Sir Kenneth Olisa OBE

Chair of Restoration Partners

Chair of the Judging Panel

He was elected as a Fellow of the British Computer Society in 2006. He has considerable public company Board-level experience on both sides of the Atlantic. He is currently a director of Thomson Reuter. He is also on the board of The Institute of Directors as a Non-Executive Director. Ken is a Freeman of the City of London; Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists; a Director of the Thomson Reuters Foundation; Chairman of Thames Reach (for which he received an OBE in 2010); Chairman of Shaw Trust, was an original member of IPSA (Independent Parliamentary Standard Authority) and Founder and Chairman of the Powerlist Foundation. In 2009, he was named the Sunday Times Not for Profit Non-Executive Director of the year.

Ken was voted number one in the Powerlist’s Top 10 most influential British black people in 2016. In 2015 Her Majesty the Queen, appointed him as her Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London. Ken was knighted for services to Business and Philanthropy in the 2018 New Year’s Honours List.

Nic Budden

Laura Battley

Company Secretary & General Counsel

Watches of Switzerland Group PLC

Laura trained and qualified as a corporate lawyer at Magic Circle law firm Slaughter and May and later spent time at Addleshaw Goddard and KPMG, where she was seconded to New Look before joining on a permanent basis.

Nick Hedley

Partner

Hedley May

Steven Cooper CBE

CEO

Aldermore Bank

Steven sits on a number of advisory boards, including being a commissioner for the social mobility commission. Steven is a NED at Robert Walters PLC and the FSCS and is an Alumni of Harvard Business Schools.

Amanda Mackenzie OBE

Chief Executive

Business in the Community

Formerly, she was a non-executive director of Mothercare Plc. and sat on the audit committee for 6 years. She was on the board of the National Youth Orchestra for 10 years and was a member of Lord Davies’ review to increase the number of women on boards. Amanda is a Life Fellow of the RSA and Fellow and former President of the Marketing Society. Prior to her current role Amanda, on loan from Aviva, helped launch the UN’s Global Goals as executive advisor to Project Everyone – a Richard Curtis co-founded campaign for the UN.

Sarah Whipp

CMO and Head of GTM Strategy

Callsign

Chris Reeve

London Region Chair

PwC

A sponsor of the Female Executive Mentoring programme which provides 1:1 Executive level mentoring to help women from public, private and third sectors to achieve their aspirations and build future Boards and leadership teams that reflect the diverse communities we live in. Chair of the London leadership Board of Business In The Community (BITC) working with 20 senior leaders in tackling some of the biggest challenges in London such as skills development, levelling up and Climate change.

David Carrigan

Group Director of Diversity,
Inclusion and Wellbeing

Sky

Previously he was the Head of Equality Strategy at Citizen’s Advice, headed Legal Affairs at the Commission for Racial Equality, and lead National Policy at the Housing Corporation/Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). David has also held advisory roles to the College of Policing and served as a Board member for a Human Rights Charity.

David was the first member of his family to complete his secondary education and worked as an apprentice Gas Engineer after leaving school. He was fortunate to be able to study at night school before attending the University of Nottingham. He is an alumni of Druids Health and is a proud Brummie. He is married with two daughters and lives in Surrey.

Sandra Wallace CBE

Partner and Joint Managing Director, UK and Europe

DLA Piper

Sandra Wallace, CBE, is a member of the Executive board and acts as joint Managing Director, UK & Europe for the global business law firm, DLA Piper, and remains an active employment law Partner handling many international employment law mandates.

Sandra served as a Social Mobility Commissioner from December 2018 to October 2021, sponsored by the Cabinet Office which monitors progress towards improving social mobility in the UK and promotes social mobility in England, also serving as interim Co-Chair. Sandra also works to drive social mobility within the legal sector and worked on the Firm’s bid to become the lead legal services employer for the Social Mobility Pledge.

