Speakers

Simon first started writing speeches for members of Tony Blair’s Cabinet in 1999. He has since gone on to write speeches for the CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the world including Unilever, InterContinental Hotels and HSBC. He has written four best-selling books on communication including CONNECT! How to Inspire, Influence & Energise Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime, a WH Smith Business Book of the Month.

Simon is an Executive Fellow of Henley Business School, he lectures on Creative Writing at Cambridge University and he regularly appears on BBC, Sky and LBC. His TEDx talks have had millions of views. He is married with two daughters.

Declan Curry has been a writer and broadcaster for more than twenty-five years covering business, the economy and politics.

He broadcasts daily on LBC News. He was the business presenter on BBC One’s breakfast TV for almost a decade. He presented BBC Two's Working Lunch, and his own programmes on BBC Radio 5 live and the BBC News TV channel.

He chairs conferences and speaks at events around the world, in person and virtually on Zoom or other digital platforms. He has won several awards for his broadcasting, and is an honorary doctor of Middlesex University.

Jenn is a culture change and EDI specialist and psychologist and UK Lead for ESG and EDI for the fifth largest professional services firm, Grant Thornton UK LLP. She is responsible for designing and leading the firm's distinctive ESG strategy. Her team are focused on reducing the firm's environmental impact, creating an inclusive culture that prioritises wellbeing and improves community impact. Jenn is addressing this through robust governance and measure, chairing diversity and sustainability boards, respectfully challenging board behaviour and business decisions, innovative policy change, and utilising technology to remove barriers in the operating model. Prior to this role, Jenn was People Experience Director, where she shaped the employee value proposition and influenced senior leaders to change behaviour to improve the people experience. Jenn has expertise in psychological culture change and is an executive coaching and leadership specialist. Prior to Grant Thornton, she worked in senior roles with The Co-operative Group, BAE Systems and BAA at Heathrow, where she led the transformation of people behaviours to improve customer service in preparation for the Olympic Games in 2012.

Liz has over 15 years’ experience devising strategic employee engagement campaigns, working with a diverse range of clients including Southwest Airlines, Lloyds Bank, Roche and Anglo American. She is developing and leading the Employee Engagement practice at Blackbridge Communications. Having recently completed a master’s degree in psychology, Liz combines strategic consulting with creativity and applied psychology to amplify communication effectiveness and change behaviours inside organisations.

Nina Goswami is Clifford Chance's first Head of Inclusion UK. She is responsible for developing and implementing the law firm's inclusion policies and campaigns within the London and Newcastle offices.

Before Clifford Chance, Nina was the BBC's Creative Diversity Lead and headed up 50:50 The Equality Project. The multi-award-winning initiative uses data monitoring to ensure media content better reflects society.

She also led work around inclusive language and supported BBC News with its diversity and inclusion strategy. This included launching impact-driven partnerships such as Reframing Disability with the Media Trust.

Nina also worked as a journalist for The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph and the legal press. This was prior to her roles at the BBC, which included TV News Editor. Nina has named as Inspirational d&i Leader 2024.

Nina was named in the Inspirational d&i Leader list 2024. Nina has also featured in the Global Diversity List as Head of Diversity (2023), Champion (2021) and Diversity Professional (2020).

Toni's career has been in professional services, starting with PwC where she qualified as a chartered accountant and worked with FTSE 100 clients in the pharma and retail sectors. She then moved into human resources, taking on both internal and client facing roles, and working across multiple disciplines, business partner, compensation & benefits, employee relations, and resourcing. She joined A&O in 2016 as global Head of Reward and in 2017 became the firm’s first Global Head of Wellbeing, a role she is passionate about.

Beth Hale is a Partner specialising in employment and partnership law and also acts as General Counsel for the firm.

Beth is extremely well-regarded and has a particular strength in explaining and simplifying complex legal concepts. Valued by clients for her ability to give “clear and succinct advice” (Chambers and Partners), she has significant experience advising employers and employees on all aspects of employment law. Beth provides day to day advice on HR and management issues, including drafting contracts and restrictive covenants, managing sickness absence, disciplinary and grievance procedures, whistleblowing issues and performance management. She has extensive experience advising corporate clients on the employment aspects of mergers and acquisitions, restructurings and outsourcings, including frequently in relation to cross-border issues involving multiple jurisdictions. Beth is often instructed in relation to senior departures by both senior executives and employers. She is also experienced in representing clients in litigation in both the Employment Tribunal and the High Court.

In addition, Beth advises partners, partnerships, LLP members and LLPs on a wide range of issues including partner exits, discrimination, whistleblowing, expulsion and enforcement of restrictive covenants.

She has advised clients in a number of sectors, including financial services, rail, charitable, retail and hospitality, accountancy and legal.

In her role as General Counsel for the firm, Beth is responsible for ensuring technical excellence at the firm and manages training and knowhow as well as compliance. She regularly prepares and delivers training to clients and colleagues in relation to a wide range of issues and also provides training on behalf of the Employment Lawyers’ Association.

