Su Pickerill

Head of Social Value Linkedin

Su is collaborative, tenacious, versatile and a passionate catalyst in transforming business to deliver social value and enhance communities.

She holds an MSc in Social Responsibility and Sustainablity (her dissertation explored the impact of Living Wage for employers and individuals) and a BSc (Hons) Psychology and Management.

She has worked in the private and charity sectors, has travelled extensively and loves hiking and problem solving games like escape rooms.

As the Head of Social Value, Su oversees Social Value at Wates and is responsible for the 2025 ‘Creating Opportunities’ strategy. This includes a focus on tackling inequality through promoting inclusive recruitment and championing Living Wage.

She is responsible for pre-employment programmes (Building Futures and Construct a Career) and has so far supported three business units to achieve Living Wage Foundation accreditation, including Recognised Service Provider (which Su was instrumental in developing in a previous role). Inspiring and educating young people from primary age upwards, through outreach activities under the ‘Build Yourself’ banner and Driving trade and support for the Social Enterprise sector.

She delivered Wates’ target to spend £20m with SE sector by 2020, oversees a network of champions and is an advocate of the benefits of buying social.

Su is a regular conference speaker, chairs the Wates Giving Group Grants Assessment panel and manages the measurement of social value. She actively promotes collaboration across and beyond the sector to promote social value, including organising cross sector Meet the Buyers and ‘speed networking’ for Social Enterprises.

Her previous experience includes environmental sustainability elements such as attaining the Carbon Trust Standard and food waste reduction projects. She recognises the importance of working closely with procurement and has led on supply chain engagement to encourage transparency on corporate responsibility credentials.

Her operational management roles in the charity sector saw her deliver over 40 business simulation games and workshops to groups of 40-180 young people, manage and grow to capacity six in-school mentoring programmes for young people delivered by business volunteers. She was invited by Surrey Police to sit on a multi-agency committee to consider data around local crime and promote activities to reduce it. While as a Prince’s Trust Team leader, she delivered personal development and employability skills for disadvantaged/disengaged young people.