Channel 4 reveals Jobs Ambassadors

How do we create 2.5 million jobs? As the Channel 4 Jobs Report looks for answers to the biggest question facing the UK economy, we’ve teamed up with a panel of experts from some of the most influential brands in the world of business.

The C4 Jobs Ambassadors will be on hand to share their skills and answer the key questions about job creation in Britain in 2012. There will also be opportunities to engage with them via our Facebook page: facebook.com/Channel4JobsReport

We’re aiming to unearth positive stories about the state of the jobs market, while exploring the challenges faced by today’s jobseekers.

Between them, our ambassadors are responsible for tens of thousands of employees in the UK jobs market.

Justin King (0001) has been chief executive of Sainsbury’s since 2004. Before that he was director of food at Marks and Spencer Group plc and held a number of senior positions at Asda/WalMart and Haagen Dazs UK. Sainsbury’s currently has 150,000 employees. The firm created 6,000 new jobs in the last financial year (2010/11) and has pledged to create 50,000 new job opportunities by 2020.

Ronan Dunne (0002) is in charge at Telefonica UK, the mobile phone giant presnt in 25 countries, which owns the O2 brand. O2 employs 11,500 people in the UK. Dunne told Channel 4 News: “In my four years as CEO, I have created many jobs along the way, particularly in our new business areas where the native digital skills of the UK’s emerging workforce offer unrivalled value – such as The Lab, our UK innovation team.

“And I’m just as excited about being part of a commitment to create 5,000 paid roles across Europe by 2015, at a time when youth unemployment is stubbornly high.”

Stephen Leonard (0003) heads up computer giant IBM in the UK. Stephen joined IBM in 1990 and since then has held a variety of sales, sales management and leadership positions, in different parts of the organisation all over the world. He was born and raised in Scotland, where he gained degree in applied physics and electronics at Dundee University.

The panel also features the youngest chief executive in advertising history, David Jones (0004) of Havas. He wrote the best-selling book Who Cares Wins: Why Good Business Is Better Business and has worked closely with David Cameron on campaigns for the Conservative Party. As global CEO of Havas, David is responsible for all creative, marketing, media and design companies throughout the network of more than 16,000 people.

Martha Lane Fox (0005) made her name co-founding Lastminute.com with Brent Hoberman in the 1990s dotcom boom. Before that she began her digital career with a project for British Telecom entitled “What is the Internet?”.

In June 2010, the government asked Lane Fox to take on the role of UK Digital Champion advising how online public services delivery can help to provide better, and more efficient services as well as getting more people online. She is also co-founder of Lucky Voice and Antigone and a non-exec director at M&S and Mydeco.com.

Mark Hamilton (0006) founded event security company Rock Steady in 1980 and over the last 32 years he has created an estimated 80,000 jobs. Four years ago Rock Steady was acquired by security giant and the one of worlds leading private sector employers, G4S. Mark is now leading the G4S security workforce for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which will create a further 14,000 UK jobs this summer.

Michelle Mone (0007) is the founder and co-owner of MJM International, a multi-million pound lingerie company. Her success, she said, is built on “determination, self-belief and hard work”. She has been voted Britain’s Number One most powerful woman in business by Glamour magazine and received an OBE in 2010 for her services to UK business.

Colin Matthews (0008) was appointed BAA‘s chief executive officer in April 2008. BAA directly employs around 10,000 staff, with a total of around 77,000 people working on site at its biggest airport, Heathrow. The company is investing £1bn a year of private sector investment in improving Heathrow, including working toward the reopening of Terminal 2 in 2014. At £2.5bn, the T2 project alone is the UK’s biggest current private sector infrastructure investment.

Dan Crow (0009) is the man behind Songkick, a live music startup in London’s “Silicon Roundabout”. The service helps music fans match up their favourite artists with upcoming concerts where they live. Crow, the chief technical officer, spent ten years in the original Silicon Valley, starting first at Apple before co-founding the hugely successful Blurb. He then spent five years leading engineering teams at Google in New York and London.

Read more: Channel 4 Jobs Report: Where will the jobs come from?

Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish (0010) are the team behind gift website notonthehighstreet.com. In 2006, the pair set out to create “a place where you could find all those charming, unique and carefully-made things that you sometimes stumble across in cool urban markets, village fairs and tucked-away boutiques”. The site has become a hugely popular destination for online shoppers – and everything in the store is made or selected by an independent small business.

Chris Dawson (0011) is the founder of home, leisure and garden retailer The Range. Despite leaving school at 15 with no qualifications, Dawson is now the wealthiest person in the south west of England with an estimated fortune of over £300m. Chris became a successful market-trader and by the aged of 38, had eventually raised enough capital to open his first shop, in Plymouth.

Giles Turrell (0012) is the boss at the Weetabix Food Company (WFC). WFC has a wide portfolio of brands including Weetabix, Alpen, Ready Brek, Weetos, Oatibix and a range of cereal bars. The company exports to 80 countries globally. Turrell began his business life in 1989 as a graduate trainee at GlaxoSmithKline before joining Kimberly Clark and rising through the ranks to become president of the company’s western and central European business.