Central

Jean Jarvis: South Shropshire Furniture Scheme

Ludlow, Shropshire

Jeans runs the South Shropshire Furniture Scheme, a furniture reuse and recycling social enterprise which restores donated furniture and sells it cheaply to local people on low incomes. It now also offers carpentry and electrical services, recycles computers and runs a shop where donated items are imaginatively rejuvenated and crafts are sold. Jean has been CEO since 1999 and is also a director of the Furniture Reuse Network.

East

Craig Dearden-Phillips: Speaking Up

Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk

Craig founded Speaking Up, which provides a range of services including life-coaching and professional advocacy for people with learning difficulties and other disabilities. Craig is now Chief Executive of the company and is also known as ‘The Naked Entrepreneur' in his regular column for Social Enterprise Magazine.

Karen Lowthrop: Hill Holt Wood

Norton Disney, Lincolnshire

Karen and her husband Nigel founded Hill Holt Wood, a managed woodland which offers training to excluded young people. The wood is comprised of 34 acres of mixed deciduous forest which hosts a wide range of projects including furniture manufacture, buildings made of straw and wattle and daub, renewable energy, charcoal manufacture.

East Midlands

Matt Stevenson-Dodd: Unique Social Enterprise

Newark, Nottinghamshire

Matt manages Unique Social Enterprise which works to support local young people. Most well-known is their coffee bar which acts as a drop-in centre and has been credited with reducing anti-social behaviour in the area. There are now two sites which employ 22 full time staff on a diverse range of social enterprises including an alternative education programme and the UK's first online scrap store – selling industry by-products which can be re-used for arts or play.

Martin Kinsella: P3

Matlock, Derbyshire

Martin Kinsella is chief executive of P3, which exists to create opportunities for vulnerable and disadvantaged people, building lasting routes out of social exclusion and homelessness. P3 provides a wide range of services including supported housing, hostels, link worker schemes and community support projects for people recovering from mental ill health and a wide range of youth services. Martin oversees P3's over 160 staff and is still celebrating the team's success in taking the number one spot on the 2007 Sunday Times ‘100 Best Small Companies to Work For'.

Greater London

Dai Powell: Hackney Community Transport

London, Hackney

Dai started as a volunteer at Hackney Community Transport in 1990 when the organisation had eight staff. He is now chief executive of HCT group, which now employs 420 people and has an annual turn over of £16million. The group has stayed true to its roots and still provides affordable transport services to local community and voluntary groups. It is also now one of the most reliable suppliers of red bus services in London for Transport for London.

Matt Kepple: Wahblo

Wallington, Greater London

Matt founded Wahblo an online marketplace for charity projects, when still a student. It allows users to select specific charity projects and donate from as little as £1 per month. Donors can invite their friends to contribute and receive updates on their projects' progress. Matt has been identified as one of Britain's top young entrepreneurs.

Trisha Lee: MakeBelieve Arts

London, Lewisham

Trisha is founder of MakeBelieve Arts which uses provides theatre to provide education programmes. Aiming to make arts accessible to all, they work with nurseries as well as primary and secondary schools, to provide storytelling and acting sessions which compliment the curriculum in areas including literacy, numeracy and citizenship. An expert in storytelling and story acting Trisha now trains teachers and her most recent book ‘Success in the Creative Classroom' has just been published.

Claudine Reid: PJ's Community Service

Greater London, Croydon

Claudine is a Director of PJ's Community Service Ltd. which delivers services such as home shopping and home care to vulnerable adults, older people and the house bound. This has created employment for a team of 80 staff from the area. Claudine is also co-owner of a 9000sq ft facility that provides services to the local community, including 5 music recording studios, youth groups and community projects, a day nursery and as other business organisations.

Stephen Sears: ECT Group

London, Ealing

Stephen is chief executive of ECT Group, which started life in 1979 with just four vehicles, providing a transport service to Ealing residents. Twenty-eight years later, ECT has grown into a leading social enterprise with a £55 million turnover and 1,300 staff, providing a range of high quality services for the community. From transport or recycling to running a railway and delivering engineering services, ECT aims to ensure that its services are both economically sustainable and of direct social and environmental benefit to the communities they serve.

Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa: Catch-22

London, E10

Freelance journalist Tokunbo is the founder Catch-22, a social enterprise journalism academy, youth magazine and communications agency. As a Community Interest Company, they champion, train and showcase excluded young people looking for work experience in the media.

Dr Sam Everington: Bromley-by-Bow

London, E3

Sam founded the GP practice at the Bromley-by-Bow health centre 20 years ago and the centre is now being used by Government as a model for ‘Healthy Living Centres'. Taking a holistic approach to healthcare, the centre incorporates over 100 projects including a nursery, art studio, landscape design company and community café.

