Speakers

Ayesha is a broadcaster, comedian, and member of the House of Lords who blends sharp political insight with wit and warmth.

She spent eight years as a Special Adviser to the Labour Party, working with Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman, and Ed Miliband, before being elevated to the peerage in 2024.

Now hosting Times Radio and regularly appearing on Question Time, Good Morning Britain, and Have I Got News For You, she has also toured three sell-out comedy shows and co-authored Punch & Judy Politics.

Her presentations help audiences decode political messaging, navigate policy decisions, and understand the forces shaping their operating environment, all delivered with humour, honesty, and authentic energy that leaves people informed, confident, and genuinely entertained.

Declan Curry has been a writer and broadcaster for more than thirty years covering business, the economy and politics. He contributes regularly 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.

Debbie Androlia is a behavioural scientist at BASIL Research Initiative, where she works across the ASPIRE Index and the firm's broader research and intervention programmes, helping organisations translate behavioural insight into practical change.

With more than two decades of experience across the legal, consulting and finance sectors, Debbie's work focuses on the human conditions that determine whether change takes hold: group identity and role modelling, collaboration, and the decision-making dynamics that shape how people respond to uncertainty and organisational pressure. Drawing on BASIL's research and her own extensive experience working with law firms and professional services organisations, she brings a practitioner's eye to the gap between what leaders intend and what people actually do.

Her background spans senior operational leadership – including a decade as a partner at a boutique investment firm, where she helped grow the business from a four-person team to forty – and two years at BlackRock working on special projects within their Legal & Compliance function.

Elena Bergmann is Commercial Director and was the first hire at PAIR, where she leads go-to-market across enterprise, government and strategic partnerships.

She works with organisations including PwC, Innovate UK and Mimecast to close the gap between providing access to AI and achieving measurable outcomes. Her focus is on building practical capability across the workforce, identifying where AI is creating value, and giving leaders the evidence to decide where to invest and what to scale.

Before joining PAIR, Elena worked in technology consulting and at Amazon, with experience spanning large-scale workforce transformation, commercial strategy and growth.

Tiernan Brady is an equality campaigner and strategy adviser. Tiernan was Political Director of Yes Equality, the successful Irish campaign for marriage equality when Ireland became the first country in the world to introduce equal marriage by a public vote. He was Director of the Equality Campaign, the successful Australian marriage equality campaign. They are the first two countries to enact marriage equality by public vote.

He was the policy director and prior to that the HIV strategy director of GLEN - The Gay and Lesbian Equality Network. In these roles he helped design and implement the political strategy to deliver civil partnership in Ireland and launch KnowNow, Ireland’s first rapid HIV testing in the community.

He was the Global Director of Inclusion at the global Law Firm Clifford Chance for 7 years. He served as the Director of Organisation to Irish Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) (Tánaiste), Mary Coughlan from 2000 - 2007. He served two terms as Mayor of his hometown of Bundoran in Ireland.

Martin is an experienced executive leader having latterly served as the Assistant Chief Constable in Cambridgeshire Constabulary before completing 30 years’ service in June this year.

Having spent the last 20 years in senior detective leadership roles specialising in complex criminal investigations, he has extensive credibility and experience within strategic collaborations, working between Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire (BCH) police forces to provide specialised service delivery.

Martin led many of the most complex policing functions in policing, and significantly in Public Protection (Child and Adult Rape and Sexual Offences), the Director of Force Intelligence, and the force’s most senior detective role, ‘Head of Criminal Investigations’. Martin was latterly the Head of Major Crime across the three collaborated police forces, overseeing the investigation of the most complex investigations including murder, stranger rape, kidnap and product contamination, and he has led some of the most complex murder investigations in recent times in the forces.

Martin led the much-publicised investigation into serial killer Joanne Dennehy, now serving a Whole Life Order. She killed three men in Peterborough in 2013, and attempted to murder 2 other men in Herefordshire subsequently – a spree of horrific crimes over 10 days.

He is a Trustee of The Angel’s Foundation Charity, providing vital services to survivors of domestic abuse. He provides portfolio consultancy services to organisations seeking to improve their workplace culture, safety and wellbeing within his company, Vanguard Insights & Advisory.

Sinéad Burke is a director at BASIL Research Initiative, where she brings her experience of change management and legal sector transformation to the firm’s research and intervention programmes, helping organisations turn behavioural insight into lasting change.

With more than three decades of international experience across legal, consulting and leadership development, Sinéad’s work draws on legal and commercial expertise alongside insights from psychology, neuroscience and sociology. She focuses on the conditions that allow large-scale change to take hold, bringing a practitioner’s understanding of how people experience change inside complex professional organisations.

Her background spans senior leadership in consulting, where she led transformational projects for international law firms and corporate legal departments. Earlier, during a decade at Herbert Smith Freehills, she helped develop the Alternative Legal Services Group and led legal and technology teams across Asia Pacific, work recognised with a Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Award in 2017.

A qualified attorney and executive coach, Sinéad holds an Advanced Diploma in Personal & Business Coaching and a Change Management Diploma.

