Meet The Team

Martyn is co-founder and chair of the Big Society Network and brings many years of entrepreneurial achievement and experience in creating commercial and social enterprises.In the commercial world, Martyn has created and chaired successful ventures covering a wide range of activities including software and IT, financial services, manufacturing, fine art and media. He has also for some years judged the Entrepreneur of the Year award and other categories at the National Business Awards.

From 2007 until the 2010 election, Martyn was co-chair of the National Citizen Service Programme with Michael Gove and in addition he co-chaired with Theresa May the Get Britain Working group with David Freud. He is also chair of DanceEast, a performing arts charity funded by the Arts Council, a trustee of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and an active school governor.

Steve was born and raised in Belfast where he co-wrote an acclaimed satirical review Now Before The Weather The War which toured the country to a mixture of rave reviews and mild bemusement. He joined the Government in 1987 and led a range of high profile employment and welfare initiatives under the pioneering Lord Young. After working in Australia with documentary film maker Ken Burns, he returned to London to work on a range of large regeneration projects including London’s Bankside, the Thames Gateway, Deptford and Brixton City Challenges. Steve then advised on a series of large scale Government programmes including the New Deal and the University for Industry and has established and led three start-up businesses and been employed as an advisor to Channel 4, MIT, Microsoft, the RSA, the BBC, PWC and the Department for Education and Skills, Enterprise UK, NESTA and UnLtd. Steve has curated and facilitated over 80 major conferences and festivals including Reboot Britain, 2gether08 and 2morro. Steve is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Economic Research Council, an advisor to finance platform URICA and the Virgin Media Control Shift programme and serves on the Community, Voluntary and Local Services Honours Committee.

Lucy has worked with the Big Society Network since March 2010, organising the launch on 31 March with David Cameron and the formal Downing Street reception in July. She holds an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and has completed research on social entrepreneurs and wellbeing.

Lucy has worked across sectors. She has headed up Amplified, a non-profit organisation specialising in the use of innovative social media where she advised a range of clients such as Orange, Reuters, IBM, the Arts Council, Festivals Edinburgh and the British Council.

At Channel 4 Education in External Relations, she managed communications for C4′s education projects and programmes, and produced a number of live public debates on hot topics and programme launches.

She has worked with creative start-ups and charities on a number of projects, such as the Making the Link programme promoting partnership working across voluntary and statutory organisations on behalf of the Child Accident Prevention Trust, and designing and managing the Cultural Leadership Programme’s online network for the Arts Council.

Lucy began her career in the education sector organising national, high level conferences with celebrity speakers and politicians. She has specialised in interactive, participative and collaborative events for a range of clients.

Described as an “entrepreneur, investor and social activist”, Olinga has worked in over 50 countries, and is committed to global perspectives in blended solutions across public/private/third/community sectors.

He built his corporate pedigree by specialising in hypergrowth companies and those in severe difficulty. He retired in last year at the age of 50 from the business world, having held P&L responsibility in organisations from start-ups to US$ 600 million with 9000 staff, mostly as CEO/Chairman positions. As an investor over the last 20 years he has made successful exits from nearly a dozen full profit businesses in television, logistics, mobile telecom, security, internet and others with the latest in 2011 giving him over 27,000 RoI.

In the last decade he has focussed his efforts in the third sector as Chair of some of the largest BME (black minority ethnic) charities in Europe in capacity development and disability, as well as smaller charities in children’s environmental studies, asian Honour Based Violence, and Faith based not-for-profits. He remains involved in mentoring and the performance arts where he has considerable hands on experience.

In autumn 2011 he returned to his academic roots to take up the position of Professor in Social Enterprise at Northampton University Business School, where he spearheads the UK’s largest academic team in this sector including health, education, social sciences, technology and arts; Northampton University is currently on track to achieve its goal to be #1 in social innovation by 2015. Olinga is also Visiting Professor of Capacity Development at Birmingham City University Business School.

aladin www.aladin.me studied and researched economics and international relations at L.S.E. and now practises in multiple fields: strategic management of global economic risk; neighbourhood youth and community development project management; civic resilience and sustainable development; cultural policy planning; curation and directing of arts projects; interdisciplinary knowledge creation.

Briefs have included: Citibank, Chase, IMF, BIS, Mexican and Brazilian governments (sovereign debt restructurings); EDF, Schlumberger, LVMH, World Petroleum Council (strategic management); social development initiatives in Deptford, Peckham, Montpelier, Denmark; sustainability management for DEFRA, LSX, Carbon Descent; artistic and development projects for ICA, Tate, Whitechapel Gallery, DCMS, Arts Council, Manifesta Biennial, cities of Copenhagen, Berlin; visiting academic at Copenhagen Business School, School for Social Enterprise, City and Manchester Universities.

Co-Chair, Cultural Strategy Group for London, City Hall, 2000-4, aladin co-created the world’s first integrated development plan for a capital city’s culture, media, sport, arts, heritage, tourism. 2011 projects included: Fogo Island Arts Corporation, Borkowski.Do, Changing Room: Arab Reflections on Praxis and Times, PimpMyCause.Org.

Emily is leading on the development of a number of research programmes, in particular exploring the issues facing communities and local government.

Since joining the Big Society Network in August 2010, Emily has taken a lead role in the Your Local Budget project, which explores how people can be engaged in local spending and budget decision making. She is now leading a project exploring how communities currently take ownership of services and assets, with reach across four European countries, It’s Our Community. Emily is currently working on bringing all of the community and local government projects that we do at BSN under an exciting new programme, Fuse-Local.

