Chain Reaction

Martyn Lewis’s career is an unusual blend of the media, charitable and corporate worlds. After over 32 years as a television journalist Martyn moved to into the world of business where he co-founded and chairs the technology company Teliris . Martyn is Chairman of YouthNet, the award-winning charity he founded in 1995 to create a comprehensive internet site signposting 16-24 year-olds to every conceivable opportunity or form of help they might need
Read more about YouthNet / Read more about Teliris / Read more about YouthNet's national volunteering database

Manoela Souza is an arts-educator and cultural activist who has been working with landless, indigenous, trade union and university communities in Brazil since 1998, in collaboration with Dan Baron Cohen. She is President of the Brazilian Network of Arteducators and Coordinator of the International Drama Theatre and Education 2010 World Congress

Iain is Group Director of Coin Street Community Builders, a development trust and social enterprise which owns and is responsible for developing 13 acres of London’s South Bank (between Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges). Iain is deputy chairman of the South Bank Employers’ Group; honorary secretary of Thames Festival Trust, Coin Street Centre Trust, Colombo Street Community & Sports Centre, and Coin Street Secondary Housing Co-operative; and a board member of the Young Vic Theatre, and the North Lambeth & North Southwark Sports Action Zone.

Nick has been a member of the forum for a year. He has just graduated from University and is now doing a 3 month internship at a business consultancy in London. Nick's goals for the future are to be in a music band as he loves music - it is his main priority. Nick loves playing the guitar, writing, playing video games, watching films and reading.

David Robinson is the Founder of Community Links, now Senior Advisor. David is also the founder and, now chair of We Are What We Do, co-founder of the Children's Discovery Centre, and a founding Trustee of TimeBank. He also collaborated with Gordon Brown on the Prime Ministers new book "Britain's Everyday Heroes" and leads the Prime Ministers Council on Social Action.
Read more about Community Links / Read more about We Are What We Do

The Eastern Africa Theatre Institute (EATI) is the regional theatre network based in Dar es salaam, Tanzania officially registered in 1999 with four member countries, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. EATI was established to promote professionalism in theatre, regional, inter-regional and international cooperation as well as promoting indigenous forms of theatre within the region

Make Your Mark is the national campaign to unlock the UK’s enterprise potential. We aim to create a culture that supports enterprising people to create economic and social impact. Read more about Make Your Mark / Visit Dan's Blog

Dan Baron Cohen has been living in Brazil since 1998, working in collaboration with urban and rural social movements as a community-based arts-educator and consultant/trainer in educational development. Dan is the President of IDEA (International Drama/Theatre and Education Association) and Chair of the World Alliance for Arts Education, currently collaborating with the Brazilian government in the implementation of its 'More Culture' policy and development of the methodology of the World Social Forum, in northern Brazil.

Anjuli is a Senior Consultant at Capco where she specialises in working with clients across Financial Services to design and support the implementation of organisation change projects. In addition she is the Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Capco, having helped establish and embed a successful CSR programme within the firm which has been recently recognised through winning the prestigious Dragon 'Heart of the City' Award. The focal point of this programme is developing long term sustainable relationships with two local schools.

Aged 19, Huda is one of the oldest members of the London forum as has been a member since the forum started back in 2005. Huda is in her second year at the University of Kingston in London, studying Media and Cultural Studies and Politics. Huda's goals for the future are to be happy, become successful in her chosen career of media and would like a job in analysis, marketing or advertising, but hasn't yet made her final decision. Huda loves going out, reading, shopping, socialising, travelling and the Edge Learner Forum!