Beth also serves on the Advisory Board of the Rights of Women Sexual Harassment at Work legal advice line for women.

Beth was admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales in February 2004.

Chambers and Partners UK 2024 ranked Beth in Band 3 for Employment (Senior Executive): “Beth is very pragmatic and keen to find the best solution possible for her clients. She is very user-friendly and always constructive.” “She is very experienced, with a good understanding of the commercial aspects of matters.” “Beth is a great lawyer who is always prepared to go the extra mile to achieve the best outcome. She is always open, transparent and honest with her view.”

Beth is ranked in Band 4 for Partnership (Contentious) for her extensive experience advising professional partnerships and individual partners on contentious matters: “Beth provides an excellent service, offering empathy alongside her legal knowledge and strategic insights. She is very impressive and gives measured and thoughtful advice.”

Legal 500 UK 2024 recognises Beth as a “Next Generation Partner” for her work in Partnership law.

Shelley has been responsible for the global HR function at WFW since 2019, having previously held a variety of senior HR roles with Ashurst LLP and also with Herbert Smith Freehills, including spending time in Hong Kong when she was Head of HR for Asia. Her early HR career began with Marks and Spencer, followed by roles in financial services with Smith & Williamson (now Evelyn Partners).

Shelley enjoys working in an international environment and has significant experience of delivering initiatives to effect change within culturally diverse environments. Shelley is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and has an Executive MBA from Cranfield University

Tiree Houghton is a Director in Gallagher’s People Experience Client Consulting. With over ten years’ experience in the industry, she is passionate about helping and challenging employers to best support their employees. She works with clients to develop and shape their people strategies, with particular expertise in benefit and reward strategy, employee experience and engagement.

Known as the Generation Game Changer, Henry Rose Lee researches, consults and speaks about every generation in today’s workforces, from those who are just starting work, to people in their mid-career, and through to those workers whose career is maturing. Henry advises clients on the key themes of each generation at work – from attraction and recruitment to engagement and retention. She also consults on how best to embrace the new normal of remote, flexible and hybrid work, and how to get the best out of every generation, whatever their age and job role.

Mark has delivered numerous diversity and inclusion projects in the UK and internationally for organisations across a wide variety of sectors, including The Financial Reporting Council, Lloyds Market Association (UK and International) Inclusive Recruitment review, Bermuda Hospital Board, Groupama Insurance, The BBC, Sheffield University, NHS Clinical Commissioning Group Boards, Highways England, ITV, DR TV Denmark, Lloyds Market Association & The Bermuda Human Rights Commission and The Law Society.

Mark is a published author on the topic of Equality and Diversity having authored the Law Society E&D Risk & Compliance Toolkit which assists law firms to comply with regulation and is the co-author of research published for Arts Council England on Goal 5: Equality & Diversity for Young People in the arts.

Mark is an executive committee member of the R.I.D.I. (Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative) campaign and just completed a 3 year term as a Non-executive Director of NHS Property Services with responsibility for People, Culture, Diversity & Inclusion.

In January 2016 Mark took up the role as Head of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion for HS2. Under Mark’s leadership, HS2 have won a number of EDI Awards including the 2017 ENEI Awards for Inclusive Procurement, Innovation with impact and Overall Public Sector Winner categories, three REACH Society awards for its work Inspiring Young BAME Individuals, Professional Role Models & Corporate Champions categories, The Apollo Award for Best Supplier Diversity Programme, the Women in Rail “Top Employer” 2018 award, ENEI Inclusive Procurement Award 2018, Gold Award for the ENEI TIDE benchmark, MSDUK Global Inclusive Procurement Award 2018 and the VERCIDA No.1 Gender Inclusive Employer in the UK 2018. In 2019 Mark won Head of Diversity of the year at the Inclusive Companies annual Diversity Awards and in 2020 was named on the People Magazine Top 20 Diversity & Inclusion Powerlist and in 2021 was recognised by D&I Leader co. as one of the Top 100 Global inspirational D&I Leaders. In 2021, Mark was awarded FCIPD, fellowship status of Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development.

Mark joined Lloyd’s as Head of Culture in January 2022. In September 2022 Mark was recognised by Hive Learning as one of the Top 75 DEI professionals in EMEA making a lasting impact on inclusive culture.

Mark has lead Lloyd’s to Gold standard on the Clear Assured Accreditation framework, to Disability Confident Leader status and won awards for Lloyd’s diversity focussed leadership and mentoring programmes. Under Mark’s leadership, the international Diversity Festival, Dive In has evolved and now includes an outreach and reverse mentoring programme, engaging over 35,000 people with participants from 84 countries globally.

In 2023 Mark was made a Fellow of the 5% Club, a group of major employers investing in apprenticeships and early career opportunities.

In 2024, Mark won the VERCIDA Inclusive Initiative of the year and was awarded Race Equality Matters Trailblazer status for his work on the research into Lloyd’s history with Trans-Atlantic slavery and Inclusive Futures, Lloyd’s response.

Oonagh has a broad remit at Slaughter and May which spans, business partnering including D&I delivery, global mobility, and the firm's MI & systems function.

