Richard Alderson is a consultant and social entrepreneur, who spends most of his time helping other social entrepreneurs start up and develop their businesses. For the last three years, he has worked with UnLtd, the foundation for Social Entrepreneurs in the UK. In addition to this he has also launched Careershifters, which aims to be the world’s leading online resource helping people create careers that truly excite them.

Henry Warren is a social entrepreneur, passionate about connecting people and promoting social change. He runs an NGO called Gemin-i which specialises in getting kids working with each other across the world, improving learning and breaking down cultural, religious and digital divides.Within this NGO he also runs three social enterprises: www.Rafi.ki - a social network for schools, Reflect - a teacher training business and Gemin-i webtools - a webdesign business He also sits on the board of: www.mybnk.org - an NGO dedicated to financial literacy in schools, and www.babygroe.co.uk - a charity specialising in providing new parents with guidance on fair trade and organic baby products

Oli Barrett is a speed-networking guru! Three years ago he started running Speed Networking events in London because he found regular business events could be pretty stagnant. He also writes a blog: the Daily Networker at http://www.dailynetworker.co.uk and has a personal site at http://www.olibarrett.co.uk Oli is the founder of Make Your Mark with a Tenner (the national competition in which 10,000 school pupils are given ten pounds and one month to see what they can achieve.) He’s an ambassador for the UK’s Make Your Mark campaign, and brought the concept of Speed Networking to the UK, something which he continues to host regularly. Other companies he has helped to launch, and remains a shareholder in, include SockRush.com (the sock subscription service), Soflow (the business networking site which merged into Wis.dm), and FriendsAbroad.com (the world’s largest language learning exchange). After dropping out of University, Oli became a Butlin Redcoat (entertainer and compere) and worked with Hit Entertainment on the launch of Bob the Builder, going on to work with the BBC, Disney and Sony Wonder in New York. He founded his first company, Amazingyou at University, growing the team to 150 people in 9 cities and hosting events to connect students …

Jim Lawn is the co-founder of Meerkat, a not-for-profit organization which engages multiple voices, celebrates the heroes and encourages investment in online innovation for social good. Jim is also co-founder of Polecat Ltd, a not-just-for-profit company providing innovation acceleration support and services for not-just-for-profit start ups. Until recently, Jim worked for Microsoft as Head of Innovation in the UK, working with the software development industry, entrepreneurs, investors, academia and Government to help Microsoft build its role as a key enabler for innovation in the UK.

Tom Morgan started the League of Adventurists a socially concious company that gives people good old fashioned pant-browning adventure.

Johanna Walker is Director of the Global Social Venture Competition at London Business School, working with talented people starting up all kinds of social enterprises all over the world. One of their key tenets is ‘connecting social entrepreneurs with resources’ - for the vast majority of ventures that doesn’t mean money, but contacts who might become valuable mentors, board members or even customers.

Alexia is Membership Officer at Social Enterprise Coalition, the national voice for social enterprise. As such she is in contact with many people across the UK involved in social enterprise, either as entrepreneurs or as people offering support for the growth of social enterprise. One of Alexia’s regular tasks is to connect people working within the sector.

Steven Knight is founder and Chair of Ethical Junction, the UK network of Ethical Businesses and one of the largest networks of its kind in the world. He co-founded the charity Action for Sustainable Living, which has pioneered a unique approach to stimulating action through linking local people, networks and organisations. He runs a housing development company which builds autonomous homes and ‘positive impact’ homes designed to the highest environmental standards.

Jason Mollring is the Social Enterprise County Networks Co-ordinator for the South East Social Enterprise Network, supporting social enterprises and interested stakeholders throughout the South East region.