Nuclear powered Holbrook reveals new era for Coalition

The new boss of the Social Enterprise Coalition has declared that only a nuclear war will prevent the population from knowing about social enterprise in a decade's time.

In an exclusive interview, Peter Holbrook, who took up the reins at the coalition this month, said he hoped public awareness of the sector would rocket to 70 or 80 per cent in ten years.

'Only if you are living in a nuclear bunker will you not know about social enterprise,' he told Social Enterprise.

Recent government research found that even among those people most likely to support the values of social enterprise, only 20 per cent of them had actually heard of it.

Holbrook also pledged that in five years, 'several thousand' social businesses would bear the new Social Enterprise Mark, being launched at the coalition's annual conference, Voice10, in Cardiff next week.

He announced plans for the coalition to become more sustainable - through growing its membership and by acquiring a building that would act as a social enterprise hub in the capital.

More immediately, he is aiming for all three main political parties to include social enterprise in their election manifestos.

And he is working on plans to help the Social Enterprise Ambassadors programme continue its work after the original tranche of government funding ends this summer.

But he said that asking back former Fifteen CEO Liam Black, who was booted off the Social Enterprise Ambassadors programme by Holbrook's predecessor Jonathan Bland, was 'not at the top of my priority list'.

The full interview with Peter Holbrook appears in the February edition of Social Enterprise. Click here to view online.