Chain Reaction

In July 2007, Founder of Virgin, Richard Branson joined Peter Gabriel, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Desmond Tutu to announce the formation of The Elders, a group of leaders to contribute their wisdom, independent leadership and integrity to tackle some of the world’s toughest problems. Richard has also launched Virgin Unite, a not-for-profit entrepreneurial foundation, which continues to focus on entrepreneurial approaches to social and environmental issues.
Read more about Richard Branson / Read more about Virgin Unite

Mark Thompson was appointed Director-General of the BBC on 21 May 2004, after being Chief Executive of Channel 4 since December 2001. He had previously worked at the BBC for more than 20 years, becoming Director of Television in April 2000, responsible for the management and running of all BBC network television channels Read more about Mark Thompson

Communities and Local Government is working hard to create thriving, sustainable, vibrant communities that improve everyone's quality of life. Communities and Local Government sets policy on local government, housing, urban regeneration, planning and fire and rescue.
Read more about Communities and Local Government

James Lee has lived with spinal muscular atrophy all of his life. Currently a student at King’s College London, he is in the final year of a degree course. James has been a part of the Trailblazers campaigning network since its inception at the Houses of Parliament in July and has been volunteering his time to help further the campaigning network. As the regional leader for the London area, he is very much at the heart of the strategies behind Trailblazers efforts to get young people involved in using their political voice to get better services and conditions for people living with disabilities Read more hear

Dissatisfied by Silicon Valley's dot-com greed, Nipun Mehta went to a homeless shelter with three friends to "give with absolutely no agendas." In April 1999, they ended up creating a website, and also an organization named CharityFocus.org — a fully volunteer-run organization that leverages technology to inspire greater volunteerism and shift our cultural ethos towards generosity.
Read more about CharityFocus / See Nipun on YouTube

Laura Merry has congenital muscular dystrophy and is currently in her second year at Roehampton University. Laura is a National Ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign’s Trailblazers network and spoke at the network’s launch event at the House of Commons in July. Laura says, ‘Being involved with Trailblazers is great as it means I get to campaign on things that matter to me and other young people.’ Laura sees ‘independence’ as being key to her life, and is planning to raise awareness of the problems faced by young disabled people who use the London transport system.

Dr. Hale is a pharmaceutical scientist who established her expertise in all stages of biopharmaceutical drug development at the US Food and Drug Administrations Center for Drug Evaluation and Research; and at Genentech, Inc., the world's first biotechnology company.
Read more about the Institute of OneWorld Health

Jeremy Gilley is an actor turned award winning filmmaker, who in the late 1990’s became pre-occupied with questions about the nature of humanity and the issue of peace. Jeremy decided to explore these questions through the medium of film and his acclaimed new documentary, The Day After Peace, follows his 10-year journey to establish a day of peace. In 1999, Jeremy founded Peace One Day, a non-profit organisation, and in 2001 Peace One Day’s efforts were rewarded when the United Nations unanimously adopted the first-ever day of global ceasefire and non-violence on 21 September annually – Peace Day. As a direct outcome of Peace One Day’s campaigning in 2007, parties in Afghanistan recognized Peace Day resulting in the Ministry of Public Health joined by UNICEF, the World Health Organization and local vaccinators vaccinating 1.4 million Afghanistan children against polio. Over 100 million people in 192 countries were engaged in Peace Day activities and in 14 of those countries, efforts were targeted towards providing life-saving activities and medical services on the Day.

Stephen Howard joined Business in the Community (BITC) in September 2005. His appointment follows eight years as a supporter and national partner of BITC’s Business Action on Homelessness initiative. Stephen’s ongoing commitment to helping tackle homelessness on both a national and global scale has resulted in a non-executive directorship for Habitat for Humanity Great Britain, the charity with a mission to eliminate poverty housing. Read more about BITC

Wes Streeting is President of the National Union of Students, a full-time elected position responsible for representing more than 7 million students and 600 students’ unions across the Further and Higher Education sectors. Wes is also a non-executive director of Endsleigh Insurance Ltd. as well as the NUS’ trading arm NUS Services Ltd. Read more about NUS

Niccolo Milanese is a writer and one of the founder directors of European Alternatives, which brings together philosophers, artists and social activists to imagine and militate for a transnational conception of European politics. It organises the annual London Festival of Europe to promote widespread public engagement with this vision. Read more about European Alternatives and the London Festival of Europe here

Campbell Robb is the first Director General of the Office of the Third Sector. The Office, created by the Prime Minister in a reshuffle in May 2006, is responsible for leading the Government’s work with the third sector. He has sat on a number of voluntary sector bodies, including the Compact Working Group and the Giving Campaign Executive. He is also a Governor of his local primary school.

