Spark Panel
In June the Spark Winners pitched to a panel experts and senior business leaders from social enterprise, homeless and business sector. The panel consists of the following people:
 John Montague
>> Chief executive, The TREES Group (Spark partner)
>> Spark panel chairman
>> Spark mentor
John Montague is chief executive of TREES (Training, Regeneration, Education, Employment, Sustainability) Limited, one of the largest social enterprise groups in the Midlands with a turnover of £8.5million a year.
TREES was founded to create employment, training opportunities, local services and wealth in deprived communities across the midlands, while supporting community regeneration throughout the region. The TREES group includes four businesses that operate in a range of commercial and social sectors – from conferences and construction to gas services and landscape gardening.
John is well-known for his hands-on management style, and he is passionate about using business development to provide training and employment opportunities for all, irrespective of present or past circumstance. He is currently working with six Development Trust associations in Wales to develop “Build Wales” to maximise community benefit through the Welsh Housing Quality Standards investment.
With a proven record in business development and delivery John also holds non-executive roles on: Building Safety Group, a not-for-profit company providing professional safety advice and inspection to 300 companies, Community Action Network (Leicester) Ltd, a social enterprise delivering support and advice for developing social economy companies, and Apex, a charity which works with ex-offenders and the NEET group.
John has also been instrumental in organising TREES sponsorship for national charities such as Steps, which offers specialist help to children with motor disorders, as well as supporting smaller local organisations. He has developed strong links with local schools and colleges and is a regular speaker at specialist conferences.
 Nigel Kershaw
>> Chief executive, Big Issue Invest (Spark partner)
>> Chairman, The Big Issue group
>> Spark mentor
Nigel Kershaw, one of the UK’s most high-profile third sector campaigners, is best known for his role as executive chairman of The Big Issue. In that role he has responsibility for the magazine‘s publishing operations, as well as developing its new social businesses in the UK and the USA. In 2005, The Big Issue's UK editions generated £12 million in cover sales with approximately £7m going directly to homeless and vulnerably-housed vendors.
His latest project is Big Issue Invest, a specialist finance company for social enterprises. It was founded in 2005 after raising £3.5m from, among other sources, the Government and Halifax Bank of Scotland. Big Issue Invest provides loans of between £50,000 and £500,000 to social enterprises such as Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen and Belu, the first bottled water company in the UK to use compostable bottles. Earlier in the year The Guardian’s Alison Benjamin quoted Nigel saying “Big Issue Invest differs from a social bank in that it lends money in a more creative way.... With Belu, for example, instead of loan repayments, [it] takes a royalty when the business has sold a certain number of bottles.”
Nigel joined The Big Issue in 1995 and went on to become managing director. Previous to that, he worked as a consultant and project manager in the publishing and printing sector, taking major capital projects from conception to production. He has founded three printing and publishing companies. He trained as a lithographic printer and gained a Diploma at the London College of Printing.
Nigel is also a director of the Social Enterprise Coalition and a director and advisor to a number of social enterprises. He has also been a non-executive director of a London borough‘s regeneration company, a trade union official and Chair of the Board of the London College of Communications (now London University of the Arts).
 Douglas Johnson-Poensgen
>> Director, Strategy & Transformation, BT Public Sector (Spark corporate partner)
Douglas Johnson-Poensgen joined BT in 2006 and is the BT executive responsible for the company’s strategy, growth and innovation across UK Government. He is responsible for strategy, business planning, capture of strategic deals, M&A, government relations and proposition development. He also personally leads one of the central Government target accounts.
Before joining BT, Doug was a Divisional Director in Serco, the public services outsourcing group, which he joined form PA Consulting Group where he was a partner. Prior to entering management consultancy, he served in the British Army.
He has also recently been appointed as the Non-Executive Chairman of a small plc.
Outside work, he is a keen rower and photographer.
 Steve Mather
>> Neighbourhoods Director - Places for People
Steve has over fifteen years experience of working in regeneration – ranging from large scale area based regeneration, Urban Regeneration Companies, developing and delivering economic strategies through to implementing local neighbourhood initiatives.
Steve is the Neighbourhoods and Regeneration Director at Places for People, one of the UK’s largest property management and development companies, responsible for addressing long term sustainability issues facing the Groups existing neighbourhoods and developing and delivering new products, services and partnerships to deliver lasting improvements.
