Oli Barrett, 30
Company: Various
Web:
www.olibarrett.co.uk A man so ridiculously well connected that Barack Obama follows him on Twitter, former Butlins redcoat, new Growing Business columnist and serial entrepreneur Oli Barrett is also something of a ‘go to guy’ for both the public and private sectors. Arguably top of his list of social entrepreneurship achievements is the influential Make Your Mark with a Tenner campaign, which sees 10,000 pupils competing to build enterprises in a month with just £10. He also brought speed networking to the UK, took 20 UK web companies to San Francisco to learn from key people in Silicon Valley for Web Mission, and helped create the Catalyst Awards, celebrating achievements in social technology. He’s also helped launch a few companies, such as language learning network Friendsabroad.