she loves to be in nature and exploring humanity’s great cultural expressions.

As a Fellow of Social Innovation she hopes to contribute and leverage her wealth of practical experience and relationships in social innovation so that CSI can help to accelerate the large scale evolutionary change that is required- for the prosperity of people and planet.

Dr Owusu is an innovative social entrepreneur with ten years’ experience of operating a public Loan Fund for financially excluded entrepreneurs in London. She has co-created two innovative social businesses in telemedicine and financial information services: iHealth-direct and Insight Report. Both were outcomes of Freda’s studies in social entrepreneurship in Cambridge, and PhD in Social Policy at the Open University. Freda is focused on the use of research, enterprise and technology to achieve social goals, with interests including poverty reduction, transnational living, health and well-being, and behavioural finance.

Iain Rawlinson is a director of companies and a trustee of charities, with 30 years of experience in banking, investment and industry, which he gained initially with Lazard Brothers, Robert Fleming (the investment bank) and Fleming Family & Partners. After becoming independent in 2005, his subsequent Board appointments have been in the energy, environment, resources and transport sectors, including a period as chairman of a large consumer group from 2009 to 2014, alongside appointments as a trustee of charities.

He has recently co-founded a strategic communications consultancy, Vico Partners, and is a non-executive director on the Boards of The Parkmead Group (the energy business) and The Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He also founded Online Radio Broadcasting Limited, a social enterprise, which is developing a social broadcasting application; and crowdCaster whose mission is “Giving People a Voice”, enabling people to record and broadcast audio, aiming to raise awareness of social issues, contribute to education, stimulate the creative arts and bring communities together. He also chairs the Development Board of Tusk Trust, the UK charity focused on conservation, communities and education in Africa, and is Chairman of Governors at Walhampton School in Hampshire.

“So much of the recognised business and charitable landscape is now in a state of flux resulting from changes brought about by technology, fault lines in the global economy, and the human need to be useful in a unequal world. The difference between money and value is becoming a defining feature, distinguishing between the old world and the new. The work of the Centre for Social Innovation is shaping a new generation of thinking as to how organisations should interact with this new environment, both in being effective and sustainable, and making a positive contribution to all its stakeholders.”

Iain read Law at Jesus College, Cambridge (1977-1980) and was called to the Bar in 1981, and organises his professional activities under Rawlinson Partners Limited. He has two children and lives in the New Forest, Hampshire, UK.