Sandra is the Birmingham Chair at TheCityUK, a membership body, lobbying on behalf of the financial and related professional services industry, and was recently appointed as Co-Chair to a Government commissioned taskforce, looking at improving socio-economic diversity at senior levels within UK financial and professional services. She will be leading the industry consultation workstream, which looks at the role of Government, regulators and sector bodies in incentivizing employer action.

Sandra is a mother of three and works flexibly to balance her career and family life.

Daniel Gonzalez Fuster

Head of Institutional Investors client line, UK and Middle East

BNP Paribas Securities Services

Daniel has over 20 years experience within BNP Paribas Securities Services and the wider fund industry. His previous role was as head of asset owners client line for the Americas based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. During this time he also had responsibility for asset manager product development and solutions for Latin America.

His experience spans across operational, product and project management roles in Brazil, Spain, Luxembourg, Ireland and France.

Daniel holds a university degree in Economics from Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium and two master's degrees, one in Applied Economic Analysis from Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona and one in Corporate Social Responsibility from Universidad Alcala de Henares, Madrid.

He is fluent in Spanish, French, Portuguese and English.

Alderman Vincent Keaveny

Lord Mayor of the City of London
2021-22

Vincent is a partner in the international business law firm, DLA Piper. He advises on debt capital markets, structured finance and securitisation transactions in the UK and banks, financial institutions and corporate clients in the UK and internationally on banking, finance and capital markets transactions. He is listed as a leading practitioner in his area of practice by all of the principal legal directories and is included in the legal ‘500’ Hall of Fame for securitisation practitioners. Until May 2019 he was International Co-Chair of the Financial Services Sector at DLA Piper. In 2014/15 he served as President of the City of London Law Society.

Vincent is currently a member of the Policy & Resources Committee and the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Sub-committee. He also a Governor of the City of London School and Co-Chair of the HM Treasury & BEIS Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce.

Wendy Lyons

Director

Human Assets

Wendy has worked with a wide range of organisations in private, public and not for profit sectors. She has successfully led high profile projects in government departments and the private sector where the imperative has been to increase the diversity of applicants and recruits. She has also designed development initiatives to help people from underrepresented groups progress. She has extensive experience designing and delivering bespoke assessment and development initiatives at all levels within the organisation from graduates to Boards of Directors. Wendy co-authored ‘Holding on While Letting Go: A Director’s Guide to Contemporary Talent Management’, 2009 and she has featured in The Times, The Observer and on Sky News commenting on business issues.

Paul Monekosso Cleal OBE

As well as a career in professional services, Paul has worked in both local and central government, been a board member at both the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission and Kingston University and works with a number of London schools, all of which reflects his interest in public services and issues of inequality. He has for many years been involved in diversity and inclusion in business and was recognised for his work in that area in the most recent New Year’s Honours List.

Michael Zdanowski

Director

Ventures Consulting

He is passionate about the potential of technology to decarbonise the economy and has led international campaigns to convince complex stakeholder audiences of the benefit of that change. He is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in organisations having seen the benefits to businesses of diverse thinking.

Michael has worked for several leading international consultancies and has lived, worked and studied across Europe. He has a PhD in European history from the University of Leeds and a Masters' degree from the College of Europe in Warsaw, Poland.

David Fineberg

Deputy CEO

CMC Markets

David joined the Group in November 1997 working on the trading desk and developed the Group's multi-asset CFD and spread bet dealing desk. As a senior dealer he was responsible for managing the UK and US equity books. Between April 2007 and September 2012, he was the Group's Western Head of Trading, covering all asset classes for the western region.

In September 2012, David was appointed to the role of Group Head of Trading and in January 2014 was appointed as the Group Director of Trading with overall responsibility for the trading and pricing strategies across the Group. In June 2017, his role further expanded when he became Group Commercial Director and then in April 2019, he was promoted to the position of Deputy Chief Executive Officer.

Laurence Meehan

Corporate Relations Director

Diageo

Prior to that Laurence was Head of Communications for the Local Government Association, a trade body for English councils, where he led the public affairs, digital and campaign teams. Laurence has also held positions at the Royal College of Nursing, in Westminster think tanks on race relations, and arms control, the homeless charity St Mungo’s, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Gun Crime, and for the Labour MP Diane Abbott.

