Professor Dr. Alex Nicholls

Biography

Alex Nicholls is a tenured professor of social entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford and a Tutorial Fellow and Member of the Governing Body at Harris Manchester College. In 2004, he co-founded the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, significantly raising core funding and establishing the Skoll World Forum. With over a hundred publications, including six books and numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, his work has garnered over 15,500 academic citations. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship since its founding in 2010. His notable publications include a major research book on fair trade and scholarly collections on social entrepreneurship. Nicholls has previously held lectureships at various institutions, including the University of Toronto and Leeds Metropolitan University. Before academia, he held senior management roles at the John Lewis Partnership. He earned his BA (Hons), MA, and PhD in English Language and Literature from King’s College, London, and an MBA from Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. His research interests focus on impact investing, systems change, and the economic underpinnings of social innovation.

Research Interests

Experience