Nigel Kershaw OBE

Executive Chairman
The Big Issue Group

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Nigel Kershaw OBE is Chairman of The Big Issue Group a leading social entrepreneur and advocate of social enterprise and finance. Since 1974, he has had first-hand experience of starting, building and running social enterprises. He joined The Big Issue in 1994 subsequently becoming its Managing Director and then Executive Chairman. From 2005-2014 he was the first CEO of Big Issue Invest.

The Big Issue is one of the world’s most successful and best-known social businesses, dedicated to dismantling poverty and inequality in the UK. From its inception in 1991 it has grown to become one of the UK’s best-loved and known brands.

The Big Issue magazine has over the last 25 years helped over 92,000 vendors earn £115 million selling by selling over 200 million copies in the UK. It has inspired over 100 similar publications in 35 countries around the world.

Big Issue Invest was set-up to be a ‘social merchant bank - "by social entrepreneurs, for social entrepreneurs”. Its mission is to back sustainable social ventures that help dismantle poverty and inequality. Currently it manages or advises on over £150m of social investment funds.

Previously, Nigel worked in the print industry. He founded three printing and publishing employee-owned companies and has worked as a project manager, systems analyst, litho printer and trade union official. He trained as a lithographic printer, gaining his Diploma with Distinction in Printing Production at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts, where he later became Chair of the Board of Governors.

Nigel is a Social Enterprise UK ‘Champion of Champions’, the winner of the Institute of Directors’ Good Enterprise Award and in 2010 was awarded an OBE for services to Social Enterprise.