Ed Mayo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ed Mayo is a leading British thinker in the fields of economics, community and consumer issues. He is Chief Executive of the National Consumer Council.

Mayo was educated at Downing College, Cambridge and City University business school. After a short period as a management consultant at Anderson Consulting, Mayo joined the World Development Movement, serving as acting Director until 1992.

Mayo rose to prominence as director of the New Economics Foundation (NEF) from 1992 to 2003. He led NEF from two to fifty staff, creating the leading 'think-and-do tank', looking at ethical market activity, local economies and public service reform. NHS Foundation Trusts were an idea partly inspired by NEF and Mayo, particularly his October 2001 pamphlet, The Mutual State, published with Mutuo. NEF also coordinated the Jubilee 2000 campaign during this time, for which Mayo was the strategist. It gained 24 million signatures for the worldwide petition on development and poverty.

Mayo has also been involved in other regeneration, development and community projects. He has been on the board of AccountAbility, War on Want, the Fairtrade Foundation, the Local Investment Fund, Social Investment Forum and www.oneworld.net, a popular portal on human rights, development and environment. He has advised HM Treasury on enterprise and led the development of the new Community Investment Tax Credit introduced by Gordon Brown. He is also an honorary Vice-president of the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies. He was the founding chair of the London Rebuilding Society and is involved in his local community as a trustee of the MERRY charity, linking up communities in Deptford and Mozambique through music and culture. In the field of economics, Mayo is a fellow of the World Economic Forum and addressed the annual summit in Davos from 2000 to 2003 on issues of economic change and social inclusion.

In June 2003, Mayo joined the NCC. That year The Guardian nominated him as one of the top 100 most influential figures in British social policy and in November 2004 commented that ‘from cancelling third world debt to justice for working-class consumers, Ed Mayo is a key figure in social innovation’ [1]. He was nominated a ‘Young Global Leader’ by the World Economic Forum in January 2005.

He is married with three children and lives in south London.

[edit] Publications

Poverty, social exclusion and microfinance in the UK with Rogaly and Fisher, Oxfam Books 1999
Brave new economy (CD-ROM), NEF 2000
Banking and social cohesion with Christophe Guene, 2001
The Mutual State, Mutuo October 2001
Building the mutual state, ed. with Henrietta Moore, Mutuo 2002
The organics tax credit, NEF 2002
'Life saving: Community Development Credit Unions with Mick Brown and Pat Conaty, NEF, the National Association of Credit Workers and NCC