Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson is a leading social entrepreneur, author and regular commentator on crime, addiction, mental health, neurodiversity and homelessness. He is an Ashoka Fellow, the international network of social entrepreneurs, and in 2015 was awarded an MBE for services to vulnerable people.

For the past 20 years, Mark has led and been at the vanguard of the campaign around lived experience. He has set up charities and social enterprises led and delivered by the people they serve. This includes User Voice which has given 150,000 people in prison and on probation a voice, provided 5,000 volunteering opportunities, employed over 350 lived experience staff and produced over 150 reports, from the use of spice in prison, to neurodiversity in the justice system and the impact of Covid on prisoners.

Mark is also an expert from his personal experience of these issues, documented in his bestselling autobiography Wasted