Adam Crozier is Chief Executive of Royal Mail Group and chairman of the Group Executive Team. Adam is also on the boards of Camelot, the National Lottery operator, and Debenhams plc. He is a member of the President’s Committee of the CBI.

  Jane Tewson, CBE founded Charity Projects (1984), co-founded Comic Relief (1986), Pilotlight UK (1998), Timebank (1999) and is currently Founder and Director of Pilotlight Australia (2001). Jane is well known for pushing the boundaries of philanthropic thinking and "creating a new concept of charity as active, emotional, involving and fun" Read more about Pilotlight

IPAL is a non-profit organisation founded in 2001 with the aim of promoting the growth of performing arts, especially theatre. Since its inception it has been active in providing technical support to theatre artistes and outfits, as well as conducting workshops on play writing, directing and instructing street children on theatre and acrobatic skills

Tim is Chief Executive and co-founder of the Award winning Eden Project near St Austell in Cornwall. Eden began as a dream in 1995 and opened its doors to the public in 2000, since when more than 8 million people have come to see what was once a sterile pit turned into a cradle of life containing world-class horticulture and startling architecture symbolic of human endeavour. Read more about the Eden project

In April 2007, David Grayson became Chair of Corporate Responsibility at Cranfield Business School, and founding director of the Doughty Centre for Responsible Business. His major research focus is on how businesses successfully embed a genuine commitment to Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility; and how this can become a source of creativity and innovation, producing new business opportunities. Read more about Professor David Grayson

Until last July, Rachel Lomax was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England with responsibility for monetary policy. Before joining the Bank in 2003, she was a senior civil servant, serving as Permanent Secretary in three government departments: the Welsh Office, DSS/Work and Pensions, and Transport. She has also worked in the Cabinet Office and at the World Bank in Washington DC. Most of her earlier career was spent as an economist at the UK Treasury. She is currently President of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, and a director of the Royal National Theatre.

Sue Cooper is the Deputy Head of Business Banking at Triodos Bank and the ethical specialist’s leading expert in banking for charities and social enterprises. Sue joined the Bank in 1999, bringing over 20 years experience in a wide variety of roles at a high street bank. Triodos Bank provides a full range of banking services for organisations that benefit people and the environment. Sue helps provide borrowing facilities for some of the most progressive charities and social enterprises across the UK, from large national charities like Golden Lane Housing a subsidiary of Mencap, to The Voicebox in Derby, a venue offering expert voice tuition and music therapy.

Carole Stone joined the BBC as a secretary in Southampton, and after working on local radio became a producer in charge of programmes like Woman’s Hour. She went on to run Radio 4’s flagship current affairs discussion programme Any Questions?, inviting the most interesting and influential people in the country to discuss the issues of the day. Carole left he BBC in 1990 to work as a freelance journalist and broadcaster, and as a self-employed media consultant to chairmen and chief executives of major British companies. With more than 30,000 names in her electronic address book she’s been called ‘London’s networking queen’ – she’s famous for putting people together to their mutual advantage. Carole calls it ‘good networking’. Carole is the author of Networking – the Art of Making Friends, and The Ultimate Guide to Successful Networking. Carole is patron of two mental health charities, SANE and Triumph over Phobia; a patron of the Facial Surgery Research Foundation - Saving Faces; and a Trustee of the Wallace Collection. In April 2007 Carole became Managing Director of YouGovStone, a joint venture with the online market research agency YouGov. She has established the YGS ThinkTank – panel of those at the top of their field - through which she carries out online opinion research. Carole also continues to bring people together over lunch and at debates to discuss social issues that concern us all.

