Andreas Pavlou is an open government and transparency advocate. He is the Network Lead at Involve, focusing on open government and, in particular, the coordination of the UK Open Government Network. He believes deeply that increased transparency, better citizen participation and greater accountability are key to improving decision-making in government and the quality of democracy in the UK.

Anne Lythgoe has nearly thirty years’ experience in the VCSE and public sectors, predominately focussing on community regeneration and wellbeing, and including having worked as a social accountant in a small social enterprise. Anne is currently the Manager of Policy and Partnerships for Salford City Council and is supporting a partnership between the public and VCSE sectors in the City to achieve holistic social value commissioning which will achieve meaningful social, environmental and economic wellbeing benefits and make a real difference for the people of Salford.

Arnab Dutt is national policy lead for Partnership and Integration at the Federation of Small Businesses, engaging with our diverse business communities. He has 25 years experience in founding and running manufacturing companies. He has developed a reputation for developing new technologies and bringing them to market. He has many years experience of supplying into the public sector. He is passionate about assisting other businesses to leverage and benefit from his many years of experience and knowledge in research, product development and strategy.

Cindy Nadesan MCIPS. MBA. BCom Cindy works as a Contract & Supply Manager for the Orbis Partnership, one of the largest shared services organisations in the public sector. Working on projects across Surrey, East Sussex and Brighton & Hove Councils she has successfully implemented an award–winning Social Value strategy for Orbis partners. More recently she has taken up an advisory role to Central Government, working as a Social Value Specialist for the Department for Digital, Culture Media & Sport.

Claire has been a key player in the Social Enterprise movement since the 1980’s and recently was appointed as the Crown Representative for the Voluntary and Social Enterprise Sector with the remit of supporting the sector to access government contracts. Claire nationally and internationally is known for her work in the sector and for ten years chaired Social Enterprise UK. She worked with government and leaders from the sector to create the first strategy for the Social Enterprise movement.

Agnese is Head of Research and the Social Value Portal, a social enterprise that provides measurement and management solutions for social value. As Head of Research, Agnese leads the analysis and design work on social value measurement: she develops the methodology to measure and monetise social value within and beyond the scope of evaluation, producing economic models that capture the impact of social and environmental changes.

Darren Knowd, is the Chief Procurement Officer at Durham County Council who were awarded the Cabinet Office first ever award for Social Value Leadership for an Organisation in 2016. Darren leads all procurement activity at the County Council who spend over £500M annually in supplies, services and works. He also represents the North East region on the LGA National Advisory Group for Local Government Procurement and is the Chair of the Social Value Task Force.

Hazel worked as a lawyer in private practice and local government for 20 years. She was also a councillor on Salford City Council for 8 years and was elected as Member of Parliament for Salford in 1997. She held ministerial roles in Health, Police and Counter Terrorism and was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. She led the change Programme to establish community policing, was the author of the Preventing Violent Extremism programme and was responsible for housing, planning and community regeneration.

John joined Wates as the Group Safety, Health, Environment and Quality Director in April 2015. Whilst at Wates, John has been responsible for leading a company-wide Safety, Health and Wellbeing behavioral transformation programme, embedding a culture of good decision making throughout the organisation and ensuring that everyone who works for Wates understands their individual responsibility and how their own actions impact on the environment around them. He also has line responsibility for the Quality Assurance, Environmental and Sustainability teams.

Katherine is Research Director for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. She has over eight years’ experience in various roles with Oxfam GB – as a Senior Researcher for the Global Research Team, UK Policy Manager, and Research and Policy Advisor for Oxfam Scotland. Katherine, with Lorenzo Fioramonti, instigated the group of Wellbeing Economy Governments; developed Oxfam’s Humankind Index; and led Oxfam’s work on a ‘human economy’. Her forthcoming book The Economics of Arrival: Ideas for a Grown Up Economy (co-authored with Jeremy Williams and published by Policy Press) is due out in early 2019.

Martin is the Chairman, Advocacy & Policy for the Federation of Small Businesses. He has been a member of the FSB for over 20 years, promoting the interests of our local members through the Darlington Branch Committee, as Vice Chairman of the Regional Committee, as Chairman of the Local Government Policy Unit. He currently owns and manages three businesses offering public policy, engineering and IT consultancy services. Martin leads the policy team to make sure small business issues are understood and represented in Westminster, Whitehall and Brussels.

Matthew recently set up his own policy advice business after 13 years at the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES). Matthew led on CLES’ work around social value and procurement, particularly in Manchester and Preston. He continues to undertake work across Europe and is currently a network expert for the URBACT programme and an advisor to the EU Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement. Matthew is also Chair of the Greater Manchester Social Value Network.

Mike is a Work & Skills Lead at Manchester City Council and provides leadership and coordination for the work that Manchester City Council does to support business and connect local residents to the employment opportunities created by the City’s growth using Social Value as a mechanism to achieve this. Ensuring that local residents can contribute to and benefit from the growth of the City is a key priority for the team and our partners and critical if Manchester is to achieve its Our Manchester objectives of becoming a “highly skilled city” and a “fair and equitable city”.

For the last 6 years, Peter has managed the collaborative procurement programme for the Greater Manchester Authorities which involves achievement of value for money solutions through joint working whilst also maximising the social, economic and environmental implications of procurement decisions. Peter has worked in Local Government for over 30 years. Initially as a Chartered Civil Engineer, then as Head of Service with responsibility for technical and front line services before becoming involved in procurement and efficiency related programmes.

