For anyone wanting to understand more about how community wealth building works, this podcast is for you.
Stephen Hunt is a York-based consultant and advisor working on inclusive economies, specialising in poverty and economic development.
His work sits between designing initiatives that support more inclusive economic systems, helping institutions deliver sustainable change, and using evidence and learning to shape what happens next — with much of his work centred around entrepreneurship.
He has supported work in more than 30 countries, focusing on education, entrepreneurship, market systems development, and business environment reform — working across public, private, and civil society contexts to improve how things actually work in practice.
In this episode, we start off by getting a better understanding of Stephen’s work and how it functions in developing economies, before bringing the conversation back to York and discussing how the principles of building inclusive economies abroad are just as important to implement here.
We talk about why the UK is looking to community wealth building in 2026, with Scotland leading the way. We outline what the 5 pillars of community wealth building are, how we can use them to shape discussion and policy, but mostly importantly why community wealth building initiatives have to work with markets to become sustainable.
Stephen is incredibly passionate about this area and has a grounded understanding of what it will take for the community wealth building movement to succeed in the UK.
Hosted by Ben Porter, this is season two of the York Community Wealth Building Podcast brought to you by Fieldwork.
