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About us

We've been at the forefront of impact innovation since 1999. In this time, we have helped hundreds of start-ups, small businesses and impact ventures to develop and grow, creating thousands of employment opportunities, and transforming communities. Our social finance solutions have raised £ millions to help charitable organisations with their development and impact aims.

History

2021

2021

Allia C&C passes the £1billion mark, in finance arranged for registered charities & sustainable businesses to help them to grow and achieve their impact goals

2020

2020

Our Future 20 venture support programme wraps up, with the successful ventures collectively creating 57 jobs, raising over £1.7m in grants and growing sales revenue of over £2.5m.

Working with local homelessness charity Jimmy’s Cambridge, and New Meaning Foundation, an ethical construction social enterprise, six modular homes were created as supported living for people experiencing homelessness.

2019

2019

Allia turns 20! We celebrate raising £333m for charitable organisations, supporting 1,609 enterprises, small businesses & initiatives, that have gone on to create 4,640 new jobs over the years.

Allia acquires a city brokerage and forms Allia C&C, to broaden the financial services and advice we can offer to charitable organisations.

2018

2018

the Retail Charity Bond for award-winning care-home provider Belong Ltd, is the biggest yet at £35m.

2017

2017

We open a Future Business Centre in East London, from which to support local small businesses and impact ventures benefitting the area.

2016

2016

The Innovation Lab opens at our Peterborough centre; a fully equipped lab facility for designing, testing and prototyping environmental products & services.

2015

2015

We launch Serious Impact – a branded programme of venture support to help start-ups and small businesses to grow and thrive – across Cambridge, East London and Peterborough.

Our new Future Business Centre in Peterborough opens, to provide support and flexible workspace to the city’s business community.

2014

2014

Our Retail Charity Bond platform is launched, to help charities raise unsecured finance through bonds listed on London Stock Exchange.

The first Retail Charity Bond is issued for £11m, for Golden Lane Housing, Mencap’s supported housing landlord for people with a learning disability.

Our Scottish Housing bonds programme is set up in partnership with Scottish Government, to raise funds for building social and affordable housing.

2013

2013

We open our first Future Business Centre in Cambridge, building a community of impact-focused small businesses who want to make positive change through CleanTech, Tech for Good and social innovation in a purpose-built energy efficient building.

2010

2010

The organisation changes its name to Allia.

2001-2010

2001-2010

We work on a range of charitable bonds across the UK, from Wales to Newcastle, that total £18.5m to fund employment ventures that help thousands of people into work, start up hundreds of enterprises and businesses, and support many community projects across the UK.

1999

1999

Our first charitable bond raises £787k to help tackle unemployment in Sheffield.

Citylife is launched; a charity encouraging people to use their resources for social benefit.

Board

Allia is governed by a board of trustees. The trustees support our senior management team, guiding their decision-making on strategic issues – each one has significant business and leadership experience to help strengthen the organisation’s direction.

Tim Jones

Chair

Tim Jones was Chief Executive of the Allia Group for 17 years from 2002-2019 and has been Chairman of the Allia Group since April 2022. Tim has overseen a range of new thinking and new solutions seeking to address global and local challenges including Future Business initiatives to drive impact entrepreneurship and start-ups across the country and social finance initiatives for impact investment through Employment Bonds, Housing Bonds and London Stock Exchange listed Retail Charity Bonds.

Tim is a Non-Executive Director at Retail Charity Bonds plc, Chairman of Carr’s plc and Chairman of Oximio Clinical Trials Group, Tim is a Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments (MCSI), an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute (ACII). He is a Liveryman at the Worshipful Company of International Bankers where he is a Court Assistant and Chairman of its Communications Committee.

Robert Gray

Trustee

Robert has over 35 years’ experience in the international banking industry having worked in London, New York and Tokyo for JP Morgan and HSBC.

During the latter half of his banking career Robert was closely involved with the development of global capital markets. During this period, he chaired the International Primary Market Association, the trade association for the international underwriting of debt securities and chaired the regulatory policy committee at the International Capital Market Association, its successor body. He also led the overseas promotion efforts for TheCityUK, which represents UK financial and professional services globally.

He currently serves as a director of Residential Secure Income Plc, a real estate investment trust established to invest in the social housing sector. Robert served for many years as a trustee of Centrepoint, the homeless charity, which first stimulated his interest in social impact investment.

Robert was an early investor in charitable bonds and has followed Allia’s development with great interest. He said: “What has impressed me about Allia is its ability to innovate and adapt, acting as an agent for change in the evolving world of social investment. I am in no doubt that Allia will remain in the forefront of social impact finance as it becomes increasingly mainstream.”

Charles Rosenmeyer

Trustee

Charles was a partner in a firm of City lawyers for 35 years. During that period, he had various roles including training, management, team building, client support and fee earning.

