Big Issue Group Chairman awarded OBE

Monday 04th of January 2010

Nigel Kershaw, the Chairman of The Big Issue Group and Chief Executive of Big Issue Invest, has been made an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List, for his services to social enterprise.

Mr Kershaw said he felt very honoured and proud at being awarded an OBE.  The recognition reflects his work through Big Issue Invest, to help pioneer new ways of thinking and business models to fund high-growth social businesses.

As CEO of Big Issue Invest, Nigel has steered the company into becoming one of the most successful and respected specialist providers of finance to social enterprises. In the last four years Big Issue Invest has made 29 investments totalling over £6.25 million to some of the most effective social enterprises in the UK.

Its best-known investee is the Fifteen Foundation, created by Jamie Oliver to train disadvantaged young people for careers in the hospitality industry. Others include Turning Point, the social care organisation that helps people with drug or alcohol addictions and Belu Water which produces carbon-neutral  water in bottles that can go on to a compost heap.

John Bird, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue said:

‘Words cannot capture how proud I am that Nigel has been awarded an OBE for services to social enterprise.

‘When The Big Issue was founded it pioneered finding a business solution to the social crisis of homelessness. Eighteen years later The Big Issue, through such developments as Big Issue Invest, is inventing new forms of social investment for businesses that seek to prevent, cure and dismantle poverty.

‘Nigel and the Big Issue Invest team has turned this campaigning, innovatory form of investment into an art form.’