Craig Dearden-Phillips
Craig is founding CEO of Speaking Up, a social business and charity which empowers people with learning difficulties, mental ill-health or other disabilities to have a voice and control their own lives.
Speaking Up delivers a range of services for disabled people including life-coaching and professional advocacy. It funds itself through advocacy contracts with Local Authorities and PCT’s, grants and a consultancy, training and publications business.
In 2002, Speaking Up was a struggling local voluntary organisation with 20 staff and a turnover of just £500,000. The decision to start trading as a social enterprise allowed them to build up a successful advocacy services business, which now provides advocacy services to disabled people in a variety of settings via contracts with PCTs, local authorities and private hospitals across the UK. Speaking Up now has a £5.5 million turnover and helps more than 4,000 people a year. It has also won a host of major awards both within the "Third Sector" and the wider business world, including the National Training Award.
Outside of his work with Speaking Up, Craig is a Non Executive member of the Investment Committee of Futurebuilders England and a Trustee of Impetus Trust. Craig Dearden-Phillips is set to deepen his impact on his local area after being elected as a Liberal Democrat County Councillor in Suffolk.
An experienced speaker and commentator, Craig writes regularly for the Guardian and Third Sector magazine. He has also been profiled in a number of national publications, including the Financial Times.
Craig was awarded an MBE for services to social enterprise in the Queens Birthday Honours 2009.