Hetan Shah is chief executive of DEA, an education charity that promotes global learning. DEA works to ensure that young people can learn about and act upon the big global issues of the day such as poverty and climate change. Hetan was formerly policy director at Compass and before that was a director at the New Economics Foundation. He has co-authored a wide range of publications including ‘Questioning Education’, ‘The Good Society’, ‘Behavioural economics: seven principles for policymakers’ and ‘A Well-being Manifesto’ Read more about DEA

 Sophi is Managing Director of Divine Chocolate Ltd, the pioneering Fairtrade company co-owned by farmers. She has a high profile as a champion of the company’s mission to improve the lives of smallholder cocoa farmers in West Africa through a fairer trading relationship, and is an innovative marketeer, creating a brand that delights and engages consumers. Read more about Divine Chocolate

Emily Beardsmore is Chair of the British Youth Council, an organisation led by young people for young people aged 26 and under across the UK. This year BYC is celebrating 60 years of empowering young people to have a say and be heard. BYC runs training and volunteering programmes and lively campaigns – both local and global – to inspire young people to have a positive impact and make their voices count. Read more about BYC here

Colin’s 12 year old son Tim was killed by an IRA bomb. But he turned his tragic loss into creating an internationally acclaimed charity helping young people become "Ambassadors for Peace". Colin is an ordinary man who lost an ordinary son, but with extraordinary energy and fierce determination, did not allow his son to be simply another statistic in the long list of innocent victims. Read more about Colin Parry

Chris is a group facilitator, mediator and organisational change consultant, whose experience and current activities span a broad range of sectors, industries and situations. Chris’s base is 14A, a small but perfectly proportioned consultancy in Greenwich, which he founded with his business partner Ann Lyon in 2002. Chris is a trustee of the Youth Sport Trust, and a Board Member of the Shambhala Institute for Authentic Leadership Read more about 14A

  Gib Bulloch is a business professional with over 15 years experience in a variety of large private sector companies and more recently NGOs and donors in the international development sector. Gib currently heads up Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP), a ring-fenced not-for-profit consulting group within Accenture, whose main focus is on bringing affordable business and technology expertise to the international development sector. Read more about Accenture Development Partnerships

Sally Begbie and her husband Malcolm have worked in the disaster and development arenas for 28 years. With a background in media, in her native Australia, Sally originally worked with NGOs in a communication and public relations capacity. Malcolm, a Chartered Accountant, offered financial services. Over time, however, NGOs requested logistic support and the two created the Crossroads Foundation in Hong Kong. http://www.crossroads.org.hk. Today, they direct this NGO, together with the four ‘global crossroads’ it offers: operating in a nexus between 1000 corporations and 2000 NGOs. They specialise in cross-sectoral engagement: liaising public, private and civil society. Global Hand, their online platform, provides a ‘matching’ service for companies and/or NGOs seeking public private partnerships to engage with global need. It also offers standards in order to anchor partnership in sound practice. http://www.globalhand.org. Sally is frequently called upon as a writer or speaker on Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainable Development practice and public-private partnerships, together with standards relevant to this sector.

Professor Brenda Gourley has been Vice-Chancellor of The Open University since 2002. She shares with The Open University a social justice agenda and a belief in education as a tool to tackle growing inequalities in the global society. Professor Gourley is a member of the board of the International Association of Universities and the Longer Term Strategy Group of Universities UK. She chairs the Association of Commonwealth Universities as well as the Talloires Network’s Global Project on literacy. A frequent speaker on a broad range of platforms and issues as well as a contributor to publications around the world, Professor Gourley has also received honorary degrees from the University of Nottingham, University of Abertay, Richmond University, and Allama Iqbal Open University. She has been named as one of the Global Business Network’s ‘remarkable people’.

John Bird, was a poor boy, orphan, thief, inmate, artist and poet before going on to found the ground-breaking social initiative that is The Big Issue. Since setting up The Big Issue magazine and foundation to help the homeless help themselves some sixteen years ago, John has become an authority on motivation and the ascendancy to achievement. Read more about The Big Issue

Simon is an Associate Director of the Young Foundation and is Manager of Launchpad, having joined the Young Foundation in March 2005. Simon provides leadership and direction for Launchpad’s work. As well as providing a strategic vision for the impact and role of Launchpad, he works closely with funding bodies and other sectors to ensure there is support for our projects. Read more about the Young Foundation

Ross is Head of Programme at SEED Initiative, which seeks to promote, support and research entrepreneurial partnerships for sustainable development, having previously led the project team for the Bermuda Government of Bermuda's 2005 Sustainable Development Strategy. Ross worked for several years as a policy advisor on international sustainable development at Defra, focussing on multi-stakeholder partnerships and the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg 2002