Pauline is an experienced leadership adviser, executive coach and Non-Executive Director, with more than 25 years’ experience across professional and financial services. A former Global HR Director, she now works with Boards and senior leaders, helping them strengthen leadership, develop their people and build cultures that support their business ambitions.

Pauline is also a Non-Executive Director of the Cambridge Building Society, where she chairs the Remuneration and People Committee. Through Cambridge’s support of The Angels Foundation, she connected with Caroline Deeprose and learned more about the charity’s work supporting those rebuilding their lives after domestic abuse.

Having spent much of her career in the legal sector, Pauline is passionate about the role employers and People professionals can play in creating supportive workplaces. She is delighted to be bringing these two worlds together, chairing a conversation to raise awareness, challenge assumptions and inspire practical action.

David is Head of Strategic Consulting at Howden Employee Benefits. With more than 25 years' experience in employee benefits, he has held a range of senior leadership positions within leading benefit consultancies, including Partner (Head of Benefit Consulting), Head of Operations (Benefits Strategy), and Director (Key Accounts). 

David is a recognised advocate of data-driven, evidence-based benefit design. His approach challenges the traditional practice of adding benefits simply to broaden an offering, recognising that meaningful improvement rarely comes from more of the same. Instead, he focuses on aligning benefit strategies with employee needs and business objectives to deliver measurable outcomes.

He has also led the development of award-winning benefits analytics and workforce insight tools that both demonstrate and enhance the return on investment, enabling more informed decision-making and driving continuous improvement.

Using this methodology, David has helped organisations significantly improve employee engagement, enhance the value of their benefits investment, and deliver tens of millions of pounds in annual savings.

Mark is Director of Legal Solutions and Engineering at Fried Frank, following more than eight years at a Magic Circle firm, where he held leadership roles across legal technology, innovation and AI.

A technologist at heart, with a Master’s degree in Engineering and qualification as a European Patent Attorney, Mark combines engineering, legal and technology expertise with a deep interest in the practical application of AI.

He is passionate about turning emerging technologies into real-world solutions, transforming how people work, building high-performing teams and delivering better outcomes for clients.

Caroline Deeprose is the Founder and CEO of The Angels Foundation UK, a charity dedicated to helping survivors of domestic abuse rebuild their lives through practical support and specialist trauma-informed counselling.

What began in 2020 as one woman's passionate project from her kitchen table has grown into a county-wide charity supporting families across Cambridgeshire, with a team of 37 working under her leadership.

Drawing on her own lived experience, Caroline recognised that escaping abuse is often only the beginning of recovery. Her work addresses the critical link between domestic abuse, furniture poverty and long-term emotional trauma, helping survivors rebuild their homes, confidence and independence.

Awarded the BBC Make a Difference Awards in 2025, Caroline is also training to become a BACP qualified counsellor.

Driven by determination, compassion and an unwavering belief in her cause, Caroline's ambition is to establish a national network of Angels Foundation offices, bringing vital support to survivors not just to Cambridgeshire but throughout the UK.

Her guiding philosophy remains: “You are only ever one conversation away from a solution.”

For over a decade, Rob has shaped the AI agenda as a board advisor, keynote speaker, industry commentator, and an evangelist for the responsible and ethical adoption of technology and its impact upon society.

He influences national and international dialogue on AI through his work with leaders, policymakers, trade bodies, and academia. He’s a Senior Visiting Fellow at Bayes Business School, and a founding member of the UK's All-Party Parliamentary Group on AI.

With his earlier background in talent acquisition and HR leadership, HR Magazine ranks him as an ‘HR Most Influential Thinker’.

He was awarded 'AI Champion of the Year' at the National AI Awards 2026.

Clare Runacres is a journalist and broadcaster. She is a familiar voice to millions of listeners to BBC Radio, where she reads the news on Radio 2, 6 Music and 5 Live. She also reviews theatre and films, and is somewhat obsessed with shoes.

Clare has a voice known to millions of UK radio listeners and more than 25 years of experience in journalism. She’s a writer, reviewer, voiceover artist and podcast host.

Drawing on her background in transformation and HR, her work focuses on the people impact of AI, from shorter-term workforce planning and skills needs to longer-term work design, reimagining roles and evolving reward and recognition to better reflect how people create value. Laura is particularly interested in the opportunity AI creates to make work more interesting for junior professionals, using AI to accelerate learning, build skills faster, and create richer early-career experiences.

Eleanor is a foresight and innovation specialist whose career has spanned legal policy, money laundering investigations, leadership development, innovation and future thinking.

She designed, built and led KPMG’s Future Institute in the UK, the firm’s first foresight capability, and as the owner of Foresightfully works with senior leadership teams from organisations spanning multiple countries, sectors and industries.

She is co-author of 'The Disruption Game Plan: New Rules for Connected Thinking on Innovation and Risk' and visiting expert in disruption on the King's College Business School Executive MBA. Eleanor also teaches on executive leadership programmes at Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education and Duke Corporate Education.