Jonathan Bland

Social Enterprise Coalition

Jonathan Bland is the Chief Executive of the Social Enterprise Coalition, the national body for businesses that trade with a social purpose. The Coalition of over 200 networks and individual businesses brings together over 5000 social enterprises. From April 2003, under Jonathan’s leadership, SEC has become a powerful voice for Social Enterprise in UK, championing social enterprise as a successful business model and pushing for greater recognition and understanding of the solutions provided by this way of doing business.

Over the past 8 years Jonathan has worked with a number of government departments on social enterprise related issues, going back to HM Treasury’s report on Enterprise in Disadvantaged Areas in 1999.  He advised on the creation of the Government’s “Social Enterprise Strategy for Success” and was a member of the Cabinet Office committee that oversaw inception of the Community Interest Company in 2001 and advised on its development, leading to the introduction of the new legal form in 2005. Jonathan is a member of the Department of Health’s Ministerial Task Force on Third Sector Commissioning of Health and Social Care Services and the Health and Social Care Reform Advisory Group.

In his role as SEC’s Chief Executive he regularly represents the Coalition in the media and meets with opinion formers from the public, private and voluntary sectors.

Previously he was the Director of Social Enterprise London, where he expanded the organisation from a start-up in 1998 to one of the leading strategic sources of expertise and support for the sector. Jonathan has over 20 years experience working in this field.  A fluent Spanish speaker, he spent 5 years in Spain as European Development Manager at FVECTA, the Valencian Federation of Worker Cooperatives.