Jess was a Channel 4 Commissioning Editor for 5 years when she left to set up the new social entrepreneurship organisation the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation; there she has Executive Produced the award winning We Are Together about HIV/AIDS in South Africa and funded /Black Gold/, the film and campaign about the global coffee trade. She is also the co-founder of Shooting People, the world's largest independent filmmakers’ community with over 30,000 members in the UK and 4,000 in New York. (http://www.shootingpeople.org). She is co-author of a new book called /Get Your Documentary Funded and Distributed/ and is currently doing an MBA at Cass Business School where her dissertation is exploring the dollar value of the social impact of An Inconvenient Truth

Jelani Erskine is the 19 year old senior designer and contributor at Brixton's LIVE Magazine, a quarterly publication run entirely by under 21s with the support of industry experts. The south Londoner joined the South Bank's Street Genius programme in spring 2008 after a stint with the Princes Trust and spent part of his internship at LIVE, designing a poster. He has written about bus etiquette and why young people aren't happy in their own skin, focusing on the popularity of both hair straightening amongst young black people, tanning amongst the white population and skin bleaching in India. LIVE quickly captured him and he's been bringing his colourful design styles (and the odd comment feature) to its pages. He recently oversaw a redesign of the magazine, including a rebranding of the logo, and plans to attend University in 2010 to study Graphic Design.

Rita graduated from Cambridge and began her career in advertising. She worked at Saatchi & Saatchi for 12 years, becoming Vice Chairman and Executive Planning Director in 1995. In 1997 she joined Interbrand, the world’s leading brand consultancy, as Chief Executive in London; in January 2002 she became Chairman. She is in demand as a speaker and media commentator on all areas of brands, reputation, marketing and communications around the world. Her writing has included the book ‘The Future of Brands’, and The Economist book ‘Brands and Branding’. She is a non-executive director of DSG International plc (formerly Dixons Store Group plc), and Emap plc. She also chairs Populus, the opinion pollster to The Times. She has been a member of the Government’s Sustainable Development Commission, is a trustee of WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature), and is on the Business Advisory Board for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. In 2006, she was appointed Visiting Professor at Henley Management College.

Brendon Riley is Chief Executive for IBM in the UK and Ireland and is Chair of IBM UK's Diversity Council. Outside of IBM, Brendon is a member of the President’s Committee of the CBI and is a former Director of the IT Skills Hub in Australia, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. IBM is very engaged in corporate social responsibility, highlighted by its substantial volunteering community, comprising over one-third of its 350,000 global workforce. IBM has won many awards for its Corporate Citizenship and Diversity programmes. In October 2007, IBM and Grameen Foundation announced a collaborative project to help microfinance institutions (MFIs) better serve poor communities around the world by expanding Mifos, Grameen Foundation's ground-breaking open source microfinance software platform. http://www.mifos.org

Yemisi Blake is a Freelance Creative, writer and social entrepreneur. He is currently an Emerging Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre where we collaborates with other artists, curates events, blogs and mentors young creatives. Most recently he has joined the charity All Change, who use the arts to promote social inclusion, as an Associate Artist of Company and Practice Development. Read more about Yemisi

Giles is a founding partner of Good Business, a London based consulting firm which advises companies on how they can use corporate social leadership to increase brand value. The Good Business message is a simple one: if you want to change the world, do it through business; if you want to help your business, then help change the world. Giles began his career at confectionery giant Cadbury Schweppes, serving in the Marketing Department on the development and launch of some of the UK’s most successful consumer products, and then worked for five years at Saatchi & Saatchi and M&C Saatchi where he managed a wide range of domestic and international marketing campaigns. Giles’ first book, Good Business – Your World Needs You, was published this year.

Jason started working for community links back in 2005 when he joined as a part time sessional worker for the S-Team (Community Links sports project). In 2007, Jason graduated from the University of East London after completing a three year degree in Sport Development. While continuing to work for the S-Team, he joined the Community Links Education Project (now Education Links) as a Learning Support Worker, working with young people in Newham who had been excluded from main stream secondary education. Following a successful interview process Jason became Project Manager for the S-Team in September 2008.