David is the Local Democracy & Empowerment Director in Communities and Local Government. He and his directorate are responsible for drawing together the White Paper on empowerment, which is about enabling people and communities to have more power and influence and for implementation of the 2006 Local Government White Paper which devolves power from Whitehall to town hall. David is responsible for CLG’s relationship with the Third Sector: and has corporate responsibilities, as a member of sub committees reporting to the CLG main Board on delivery and analysis

Kevin Steele is chief executive of the communications consultancy Inspired Campaigns and a member of the Council on Social Action chaired by the UK Prime Minister. Kevin created Enterprise Week, which has involved 1.5 million people in 11,000 events and gained 4,000 pieces of media coverage. He founded Global Entrepreneurship Week, now involving over 70 countries. He conceived and co-founded the anti-poverty Trade Justice Movement, which ran the biggest ever lobby of the UK Parliament. He led one of the two largest sections of the UK Jubilee 2000 campaign that won $21 billion of debt cancellation for the world's poorest countries. He also led a campaign that resulted in the adoption of ethical investment policies by a £23 billion stock market fund, and the formation of a £2 trillion investors group for action on climate changeRead more about Inspired Campaigns

Jessica Williams is a writer and television producer, and is the author of two books: 50 Facts That Should Change The World, and How To Give To Charity. Her writing has appeared in the New Statesman, Dazed and Confused, Third Sector and Good magazine and she has been a contributor to BBC Radio 4 and the Indymedia collective. Jessica currently works for the BBC World News programme HardTalk with Stephen Sackur and is working on a new book project.

Stuart Etherington is currently the Chief Executive of NCVO, a membership organisation that represents the interests of charities and voluntary bodies. Stuart would welcome your views on the future of civil society and to hear in advance of the event, the issues you would like him to cover when he speaks. Email your suggestions to . Read more about NCVO

Nick Turner is Co-Presidnet at the Global Business Network, a leading global strategy consultancy. Prior to this, Nick spent 11 years at Morgan Stanley, where he was a Managing Director and Head of Strategy in Europe. Nick is the former Chairman of the London Employer Coalition and a current member of the London Employment and Skills Board, and also sits on the board of Working Ventures UK.
Read more about Monitor / Read more about Global Business Network

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee is Director of Special Projects at Kalliopeia Foundation and the founder and director of the Global Oneness Project, an online film project featuring innovative initiatives happening in communities around the world. Prior to his work in the non-profit and foundation sector, he was a critically acclaimed jazz bassist/composer and ran a successful entertainment company. In recent years, he has worked with film- and media-based projects that focus on recognizing our common humanity and interconnectedness. Read more about the Global Oneness Project

Solitaire Townsend is one of the liveliest voices on climate change and the benefits of taking action. She is Co-founder and Chief Executive of Futerra, the UK’s award winning green communications agency. Futerra was described by Campaign Magazine as the agency which ‘wins accounts from under the noses of the big advertising players’. A value’s based company committed to transformational change, Futerra is now a force in the UK, Europe, USA and Asia with offices in London and New York. Solitaire was named Ethical Entrepreneur of the Year 2008, she is a member of the United Nations Taskforce on Sustainable Lifestyles, Board Director of the leading think tank Tomorrows Company and one of 15 London Leaders for Sustainability. Devising green campaigns for Microsoft, Sky and Shell or helping Greenpeace reach decision makers; Solitaire is making climate action accessible and desirable. As Soli says ‘selling climate action isn’t like marketing a new brand of soap, it’s like persuading people to use soap in the first place.’ Solitaire holds Masters Degrees in both Sustainable Development and English Literature

Eugenie was born in Australia and studied Communications at the University of Technology, Sydney. She worked in PR and marketing for a number of organisations before chucking at all in to work as a volunteer to develop a project which has since become known as We Are What We Do (http://www.wearewhatwedo.org). We Are What We Do aims to inspire people to use their everyday actions to make a difference to some of the biggest problems we are all facing – climate change, community breakdown, threats to our security, humanitarian crises etc – and is rapidly becoming a global phenomenon. We Are What We Do launched in 2004 with the publication of a book called Change the World for a Fiver. The book, which involved more than 100 people donating their time and talents, has gone on to sell nearly one million copies worldwide along with its sequel, Change the World 9 to 5. In addition to the books the small but dynamic organisation most famously teamed up with Anya Hindmarch to create the iconic “I’m not a plastic bag” bag which sold out nationwide when it went on sale at Sainsbury’s in 2007 and caused riots in subsequent launches! Eugenie has been named among the FT’s Creative Business top 50, was featured in the book, Everyday Legends and is a highly sought after speaker, sharing the extraordinary stories behind the development of We Are What We Do. Read more about We Are What We Do

