Alex Nicholls

Alex Nicholls MBA is the first lecturer in social entrepreneurship appointed at the University of Oxford and was the first staff member of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship in 2004.

Nicholls’ research interests range across several key areas within social entrepreneurship, including: the interface between the public and social sectors; organisational legitimacy and governance; the development of social finance markets; and impact measurement and innovation.

Nicholls is widely published in peer reviewed journals and has done consultancy work for not-for-profits, social enterprises, and the UK government. He is the co-author of a major research book on Fair Trade (with Charlotte Opal, Sage, 2005). His ground-breaking 2006 edition of a collection of key papers on the state of the art of social entrepreneurship globally was published in paperback edition by Oxford University Press in 2008. It is the best selling academic book on the subject globally. Nicholls is currently working on a new book on social investment.

He has held lectureships at a wide variety of academic institutions including: University of Toronto, Canada; Leeds Metropolitan University; University of Surrey; Aston Business School. He has been a Fellow of the Academy of Marketing Science and a Member of the Institute of Learning and Teaching. Nicholls also sat on the regional social enterprise expert group for the South East of England and is a member of the Advisory Group for the ESRC Social Enterprise Capacity Building Cluster. He is a non Executive Director of a major Fair Trade company.