Sarah David

Founder & Managing Director

Thrive Consulting Collaborative

Sarah was CEO of Firefly Autism and sat on the board of The Children’s Society. Today, she is Chair of national education charity Voice 21; Ambassador of Queen Bee Coaching, accelerating the impact of women in leadership in Greater Manchester; and a long-time volunteer with Making the Leap. Sarah is an adoptive parent, becoming an only parent when she was widowed suddenly. Perhaps as a result of all of this, Sarah is an activist for equality and social mobility.

Geoffrey Williams

Vice President / Global Head Diversity Equity & Inclusion

Burberry

Geoffrey has had a diverse career journey starting his working life in the entertainment industry then moving into health care, rail and media for the last 20 years. He has worked in Human Resources for the last 10 years of his career and has experience in Recruitment, Talent Management, learning and development, Orgnatsaional Design and Diversity and Inclusion.

He was the fromer Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Thomson Reuters , where he worked on strategy, culture and implimentation of a D&I agenda and globally launched Thomson Reuters Diversity and Inclusion index, was award EY’s National Equality Standard. As well as create programs that supported diverse communites within the Thomson Reuters business. He has been featured in the Financial Times Top 100 ethnic minority role models and DIMA 50 male advocates for equality in marketing and media for 2018.

Geoffrey is also the co-founder of RockingUrTeens.com a social enterprise that introduces young people to the real world of work & aims to connect the teens to a positive and vibrant futures. As well as sitting on the board of film production company oneumbrellaproductions.com.

Geoffrey is committed to working to change the world of work so all people feel connected and business have high performing teams that trust and listen to each other.

Catherine Hearn

Director of Talent Acquisition, International Consumer

Amazon

Karen Blackett OBE

UK Country Manager, UK CEO

WPP, GroupM

As WPP U.K. Country Manager, Karen is responsible for driving growth in WPP’s second largest market of 10,000 people, through connecting operating companies to work together as integrated teams, ensuring product innovation and services development, developing, and delivering the WPP Campus strategy, developing our WPP data and technology platform to deliver client competitive advantage and growth.

Having taken on the GroupM U.K. CEO role in April 2020, Karen managed the business at a critical time during the COVID global pandemic and the subsequent impact of the killing of George Floyd. Through careful mitigating and permanent actions that put people first whilst helping clients to navigate the pandemic.

In June 2014, Karen received an OBE in the Queen's Birthday honours and topped the Power List, being the first woman to come in at number 1. In November 2018 Karen won the Inspirational Leader category at the Ethnicity Awards and was appointed Race Equality Business Champion by the U.K. Prime Minister. In 2019 Karen was appointed a Non-Executive Director of the U.K. Cabinet Office, and in June 2022 Karen will commence her Non-Executive Director position for Diageo.

James Lambert

Director of Resourcing

Capita

Prior to Capita he has gained significant experience across all types of recruitment from early careers to executive hiring and has worked in both high volume and niche skill set environments across multiple geographies. James joined Capita from Vertiv, but has previously worked for Recruitment Outsource Partners managing recruitment for their clients, such as Sky and Vodafone, so has not only extensive resourcing experience but also wide sector exposure. In a short break away from the recruitment arena James worked in a small HR Consultancy business, where his focus was on selling, developing and delivering leadership development, career coaching and employee engagement training, so it’s not surprising he places emphasis on building a great team culture and working with people who are highly motivated to be successful – but want to have some fun doing at work too.

James loves the great outdoors and this is an important part of supporting his mental health wellbeing. Apparently this could be anything from a stroll in the woods, an open water swim or attempting to run crazy distances, with his last challenge being a ”short jog” around the Isle of Wight non-stop!

Melanie Di Cristino

Head of Recruitment & Employer Brand

Lidl

Melanie is a trained classical musician and a graduate of the University of Oxford. She has a passion for languages, culture and travelling.