Mark has over 30 years extensive knowledge and experience of researching business and economic development issues and opportunities whilst identifying, implementing and managing effective business programmes to address issues of economic inequality. For the last 10 years Mark has been a Director of SES a social enterprise company that has grown to a £1.4m turnover business employing 28 staff. Mark works across the UK as a social economy advisor, specialising in business planning, project management, training, and research and strategic planning. This has included being involved in government policy development, planning and managing multi-million pound projects, helping establish some of the most successful social enterprises with the North of England.

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Kevin joined SES in 1986 (then called SCOERC – Sunderland’s Co-operative Development Agency) He has over 25 years experience of working within deprived communities specialising in co-operative and social enterprise development. Kevin has been instrumental in the start of 85 Wearside based social enterprises that have a combined commercial turnover of £15.2m and employ over 900 local people. In addition, Kevin manages social enterprise development work within Tyneside which has resulted in a further 65 directly assisted social enterprises. His work resulted in attracting over £1m investment for social enterprises who are seeking trading opportunities within health environments via DH Social Enterprise Investment funds.

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For over 20 years, Bob has specialised in providing support to social enterprises of all shapes and sizes and from a wide cross section of sectors most of which have been in deprived communities.  His enterprise development expertise includes group development, business planning, financial planning, management and governance, legal structures and social auditing.  Bob has firsthand experience of founding and managing Social Enterprise SME’s.  In 1985 he was a founder of Tyne Valley Language School, a workers’ cooperative in Gateshead.  During an intense 3 years, he participated in the full business cycle.

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Linda’s current caseload concentrates on social enterprises that deliver or aspire to deliver health and well-being services, Community Hubs, and sustainable grass roots regeneration service provision.   Linda is building an entrepreneurial culture, supporting client sustainability within this market place by engaging in procurement, commissions and social investment techniques.    

With 20 years experience in community economic development, Linda has worked strategically within both the public sector and third sector to bring about significant investment to the North East.  Having been a Director of ComEcon for 10 years, Linda joined SES to deliver packages of specialised business intervention across the North East to the wider social economy.

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Bill has over 30 years experience working in the private sector within the commercial banking industry covering a wide variety of roles situated throughout the North East Region. In addition to a professional qualification ACIB (Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers) continuous development of his skills with formal internal courses took place throughout this period.  His responsibilities included:

All aspects of personal and corporate relationship management. Operational functions relating to internal audit, cost control, health and safety, data protection, premises, security and project management. Human resource management involving recruitment, training, appraisal of performance and career reviews in teams of staff ranging from 6 to 100+. Such work / life experience can be transferred in a very practical way to his role within S E S.

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