Rodney Schwartz is CEO and Founder of ClearlySo, with a background in equity research, management, investment banking and venture capital. Joining Wall Street in 1980, he rose to become the number one ranked financial services analyst at PaineWebber and then held senior management posts at Lehman Brothers and Paribas, before leaving the sector in 1997 to found the fintech-oriented VC firm Catalyst. A pioneer in the impact investment marketplace, he transformed Catalyst into a social business consultancy, which in 2008 morphed into ClearlySo, a business designed, “to help create 100 Justgivings”.

Following a 20 year career in HR being responsible for people engagement and organisational development I was given the privilege of leading the Willmott Dixon Foundation just over a year ago. The Willmott Dixon Foundation is the vehicle which drives our social value work – that is, the things we do to make a difference to communities local to our building projects. Our social value work is integral to the construction work we do. It takes many forms – from giving talks in schools, arranging work experience and apprenticeships, through to fundraising, supporting social enterprises and revamping community facilities.

Sophia Cox works on the Cities Programme at UKGBC, an industry-led body with a mission to radically improve the sustainability of the built environment. Her recent work includes a project to communicate the sustainability of the UK built environment, a resource to help built environment organisations think about how the future will affect their businesses and a guide to social value in new development.

Ben is CEO of Social Value UK. Since joining in 2013 Ben has developed a range of training, assurance and membership services for Social Value UK. He has also been instrumental in embedding the principles for accounting for social value into international projects such as the Impact Management Project, OECD ‘Working group on data standards for social investment’, World Economic Forum ‘Building the evidence base’ and World Business Council for Sustainable Development ‘Re-defining Assurance’. Ben’s background in homelessness, social housing and the built environment, affords him experience that spans sectors and an in-depth knowledge of Social Value accounting.

Steve Murrells became Co-op Group CEO in March 2017 having previously led the Co-op’s Food business since 2012. Steve now has overall responsibility for Co-op Food, Co-op Funeral & Life Planning, and Co-op Insurance. The Co-op is the UK’s largest mutual business with more than 4.5 million members, 64,000 colleagues and a presence in every postcode area of the country. As a senior executive at the Co-op Steve has been a key part of the team which has rebuilt the Co-op, relaunched its membership proposition and returned its iconic blue clover-leaf logo to the high street.

Wilma is the Founder of Insight for Good, a research firm that helps organisations deliver their social and organisational goals through better evidence and insight. She has 20 years of multi-disciplinary research and data analysis experience, leading insight programmes both in the public and the private sector. Her achievements have involved engaging stakeholders at different levels to use insight tools such as segmentation and customer journeys, helping transform organisational culture and processes to become more customer-focused. She set up Insight for Good to inspire socially-focused organisations to put insight to good use and more effectively achieve their objectives.

Racheal is the Chief Operating Officer for Knowsley CVS, the independent infrastructure support and representative body for the Social Sector in the borough of Knowsley. Racheal has driven a new collaboration between the local authority and social sector in the borough “Knowsley Better Together”. Racheal has extensive knowledge and expertise in Social Value legislation, public sector policy and commissioning for social value and outcomes. Sharing this expertise with strategic partners has enabled pioneering work in the reimagination of the local authority procurement budget as a regeneration strategy using Social Value to retain and grow a Knowsley £.

Steve is Assistant Director of HR with the University of Manchester. His professional interest is around organisational design and change management. Before taking up his current role Steve has been responsible for the management of HR services to the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences and later the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences at the university. During the past ten years he has developed a particular interest in the role employers have in supporting communities through training and sustainable employment and he played a key role in the development of the University of Manchester’s strategy on local labour.

Alison joined Scape in July 2015 with 10 years’ experience of local government working in various property related roles, following on from 6 years working in the London office of a multinational law firm. At Scape, Alison ensures accurate and regular reporting of framework performance across all framework projects. Her role involves developing relevant and appropriate performance measures, that are challenging yet achievable, to drive improvements in the construction industry.

Andy Burnham was elected as Mayor of Greater Manchester in May 2017. Responsible for shaping the future of Greater Manchester, Andy’s priorities include ending rough sleeping, transforming Greater Manchester into one of the greenest city regions in Europe, and making Greater Manchester a great place to live, get on, and grow old. Before being elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy was MP for Leigh from 2001. In government, Andy has held Ministerial positions at the Home Office, Department of Health and the Treasury.

Nathan is one of the founding directors and Head of Strategy and Consulting at the Social Value Portal. He is working to help clients across the public and private sectors align strategically on social value and implement the TOMs, as well as developing ways of broadening the application of the measurement system. Current areas of focus include health, housing and funding impact measurement

Debbie joined Legal & General in 2012 and is responsible for ensuring that Real Assets are seen as leaders in all areas of ESG . Having scored highly in the Global Real Estate Sustainability Survey for several years now, LGIM Real Assets has been chosen by external investors to be their ‘sustainable’ property fund in the UK. Debbie is an engineer by background and has been influential in setting best practise standards across all aspects of ESG areas in real estate management from acquisition/ development through the active management cycle to disposal.

Nicola is a Member of the Chartered Quality Institute and is a Chartered Quality Professional. She also has a doctorate in Lean Construction. Nicola has over 25 years’ experience in developing business processes, rationalising and streamlining working practices, developing and delivering change management programmes and configuring and developing products to help drive improvement. This has provided Nicola with the opportunity to apply her client facing and strategic skills in a range of sectors in her role as National Director at Pick Everard.