Cemal Ezel is the Founder of Change Please CIC, Old Spike Roastery and Coal Rooms Restaurants. Change Please is a social enterprise which trains people who are homeless to be baristas, paying each person the London Living Wage, providing housing to people who are homeless within 10 days of them starting employment and then supporting them into onward jobs. Change Please was listed by Marketing Week as one of the 100 Most Disruptive brands for 2017 and Cemal won UK Social Entrepreneur of the Year for 2017.
Change Please also represented the UK in the Chivas Venture Finals, to win World’s Best Social Enterprise 2018. Listed by Bloomberg as the World’s most promising startup, Change Please was also Sir Richard Branson’s 2018 “Start Up of The Year” in The Sunday Times and they’ve recently won the Queen’s Excellence award for Social Mobility 2019. With now sites across the UK, Paris, Ireland and Australia, Change Please are having an impact to the lives of homeless people on an international basis.
