Social Finance

Dr Alex Nicholls MBA is Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford. His research interests range across social entrepreneurship and social innovation, including: the nexus of relationships between accounting, accountability, and governance; public and social policy contexts; social investment; and Fair Trade. He has published more than sixty papers, chapters and articles and four books. His co-authored book on Fair Trade (Sage, 2005) and edited collection of papers on social entrepreneurship (Oxford University Press, 2006, 2008) are the best-selling and most cited academic books on their subjects globally. He is the Editor of the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship. Prior to his academic career, Nicholls held senior management positions at the John Lewis Partnership, the largest mutual retailer in Europe. He also a non-Executive Director for a major Fair Trade company. Rob Paton is Professor of Social Enterprise at the UK Open University. As a teacher, he pioneered the use of new learning technologies for work-based learning in management, leadership and professional development. He was among the founding faculty of the OU Business School, and went on to lead major curriculum development exercises as well as research on new modes of learning. As a researcher, he has explored how value-based organizations can sustain both their social commitments and effective, enterprising forms of management and organization. He has served as chair of the Trustees of the Scott Bader Commonwealth, and secretary of ARNOVA. He is Chair of the board of Still Green CIC, and of the Milton Keynes chapter of Citizens UK. Originator of the concept of Blended Value, Jed Emerson has played founder roles with some of the nation's leading impact investing, venture philanthropy, community venture capital and social enterprises. He is senior advisor to 4 family offices with over $1.4bb in total assets and executing 100% impact/sustainable investment strategies. Emerson is co-author of the first book on impact investing, and winner of the 2012 Nautilus Gold Book Award for Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making a Difference. He is otherwise widely published and has given presentations at The World Economic Forum (Davos, Switzerland), The Clinton Global Initiative (New York City), The Skoll World Forum (Oxford, England). He is Chief Impact Strategist for ImpactAssets, a nonprofit financial services firm. He is Senior Fellow at the Center for Social Investment, Heidelberg University and has held faculty appointments with Harvard, Stanford and Oxford business schools.

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