Fiona trained and practiced as a Solicitor in the City for 5 years before moving to the Tate to manage its record-breaking Founding Corporate Partners Programme. She then fundraised for the UN Refugee Agency and British Red Cross, concluding her work for British Red Cross with a secondment to manage a comprehensive strategic review of their £150m+ fundraising function nationwide. In January 2004 she was appointed Director of Heart of the City. With her team, she has secured the participation of 240 businesses in the 'Newcomers Programme', which she conceived to help more City businesses to build effective CSR programmes.She is a Trustee of Community Links in Newham

Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir is a drama-teacher in the University of Education in Iceland, actress, teacher and host at the children’s program in the Icelandic television, with a particular interest in children and storytelling for creativity.

Russell was born in Derby, enjoyed an uneventful childhood, did college, all that. After failing as a popstar and a joke writer he ended up in advertising. Worked at good places and bad. Tried to do ‘interactive marketing’ way before anyone was interested. Ended up at Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Oregon. Worked on Microsoft for a number of years, launching things like Office and Explorer. Then lived through the dotcom boom on the West Coast. Moved back to London in 2001 to work for w+k London. Helped out on good things like Run London for Nike and all those good Honda ads. Then went to work for Nike as Global Consumer Planning Director. Quit that in June 2006 and helped set up a global, small business called the Open Intelligence Agency (http://www.openintelligenceagency.com) doing thinking and consulting for people and brands. He also writes a blog about fried food and cafes called http://www.eggbaconchipsandbeans.com and various blogs about brands, ideas and stuff at http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning

Ashley is a member of the NCVO Future Third Sector Leadership group. He has been Director of Youth Strategy at Corporate Culture, a leading communications and strategy agency for over 3 years. In his time at the company he has provided strategic consultancy to a range of voluntary sector clients from the national youth volunteering charity v, disability charity Mencap and Volunteering England to The National Youth Agency. As well as with a range of public sector and corporate clients, including most recently leading a social marketing campaign for the NHS on tackling health inequalities, to supporting the Olympic Delivery Authority, where he led on developing their Education Strategy and focussed on engaging each of the Host Boroughs in East London in its development. With the Department for Children, Schools and Families Ashley led on a national celebration of young people’s achievements and has been advising BT for over five years on their award winning corporate responsibility campaigns to give young people a voice. Previously, Ashley was co-chair of the UK Youth Parliament – and remains a trustee – and has worked for the Department for Education and Skills and The National Youth Agency. Ashley advised Gordon Brown on youth volunteering as a member of the Commission headed up by Ian Russell CBE on mainstreaming youth volunteering in the UK. He is also a qualified youth and community worker, has a BA (Hons) degree in Politics with Law, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Rannveig Thorkelsdóttir, drama-teacher in Secondary School in Iceland, actress and teacher with a commitment to changing curriculum through creative pedagogies.

Since May 2006, Michael has been undertaking his first ministerial appointment in the Government Whips' Office where he had responsibilities for Northern Ireland and for Constitutional Affairs. Prior to this he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Peter Hain in his role as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Before that he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Lifelong Learning and Higher Education Minister at the Department of Education and Skills. Michael was elected as Worcester's first ever Labour MP on May 1st 1997. Since then he has been an active parliamentarian. In 2005, he became Joint Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Lifelong Learning. In July 2002 he was appointed Chair of the newly formed All Party Parliamentary Group on Flood Prevention. He was Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group of Further Education and a member of the Education Select Committee until June 2001.

Richard Hardie was COO of UBS Investment Bank, EMEA region until 2006. He is now now the Vice Chair of UBS Ltd and a leader in UBS’s CSR and Community Affairs programmes. He is Deputy Chair of The Bridge Academy, Hackney, a new school for 1,150 students in the 11 – 19 age group and Chair of the Learning Trust, Hackney’s Education Authority.. Richard was named The Prince of Wales’ Business in the Community Ambassador for London for 2007