Having started her HR career at Kraft Foods, Oonagh has held several leadership roles across a variety of sectors including engineering, professional services, and retail. Oonagh is passionate about building and developing diverse teams and has since joining S&M been involved in the firm’s solicitor apprenticeship programme which will launch in 2025.

Juliet is responsible for legal advice and support on the development of strategic and regulatory reform as well as matters of governance and compliance. She also leads the SRA’s investigation and enforcement function, as well as the organisation’s dedicated anti money laundering directorate and thematic inspections.

Previously a partner at Fieldfisher she acted for regulatory bodies across sectors including healthcare and law. This built on her previous experience at the General Medical Council, where she advised on high profile disciplinary cases and matters, including the Shipman and Mid Staffordshire public inquiries. She is a non-executive board member at the Professional Standards Authority, the oversight regulator for the healthcare professions.

Sophie Pender grew up in a single parent household on a council estate in North London and balanced two jobs in McDonalds and John Lewis alongside her schoolwork after losing her father to his battle with alcoholism and drug addiction. In 2014, she became the first student ever in her school's history to achieve straight A*s at A level in a school year where the GCSE pass rate was just 32%. To build a better life for herself, Sophie left her hometown for the University of Bristol to study English. After discovering the existence of the Old Boys' Club, a network that propels those from private schools into top jobs, Sophie, age 19, founded The 93% Club – a members' club for state educated people – to do the same. Since then, The 93% Club has become the largest network of state educated people in the UK - with a huge university presence and a thriving professionals network. The mission? To transform what it means to be state educated in the UK.

In addition to being the founder and CEO of The 93% Club, Sophie is an corporate lawyer, a member of the Forbes 30u30 for her social entrepreneurship, and a recipient of the Diana Legacy Award - the most prestigious accolade a young person aged 9-25 years can receive for their social action or humanitarian work. You can watch her TEDx talk "How to become socially mobile", and read and hear more about the work of The 93% Club in the Economist documentary, "Why it's harder to earn more than your parents", the BBC Radio 4 Documentary "The 93% Club", BBC News, ITV News, LBC, The Guardian and the Telegraph.

Elliott Rae is the founder of the parenting platform MusicFootballFatherhood, called the ‘Mumsnet for Dads’ by the BBC. He is the curator of the bestselling book, DAD, presenter of BBC One documentary ‘Becoming Dad’ and co-founder of the Working Dads Employer Awards.

Elliott created the Parenting Out Loud campaign which supports employers to build workplace cultures where dads can be loud and proud about their caring responsibilities at work.

Elliott is the ex-Head of DEI Delivery at HM Treasury and one of the UK’s most prominent speakers on fatherhood, men’s mental health and masculinity.

He has written for publications such as The Independent, The Telegraph and Grazia and frequently appears across the media, including a feature on Loose Women and regular contributions to Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio London.

His work on gender equality has been recognised by the United Nations and he was awarded the #HeForShe award by UN Women UK.

Emma has a proven expertise in strategic and operational transformation and growth. She works with a collaborative, pragmatic, coaching mindset to achieve results, flexing her approach to meet the needs of colleagues and key stakeholders.

Emma has over 30 years’ human resources experience across a range of industry sectors, including professional services. Her areas of interest include: employee relations, mergers and acquisitions, learning and development, coaching and leading HR transformation. She has worked both in-house and advising clients on people matters across the entire employee lifecycle, with a real passion for wellbeing, and diversity, equity and inclusion, and is always delighted to comment in the media or speak at an event.

Nick has overall responsibility for technological transformation within Mishcon de Reya. He leads the Technology and Strategy groups as well the Firm's research and development arm, MDR R&D. The latter includes establishing one of the industry's first in-house Data Science and Machine Learning teams and launching the firm's internal Generative AI tool, deReyAI. He is also the Founder of MDR Lab, a programme for tech start-ups in the legal space.

During his time at Mishcon de Reya Nick has overseen or been involved with various technological innovations that help the Firm best serve clients, including the development of MDR Discover, setting up MDR Lab and the subsequent investment in and adoption of technology solutions, launching MDRx, and developing a suite of PropTech tools to revolutionise the Firm's Real Estate offering. Nick was also part of the leadership team that developed and launched MDR Solutions I, Mishcon de Reya's litigation finance venture in partnership with Harbour, and oversaw our first strategic acquisition in the alternative legal services market, flexible legal resourcing business Flex Legal.

Nick is one of the foremost experts in LegalTech and the application of AI to the legal market, having spent the majority of his career working at the forefront of innovation in the legal industry. Formerly Managing Director of Axiom in the UK and Director of LexisNexis's UK Legal Business, Nick's expertise lies in the field of technology, knowledge and new business models in the legal sector. Nick began his career as a competition lawyer at Linklaters and then as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co. Nick is a Board Member and advisor to a number of legal tech business, including Flex Legal and MDR Lab alumni, Thirdfort, Laurel, Orbital Witness and Ayora. Outside Mishcon, he is also a Trustee of the Schools Consent Project.