Father of venture capital confirmed for Good Deals

The father of venture capital in the Europe and a key proponent of social investment, Sir Ronald Cohen, will be speaking at the third annual Good Deals conference.

Good Deals 2010, run by Social Enterprise, is this year taking place in London over two days – Monday 15 and Tuesday 16 November – and is set to bring together a wider group of social investment experts than ever before.

As well as Cohen, confirmed speakers include the UK CEO of Deutsche Bank Colin Grassie, managing director of Investment Banking UK at Triodos Bank James Vacarro, head of sustainable business at Marks & Spencer Mike Barry and CEO of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation Dawn Austwick.

Cohen has long been a supporter of social investment. In Good Deals 2009: The Social Investment Almanack he spoke about his passion for using venture capital to create really substantial social enterprises. He said ‘Following the crisis [the recession], it is going to become obvious that you either change the capitalist system to include greater social action, or leave it to governments to raise taxation and redistribute wealth and income.’

Every week during the lead up to the Good Deals conference the Social Enterprise team will be releasing key features from the Almanack to the Business section of www.socialenterpriselive.com. The full Almanack is also available to download as a pdf in our supplements section.

This year, Good Deals also sees the introduction of the Little Black Deal Book, a directory aimed at potential investors that will showcase social businesses needing an injection of capital to raise funds to achieve social as well as financial returns.

Good Deals 2010 takes place at IET London: Savoy Place, London. Details of prices and a link to the bookings system will be released shortly. In the meantime you can find more information by visiting www.good-dealsuk.com

The next Almanack is due out at the beginning of next year.

Find out more about Good Deals at www.good-dealsuk.com and follow all Good Deals 2010 news on Twitter with the hashtag #gdeals10