Emily’s background is in public engagement, facilitation and social research. Her past roles include a research position at Involve, a public engagement charity. While at Involve she developed a number of tools, publications and events, for clients including The NHS, The Arts Council, the Cabinet Office and various local authorities.

Emily is practiced in social research methods and holds a Masters of Research in Social Policy.

Andy Hamflett has been working in the political and community empowerment field for over 15 years, both in the public and voluntary sectors. He was the Chief Executive of the Youth Parliament for nearly six years. Andy has spoken regularly to the media and at conferences on a range of democracy and policy issues, and has provided written and verbal evidence to Parliamentary Select Committees on related matters. He has advised Government on a wide range of youth related issues.

Ashley is a Marketer, Human scientist and strong supporter of Big Society philosophy. He believes Social Enterprise is a powerful mechanism for cultural and business reinvention.

Originally a Marketing graduate at EMI records, Ashley signed diverse acts such as Iron Maiden, Talk Talk and Curiosity Killed the Cat (do you have their albums?) and helped launch Comic Relief hits before becoming a director at Pricejamieson recruitment in the 90’s. He moved to branding at Lloyd Northover, Fitch and was MD at Saatchi & Saatchi Design for 5 years before launching Hybrid communications in January 2011 which is focused on the third sector and an affiliate to the BSN.

Ashley will be working on the Nexters project aimed at profiling and supporting pioneers who have devised new ways to give and engage in philanthropy.

Andrew Dick started his career as an economic development consultant, this was followed by a period of time as a Senior Policy Advisor for the CBI. At TimeBank Andrew helped establish a nationwide refugee mentoring scheme working in 20 cities across the UK and helped create a volunteer recruitment campaign to support London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympic Games which ended up recruiting 100,000 volunteers. He has also been the Chief Executive of Envision, an award winning youth charity.

Yvette joined the Big Society Network in February 2011, looking after the Chief Executive and supporting the team.  Previous roles included working as PA and Team Coordinator for NESTA’s Creative Pioneer Programme, where she was heavily involved with the running of The Academy, a graduate business training and mentoring programme which received excellent independent evaluation feedback, was supported in Parliament and became a flagship NESTA programme. Yvette has a BA (Hons) in Fashion.

Since graduating from Newcastle University in Politics and Economics, Dominic has worked in politics and in business development in the voluntary sector. He is passionate about empowering communities and civil society to enable social transformation. His political work has included co-authoring for the Conservatives what has now become the Coalition Government’s Big Society policies, and working for the Shadow Business Secretary. Dominic’s work for the community and voluntary sector has been with a charity working with marginalised 16 year old school leavers preparing them for the world of work, and in Africa working with an agriculture social business which built schools and hospitals with the profits it produced from its farming activities. Dominic is a graduate of the CBI Future Leaders Programme and stood as a Parliamentary Candidate in the 2010 General Election. Dominic is working with the Big Society Network on a variety of projects as an Associate.

Previously Mary Jane established The Old Vic Tunnels’ (TOVT) award winning Volunteer Scheme, opening up the process of creation to over 1500 young people in London. From TOVT’s inception Mary Jane supported and gained experience across all departments. She went on to programme The Screening Room theatre space, project manage original productions and coordinate external events. Mary Jane continues to work in a freelance capacity in the arts, notably co-producing comedy. With a background in European theatre Mary Jane forged links with the Grotowski Institute in Poland, supporting the Institute’s teaching activities and methodology of practice. Her studies, research and training have included periods at L’institute del Teatre in Barcelona and the Radnotti Theatre in Budapest. Mary Jane has a 1st Class BA (Hons) in European Theatre Arts.

Her passion to involve and provide opportunities for young people inspires her contribution to the Big Society Network, promoting profitable business models that have social objectives at their core.

Harry is Project Manager for Spring, which is exploring the potential of technology to increase giving, and he also supports the CEO and Director of External Relations with the Big Society Network’s wider work.

Prior to joining BSN, Harry worked for the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP and then for the Rt Hon Baroness Warsi.

He has always been interested in causes and the attempt to make positive social impact and has enjoyed volunteering for charities, such as SolarAid, which is having success with micro-franchise solar power projects, and The Dodwell Trust, which operates philanthropic projects in Madagascar. Out of that latter relationship grew a business idea; in 2009 Harry co-founded an internet company on the island of Nosy Be, off the coast of Madagascar.

He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford and English Literature at the University of Bristol.

Since graduating from Lancaster University in Photography, Frances has worked in the media and arts industry including working at Hot Shoe a contemporary photography magazine. As well as producing her own work for exhibitions she is enthusiastic about projects which involve local communities in art based activities and sees them as a vehicle for encouraging participation in the community.

As Project Co-ordinator for Nexters in The Big Society Network Frances will work on a variety of projects, her role in the Big Society is to be part of a team that encourages and profiles entrepreneurs.

Daniel is no stranger to the idea of The Big Society. Having stood for councillor in the 2010 local government election, one of his major promises on the door was to try and empower residents to work together to better their communities. A year on, he is Project assistant for Spring at the Big Society Network. Assisting the Spring project team with the day to day running of the project.  He is also Database, Inquiries and Social Networking Coordinator.

Daniel has a BSc in Combined Studies (Philosophy with Tourism) and is a passionate lover of film and television and in his spare time helps run a start up film production company, Macabra Productions.