Giles Gibbons
Founder and CEO, Good Business Ltd www.goodbusiness.co.uk
Founder, The Sustainable Restaurant Association www.thesra.org
Co-Chairman, We Are What We Do www.wearewhatwedo.com
Trustee, The Big Society Network www.thebigsociety.co.uk
Director, The British Paraorchestra www.paraorchestra.com
Fellow, Wellington College, Berkshire
Giles is one of Europe’s leading thinkers on the evolving role of social entrepreneurialism – among businesses, charities, social organisations and government – in creating a stronger society for all. For the past two decades, he has inspired and advised some of the world’s biggest names, from Coca-Cola to UNICEF to the BBC, to understand, innovate and act on the opportunity to spark social change.
Giles is a founding partner and the CEO of Good Business, a strategy consultancy that helps businesses to be more successful, by being more responsible. Since 1997, Good Business has created innovative business strategies for Nike, Microsoft, McDonald’s, O2, KPMG, L’Oréal, The Walt Disney Company, British Airways, Kellogg’s and many others.
In 2010, Giles set up the Sustainable Restaurant Association, a groundbreaking not-for-profit organisation supporting UK restaurants to become more sustainable – dubbed ‘the Michelin stars of Sustainability’ by The Sunday Times and now used by Harden’s Restaurant Guides to rate the sustainability of restaurants.
He also helped to set up and is co-Chairman of ‘We Are What We Do’, a social enterprise creating mass behaviour change, best-known for its groundbreaking I’m Not a Plastic Bag campaign, its best-selling book ‘Change the world for a fiver’, and Historypin – an online, user-generated platform of historical photos and personal recollections ‘pinned’ to GoogleMaps.
Giles plays an active role in the third sector, as Founding Director of the British Paraorchestra, and as a Trustee of the Big Society Network, bringing together businesses, social ventures, charities and government to build a stronger society. At the international level, he lead the formation of The Laureus Sport for Good Foundation – harnessing the power of sport to inspire change in communities around the world; and the establishment of J8 – a partnership between UNICEF, Morgan Stanley and the country with the presidency of the G8, which enables young people to take their solutions for global issues to world leaders.