Nicola Dickins

director, profit for purpose.

Nicola Dickins has been working with Social Entrepreneurs for over 25 years, helping them to develop social enterprise activity and diverse income generation routes through trading, commissioning, funding, and social investment. In this time, she has supported the start-up of over 400 new Community Interest Companies and secured over £165m for her clients. 

Her vision is to see a world where organisations chose to invest their profits into social purpose and thus sustainable and resilient communities can emerge.  Nicola has completed her master’s in social enterprise management and sat on the Department of Health Board for Social Enterprise; contributing to the development of the Right to Request and Social Value Commissioning.  She is also CIPD Qualified (Human Resources).  She has delivered contracts on behalf of the Cabinet Office Public Mutuals Support Service, working with Primary Care Trusts, Adult Social Services and Council led Youth Services to ‘spin out’ as a Social Enterprise and as a result supported the first ‘spin out’ delivering personalisation services. 

Over the last 10 years, Nicola has delivered Social Enterprise Development Programmes at several universities including Oxford Brookes, Staffordshire, Keele, Coventry University, Manchester. Nicola has just completed her role as Social Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Sheffield and is currently working with Queens University Belfast, Lancaster University and Salford University to develop programmes to support Social Science Researchers to commercialise their research. Nicola is also a qualified and experienced Social Accountant.

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Ryan Kennedy

director, profit for purpose.

Ryan helps Profit for Purpose organisations navigate their digital and technology needs, ensuring they have the right tools to drive meaningful value. With over 15 years of experience working across both the social enterprise and technology sectors, Ryan has come to feel passionate about empowering organisations with agency and ownership of their digital systems.

From the start, Ryan has been closely involved with the Profit for Purpose movement, working with Make it Happen Consultancy—an early iteration of what would later evolve into Profit for Purpose Ltd.

In addition to his work in digital strategy, Ryan has successfully launched multiple e-commerce ventures and has independently managed the band ‘Horsebeach’ for over a decade. These experiences have given him a deep understanding of diverse business models and the critical role of effective digital systems in supporting sustainable growth.

He holds a degree in Computer Science and is a director of Profit for Purpose Ltd, Horsebeach Ltd and Things to Keep Alive Ltd.

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Karen Smith

director, turn up the value.

Karen helps organisations measure, maximize, and celebrate their social value. With 20+ years of experience working across communities and businesses in the Northwest, she specializes in collaborative approaches that build strong relationships across the public, private, and voluntary sectors.

A passionate advocate for positive action, collaboration, and strength-based approaches, Karen believes in creating a kinder, fairer, and more sustainable world.
She plays a key role in growing Greater Manchester’s social enterprise sector, chairing the Bolton Proper Good Steering Group and providing coaching and training to the sector across GM. She specialises in supporting organisations that deliver nature connection and wellbeing.

Karen is an active champion of social value at local and regional levels. A Social Audit Network (SAN) member since 2017
, she delivers Prove, Improve, Account training, facilitates SAN Roadshows, and integrates social accounting into her consultancy work.

She uses her social accounting skills to deliver insightful evaluations of projects including the Woodland Trust’s £1.9million National Lottery Heritage Fund project at the Smithills Estate in Bolton.

Karen uses her background and experience in Environmental Policy to support organisations to minimise their environmental impact and develop sustainability strategies and action plans.

She holds Master’s degrees in Business Administration and in European Environmental Policy & Regulation She is a Director at Laurels Wood CIC and We Be Kids CIC.

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