Steve started his career as an auditor monitoring and measuring the impact of innovative regeneration programmes before moving on to run the Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire European Funding programme. Steve became the Assistant Director of Economic Development at Manchester Training & Enterprise Council (TEC) with responsibility for supporting the regeneration activity in the city of Manchester which included involvement in eight area based regeneration programmes, tailoring programmes and investment to meet wider economic objectives and developing the Cities Economic Strategy.
Steve spent three years on secondment as the Economic Development Director at New East Manchester, one of the first Urban Regeneration Companies. Steve developed the economic development strategy for the area and co-ordinated the economic development elements of a range of programmes including New Deal for Communities, Single Regeneration Budget and the Education Action Zone. A key part of the role was to maximise the local economic benefit from the development of facilities and the hosting of the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
 Philip Wright
>> Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers (Spark corporate partner)
Philip is responsible for some of the firm’s major advisory clients, BBC, Diageo, Department for Work and Pensions and United Business Media. He is also responsible for PricewaterhouseCoopers’ services to non-executive directors and for co-ordinating the initiatives and activities of the firm within the Boardroom.
Philip led the firm’s European and then Global Corporate Finance & Recovery business with US$1.1 billion revenue, 580 partners and 5,500 staff between 1997 and 2003. He has a strong background in corporate finance and shareholder value.
Philip has worked extensively in many countries, including Japan, Australia, Hungary and Germany, where he lived and led the CFR business for four years from 1990 to 1994.
He is the author of a book “In Search of Shareholder Value” (1997).
 Kate Welch
>> Chief Executive, Acumen Development Trust
>> Spark Winner 2008
Kate Welch OBE is founder and Chief Executive of Acumen Development Trust which works to achieve social and economic regeneration through learning, employment and enterprise. Started in 2003, Acumen now works across the North East and Cumbria engaging people in disadvantaged communities and supporting them to achieve their potential. Acumen won the Enterprising North East England title for their work in Easington in 2006 and in 2007 Kate was chosen as a BT Essence of the Entrepreneur winner and the North East Woman Social Entrepreneur of the year. In 2008 she was awarded an OBE for services to Social Enterprise in the North East and is the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Social award winner for the North. Kate is a board member of One North East, Council member of the Learning and Skills Council North East, a member of the Education board of Sunderland AFC Foundation and chairs the Mature and Working Lives Regional Advisory Group of the Public Health Board.
Non-voting Panel Advisors
 Terry Alafat
>> Director of Housing, Delivery and Homelessness, Communities and
Local Government
Terry’s academic background is in social policy and research. Before moving to the UK 25 years ago she was involved in educational research and evaluation in Chicago schools.
She began her career in the UK in social services policy development in a local authority and most recently was Director of Housing and Corporate Strategy in Kensington and Chelsea until 2002.
She then moved to the Government Office for London with responsibility for housing and local government. She also had responsibility for a range of government programmes in the Thames Gateway.
I have been involved in a number of national projects covering housing and community care issues, and have helped develop London wide homelessness initiatives.
I have worked in the Civil Service since 2003 covering various housing policies and in particular have had responsibility for the Government’s agenda on Homelessness and Supporting People.
Following a recent reorganisation within Communities and Local Government, I am now Director of Housing Delivery and Homelessness, with responsibility for the supply, repair and improvement of affordable housing across all tenures, targeted housing growth (e.g Growth Areas, and Eco-Towns) Council Housing Finance, Decent Homes policy, homelessness and repossessions. Also I lead on the sponsorship of the Tenant Service Authority.
 Patrick Butler
>> Head of Society, Health & Education - The Guardian
Patrick Butler oversees the social affairs coverage across the Guardian, Guardian.co.uk and the Observer.
He was previously editor of Society Guardian, and its sister website societyguardian.co.uk.
He has been a journalist for 19 years and has written for a range of national newspapers and professional magazines.
He regularly chairs (and occasionally speaks at) conference sessions, panels and seminars on the subject of public services.
Richard Cunningham
>> Places for Change Programme Manager
>> Home & Communities Agency
With responsibility for delivery of the £80 million Places of Change Programme that seeks to bring about a step change in the way that services are delivered to homeless people through improved facilities, activity, learning and employment, and a change in service provision that puts the service user at the very heart of delivery, Richard is a keen advocate of Social Enterprise as a vehicle to bring about real change to the lives of excluded groups.
Currently on secondment to the Homes & Community Agency, Richard was previously seconded to the Communities and Local Government as a Rough Sleeping Specialist Advisor from the London Borough of Lambeth where he was the Rough Sleeping and Street Population Strategy Coordinator. Prior to this Richard has had in the region of 13 years working in the voluntary sector homelessness field.
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