Spark Events

Igniting the Spark 2011

89 leaders from the public, private and third sectors attended the Spark “Can partnership with big business change the world” event held at the BT Tower on Monday 17th January 2011.

The panel taking questions

The debate was on the belief that both the social value and business sense in big business partnering with social enterprise could not be broken. The debate was chaired by BBC financial journalist Peter Day, who thoroughly questioned the panel of: -

• Richard Beard, CEO Jericho Foundation
• Mark Graham, Director – Corporate Finance PWC
• Richard Johnson, CEO Serco Welfare to Work
• Douglas Johnson-Poensgen, Managing Director of global defence and security BT
• Maff Potts, CEO Novas Scarman

Despite some vigorous debate and questioning, at the end it was clear that the bond between big business and social enterprise could not be broken and that partnership between the two is the key to success.

Nigel Kershaw from the Big Issue and co-founder of Spark said after the debate, “We’ve had 33 pioneering social enterprises set up after three years. Now we want to extend this programme because this has been proof of concept for real.”

Can partnership with big business change the world?

BT Tower 17th January 2011

Spark are holding an invitation only event where a panel chaired by BBC Radio 4’s Peter Day, will offer their observations before opening up the debate to the audience.

Panel members include: -

Richard Beard, CEO Jericho Foundation
Mark Graham, Director – Corporate Finance PWC
Richard Johnson, CEO Serco Welfare to Work
Douglas Johnson-Poensgen, Managing Director of global defence and security BT
Maff Potts, CEO Novas Scarman

The aims of the event is to show how partnership working has been the key to Spark’s success and how all parties involved have benefitted from this approach.

The key questions are how do we replicate this success into 2011 and beyond, and how can the beneficiary group be expanded to help a wider range of disadvantaged people.

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