Social entrepreneur, John Bird is best known for being the co-founder of The Big Issue, a major international magazine created to help homeless people have a legitimate source of income. John is also the founder of The Big Issue Foundation, The International Network of Street Papers and Big Issue Invest. Outside of his social enterprises, John is an independent Crossbencher in the House of Lords who was appointed Life Peer Baron Bird of Notting Hill in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Outside of his work with The Big Issue, John is a popular choice as a speaker for corporate events, championing the importance of helping those less fortunate to overcome adversity.
Throughout his life, John has faced great adversity that has motivated him to help those less fortunate. When he was a child he was homeless at the age of five and lived many of his early years in an orphanage, making an income as he got older through stealing and landing himself in prison on several occasions. However, John overcame this adversity to found his own printing and publishing business and then The Big Issue in the 1990s. Determined to change the future for the homeless, John later founded The Big Issue Foundation to further assist in integrating the homeless back into society.
Today, John is working on the Board of Directors of The Big Issue, overseeing the magazine being sold across four continents and helping to better the lives of those poverty-stricken and homeless. He is also an independent Crossbencher in the House of Lords, passionately working to abolish the root causes of poverty and pushing the importance of social enterprise, social mobility and the wellbeing of generations of the future. In recognition of his commitments, John has been appointed MBE for Services to Homeless People and a recipient of the Beacon Fellowship Prize in 2006. He has also claimed Editor’s Editor of the Year 1993 from the British Society of Magazine Editors, The Revd. Marcus Morris Award 2000, London’s Living Legend 2004 and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2008.
An advocate for helping the homeless, John is also working as a public speaker for a range of social and corporate events. Having co-founded one of the globes largest social enterprise magazines, John is pioneering the future for generations to come. A serial social entrepreneur, John is able to not only advocate the importance of helping the homeless, but he can also share how he went from a prison inmate to the co-founder of an internationally successful enterprise.
