Jonathan Straight

Jonathan Straight is a Yorkshire-based entrepreneur, writer, photographer and television presenter. In addition to sitting on IVE’s board of trustees He is currently a director of water saving NGO Waterwise and contemporary art gallery and learning space The Tetley. Jonathan is engaged as Brand Ambassador to Approved Food, a Sheffield-based food redistribution business. He is also involved with several charities including the international food waste campaigning charity, The Real Junk Food Project. Jonathan has invested in several start-ups, including solid-state photonic cooling business Inclusive Designs Limited where he chairs the board.

Through his business career, he is best known as the founder of Straight plc, the UK’s leading supplier of waste and recycling containers. 10 years after founding the business he floated it on the London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market. He exited the business in 2014 having led it for 21 years and having delivered more than 50 million recycling bins. At least half of the households in the country will have had at least one Straight product at some point in time.

Johnathan is a former winner of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year competition with a long-standing passion for entrepreneurship and is currently an Enterprise Ambassador for the Leeds University Business School.

Jonathan is a regular presenter on local television. He is currently working on a memoir of his career to date.