Over a long period of professional practice, he specialised in areas such as international real estate, property development, planning, bank loans and bank security and hotels and leisure. He has always believed in the contribution which pro bono work can make to society. So, in addition to representing a number of charities, for many years he has also provided regular pro bono advice. In this way he became associated with Allia about 20 years ago, became a director and has thoroughly enjoyed his connection with the charity and its staff.

He says: “Allia is at the cutting edge of what is being achieved in the social sector and has an immensely able team of inventive and hard-working people. I am hugely proud of what Allia and its team have achieved.”

Marcus Hulme

Trustee

Marcus is the Social Value Director at Places for People who are one of the largest property, leisure and regeneration companies in the UK. Marcus leads on delivering social impact activities and measurement across the Group of 20 companies. Previously, he was Social Impact Director at Big Society Capital who were the first social investment wholesaler in the world and worked in policy and research at the National Lottery Community Fund responsible for setting up strategic funding programmes. Marcus started his career delivering frontline services at a homeless charity in east London. Marcus has held a number of trustee advisory and non executive roles including being an investment panel member of the Key Fund, Chair of the Cabinet Office’s Impact Readiness Fund, panel member for the Big Potential Grants programme, advisory committee member for the Impact Management Programme and a trustee of Relate South East London.

Philip Wright

Trustee

Philip was a Partner at Pricewaterhouse Coopers until December 2011 where he was responsible for some of the firm’s major public and private sector clients.

Philip has a background in corporate finance and board level issues, and has worked extensively in several countries including Japan, Australia, Hungary and Germany. As well as being a Director for Allia and a Non-Executive Director for Retail Charity Bonds, Philip is on the Board of Common Purpose, a charity and social enterprise in leadership development and on the Council of Goldsmiths University of London. He is Chairman of Beyond Food Foundation, a charity which seeks to motivate and inspire people who are at risk of or have experienced homelessness.

Past positions include Chairman of Digital Theatre in the online media sector. He was Acting Chair of Barts Health NHS Trust, and a board member of NHS London and Barts and The London NHS Trust, plus Chair of the Lord Mayor’s Appeal Committee. He is author of the book “In Search of Shareholder Value”.

Philip said: “I enjoy being involved with Allia since its work on finance and infrastructure produces real leverage in helping charities and social enterprises make a difference.”

Michael Schluter

Michael Schluter

Life Patron

Dr Michael Schluter CBE, founder of the Relationships Foundation, is Allia’s Life Patron. Conceived as a society for the benefit of the community Citylife was founded by the Relationships Foundation (‘the RF’), a Cambridge-based charity whose premise is that relationships are key to the well-being of individuals and society as a whole.  The RF continues to thrive and you can read more about its values here. Citylife’s specific brief was to be an enabler and catalyst for the provision of social impact finance – especially in the areas of unemployment, social housing and social inclusion.

Amanda Lewis

Trustee

Amanda Lewis has many years’ experience operating at board level in both the public and private sectors. She was a Partner at leading City law firms since 2000, and is now working for Dentons as a Consultant, advising on commercial and technology law matters. In 2013, she moved to having a portfolio career, with roles as a trustee and Non-Executive Director on the Boards of a large mental health and community health trust in London (NELFT), a museum and a human rights charity. She was also the first Chairman of the NHS England London Digital Partnership Board, which was set up to enable and support collaboration on digital transformation projects in the NHS throughout London.

Amanda has a strong record of delivering pragmatic analysis on all aspects of strategy, risk and governance. She has a particular passion for social entrepreneurship and is inspired by the opportunities that it provides to address some of the economic, social and environmental challenges facing society. Apart from being a trustee of Allia Limited, she is currently also a board member and Chair of the Governance Committee of Digital Divide Data, an impact sourcing company.

Shuli Levy

Trustee

Shuli Levy is Chief Financial and Operating Officer of Expedition Growth Capital, a European software investment firm. She began her career with 14 years at PwC, first as an auditor, then after qualifying as a chartered accountant, specialising in taxes and communication strategy. She has undertaken industry roles in finance, risk and governance, working in investor-backed and regulated environments. Shuli’s voluntary experience has focused on early years education and support of women and children affected by abuse.

Shuli is excited to be working with Allia to support impact ventures and entrepreneurial profit for good.

Veronika Koroleva

Trustee

Veronika is banking and finance lawyer with over twenty years of advisory, transactional and management experience gained in private practice and in-house. She is currently a partner at the challenger law firm gunnercooke llp. Veronika previously led an award-winning trade and commodity finance practice at the world’s largest law firm.

Veronika is an experienced coach and mentor and a passionate advocate for gender equality. She works on culture change in the workplace and mentors junior lawyers and other professionals.

Work at Allia

Allia is a growing, successful not-for-profit organisation, and our people are pivotal to our success. Our current team is over 40 strong and based across our three Future Business Centres in Cambridge and Peterborough. We are an equal opportunities employer who embraces diversity, inclusion and flexible working. In fact, we are the Best Not-for-Profit Employer for employee engagement in the Eastern region. We offer a dynamic working environment, true team working ethos, great benefits and much more.

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