Speakers

Alison is a board director at MM-Eye, an established market research and insight agency with a track record of helping businesses make the right decisions.

She was instrumental in MM-Eye achieving B Corp status in September 2023.  She was also one of the outgoing shareholders who chose Employee Ownership for MM-Eye in January 2023, underpinning MM-Eye’s commitment to empowering employees, giving them a say in how the business is run and the opportunity to share in the profits generated.

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MM-Eye are committed to supporting clients step up to the challenge of delivering social and environmental sustainability at the same time as commercial success, engaging with their customers, employees, suppliers and wider stakeholders to reveal meaningful truths, empowering them to make effective and responsible decisions.

Founder

C3PO (Chief People, Planet & Purpose Officer)

Andy Hawkins is C-3PO, founder of Business on Purpose a Certified B Corp, a qualified B Leader, Co-chair of the Bristol & Bath B Local and has been in business for more than 30 years helping companies transform the way they work.

He also spent 5 years doing community development in Africa and a further 5 years in environmental services.

These experiences are now helping clients assess and improve their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) utilising the B Corp process and B Impact Assessment.

Having supported hundreds of clients across a range of sizes and sectors, he is well placed to provide support how, where and when it is needed.

Co-Lead Executive and Head of Standards, Certification & Product Delivery 

Clay Brown is the interim Co-Lead Executive and Head of Standards, Certification & Product Delivery for B Lab Global, where he plays a critical role in evolving, growing, and scaling existing and new programs, products, and tools, including the B Corp Certification. Clay holds over 20 years of experience creating and implementing social and environmental programs for standards organizations, including Fair Trade USA, FLO-CERT, and the Fairtrade Foundation.

With over five years of experience in commercial & corporate finance, Elly has supported a breadth of business owners achieve growth by supporting their investment in fixed assets, working on future-changing projects such as renewable energy, AI and automation.

She’s passionate about championing potential, supporting businesses on their growth journey and improving their societal impact. This is at the core of her role in NatWest as Regional Ecosystem Manager for the South West & South Central region.

As a super-connector, Elly immerses herself in the ecosystem, accelerating the development of entrepreneurs by helping navigate business support.

Leading two Accelerator hubs, in Bristol and Southampton, she hears first-hand the challenges high-growth businesses face and establish partnerships that innovate solutions to help.

Katie has over 15 years’ experience in Building Sustainable Communities, delivered with a unique intersection of professional, personal, and academic knowledge in Diversity, Inclusion, Cohesion and Equality (DICE).

Katie likes people in all their magnificent difference, thriving off of finding the solutions in the challenges these differences present, for both the individual and the system. A woman of Dual Heritage, she is continually navigating her Black & White world. She has dedicated her academic journey to Social Psychology and her career to Building Cohesive Communities.

Katie delivers training, development, and consultation in DICE; a continual, interconnected process designed to provide the skills, tools and ‘know how’ to embed DICE in personal and professional practice.

Katie also runs her own Equality, Diversity & Inclusion consultancy.

Louise (she/her) is a TEDx speaker, aspiring CEO, Film Director and multi-award-winning equality specialist with 13+ years of driving culture change. A fierce disruptor of the status quo, she excels in strategy, training, and stakeholder engagement. Passionate about race equity, LGBT+ inclusion, and mental health, she mentors with Just Like Us and serves as a trustee at Watershed. With an intersectional, creative approach, Louise is dedicated to amplifying authentic voices, building safe spaces, and uniting communities to create meaningful, lasting change.

Marvin Rees OBE is a British Labour Party politician. He served as the Mayor of Bristol from 2016 to 2024, becoming the first person of Black African heritage to be elected mayor of any major European City. Rees began his career with Tearfund, a leading international development agency, then moved to the USA to work with Sojourners, a social justice organisation. On returning to the UK he worked with BBC Bristol, before joining NHS Bristol’s Public Health team.

His mayoralty was characterised by a blend of political and social leadership, earning him an international reputation for impactful governance. He oversaw the delivery of over 14,00 new homes; Temple Quarter, one of the biggest regeneration schemes in Europe; and Bristol City Leap, a £1bn deal public private partnership to decarbonise the city’s energy system.

Marvin is a Yale World Fellow and graduate of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from Swansea University and is an Honorary Industrial Professor at the University of Bristol. He cities his experiences as the mixed-race son of a single mother growing up in 1970s and 80s Britain as the origins of his commitment to social justice, social ambition and urban transformation.