Maria Donogue-Mills: Novas Group

London, Camden

Maria has a degree in fine arts and a background in the housing sector and in 1998 founded the Novas Group to provide flexible community support services to over 5,000 disadvantaged clients, many of whom have mental health issues, or have experienced homelessness or imprisonment. The Group's activity includes encouraging involvement in the arts and providing opportunities for employment in one of their social enterprises. These enterprises include a fashion boutique, architects and translation service.

Reed Paget: Belu Water

London, SE1

Reed is a former documentary producer who wanted to raise public awareness of water shortages in the third world. In 2002 he founded Belu Water, the UK's first ‘climate neutral' bottled water. Sold in a fully compostable bottle, all Belu's profits are used to fund clean water projects around the world. The company has also developed the ‘Penguin Approved' certification stamp. Designed to help consumers make ‘climate conscious' decisions, this stamp will be awarded to goods and services that have reduced and off-set all their emissions.

Nigel Kershaw: Big Issue Invest

London, E1

Nigel has a long history of working with social enterprise and has been with The Big Issue since 1995. He is now chair of The Big Issue and chief executive of Big Issue Invest, a specialised provider of finance to social enterprises. They have loaned over £4 million to a range of social enterprises over the last eighteen months.

Sam Conniff: Livity

London, Brixton

Sam is an experienced marketing executive who runs Livity, which gives disadvantaged young people the chance to work on high-profile youth marketing campaigns. Sam also co-created off-shoot social enterprise LIVE magazine, which offers vocational training as well as getting disadvantaged young people apprenticeships with major companies. The chief executive of SonyBMG is one of the many high-powered mentors Sam connects with local Brixton youth.

Chris Allwood: Auction My Stuff

London, E16

Chris has a background in fair trade and now runs Auction My Stuff. Auction My Stuff enables unemployed young people to gain sales and marketing skills by selling items on eBay for charities and people too busy to sell their own belongings, in return for a commission.

North West

Daniel Heery: Cybermoor

Alston, Cumbria

Daniel has a background in the voluntary sector and founded Cybermoor, the first rural broadband co-operative in the country. It enables local residents to access broadband cheaply and effectively as well as working with local businesses to use ICT innovatively and increase accessibility. Currently Cybermoor is working on an NHS Pathfinder project to deliver e-health services in Cumbria.

Claire Dove: Blackburne House Group

Liverpool

Claire has been involved in the social enterprise movement for almost three decades, leading The Blackburne House Group, which provides training to women, since the early 80s. Based in a Grade II building in Liverpool, Blackburne House offers training in industries not traditionally associated with women, for example construction and IT. Blackburne House was named Social Enterprise of the Year in 2002.

South Coast

Kresse Wessling: EAKO

Bournemouth

Though young, Kresse is an experienced and highly successful social entrepreneur. She now runs EAKO ltd, which turns industrial waste into innovative lifestyle products and returns 50% of profits to the charities and organisations related to the waste; for example profits from EAKO's decommissioned fire-hose line of belts, bags and furniture, go directly to London Fire Brigade's benevolent fund.

South East

Peter Holbrook: Sunlight Development Trust

Gillingham, Kent

Peter previously worked for Oxfam, Greenpeace and the RNIB, and established the Sunlight Development Trust seven years ago. The trust runs a large number of social enterprises (including a recording studio and community café) all of which provide local employment and funnel money back into the community to fund social and medical services.

South West

Julie Harris: COSMIC

Ottery St Mary, Exeter

Julie is chief executive of COSMIC, a website design and IT training social enterprise which was set up in response to the local need for improved facilities for young people. They offer a range of IT services from design and training through to supporting whole IT systems within organisations across the South West and the whole of the UK.

Ken Orchard: Mid-Devon Community Recycling

Exeter

In the early 90s Ken and some friends went from campaigning the council on recycling to giving up their Saturday mornings to collect rubbish from 200 houses. After four years the council agreed to fund the project and Mid-Devon Community Recycling now collects more that 500 tonnes of waste for recycling from 34,000 houses. Ken manages 40 employees and 15 regular volunteers and has just won a seven year recycling contract from the local council against five multinationals.

Yorkshire and the Humber

Gill Coupland: Angels Housekeeping

Leeds

Gill worked for the council cleaning old people's houses before local government decided to outsource the service. Gill and two friends founded Angels Housekeeping, which now not only provides cleaning services to 300 elderly clients but also offers a whole range of support, including help with shopping and applying for benefits. Gill is a director of the company and she and her colleagues are often asked to advise on the development of new care services.

Saeeda Ahmed: Trescom

Bradford

Saeeda a co-founder of Trescom, a Bradford-based research consultancy which helps people from disadvantaged backgrounds develop. Saeeda is a qualified accountant and has a Masters degree in Community Enterprise from the University of Cambridge.