About Nigel Kershaw OBE

Nigel Kershaw OBE is Chief Executive of Big Issue Invest and Group Chairman of The Big Issue Company.

Big Issue Invest, part of The Big Issue Group, is the UK’s leading innovative provider of finance to social enterprises that are providing ground-breaking business solutions that seek to dismantle poverty.

Nigel is leading BII’s mission to create a Social Merchant Bank “By the social entrepreneurs – for the social entrepreneurs”. The bank will be driven by the social entrepreneurs and backed by the social financiers.

Nigel joined The Big Issue in 1994 and currently is its Group Chairman, previously being its Chief Executive. Last year 3,000 homeless and vulnerably housed Big Issue vendors sold 124,000 copies a week in the UK and earned over £8 million as an alternative to begging. The Big Issue has inspired similar publications to be set up in 100 countries around the world.

Previous to that, he worked as a project manager, a systems analyst, works manager, lithographic No.1 printer and Trade Union official in the publishing and printing industry. He has founded three printing and publishing social enterprises. Trained as a lithographic printer, he gained his Diploma with Distinction at the London College of Printing.

He has also been a non-executive director of a London borough regeneration company and Chair of the Board of the London College of Communications (now part of the London University of the Arts).

He is a Cabinet Office Social Enterprise Ambassador, and a Council member of the Social Enterprise Coalition and is also a member of the British Venture Capital Association’s Responsible Investment Advisory Board. In 2008 he was the winner of the IOD Enterprise award.

Nigel Kershaw was been made an OBE in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List, for his services to social enterprise.

Nothing is off limits when contacting Nigel