Maria Tadeo | Bloomberg
Maria Tadeo has consistently demonstrated outstanding news-judgement and journalistic instincts that have generated impactful scoops that have resonated with Bloomberg Television's audience of finance professionals and decision makers.
Through her work on the field and in the studio, she has demonstrated a passion and commitment for journalism and business news that makes her rising voice in the City.
Working out of London, Brussels and Madrid, Maria was the first journalist to get an interview in English from French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire after the detention of Carlos Ghosn and broke the news that former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy would be ousted from office.
Combining European politics, data and economics she has also landed interviews with top ranking European officials and European CEOs including Lufthansa and Societe Generale. Maria has participated in Bloomberg Charity events and a mentoring program organized by Bloomberg with students in the final year of their school education before university.
Maria got a master’s degree in financial journalism from City University to learn more about the subject and financial reporting and gets involved in various stages of TV - she not only reports but books guests, produces her own hits and comes up with story ideas.
Aimée Treasure | VHR
As the Marketing Manager for VHR, an international technical recruitment consultancy, my job involves managing the marketing team of 7.
My role includes creating and implementing the annual marketing strategy, delivering end-to-end client marketing campaigns, PR and communications, reporting on marketing success and ROI, driving VHR’s brand, generating leads and new business, and managing all marketing activities.
I began my marketing background in a volunteer role for a social enterprise that helps disadvantaged young people in East London to find work and build their own careers. I relaunched the website, managed social media and all email communications, and wrote and managed grant applications, securing over £110K, and eventually won my own funding to work full-time.
After moving into the recruitment industry and becoming a Marketing Manager aged 24, I studied my second degree – CIM Level 6 Diploma in Professional Marketing – achieving Grade Distinction, whilst working full time.
Since then I have completed a mini MBA, gained experience working for a diversity-focused recruitment firm and become the manager of an ever-growing team. Our highlights for the past year include rebranding and relaunching our website on a £5K budget, increasing client leads by 500% and winning the Creative Marketing Award in the Online Recruitment Awards.
Emma Dean | Hanover Communications
Emma provides strategic political and public affairs advice to Hanover’s technology, media and telecomms clients including Microsoft, Three and StubHub.
She also leads on Hanover’s cyber security offering, helping companies navigate the strategic and reputational challenges that a cyber attack can bring.
Previously Emma was Director of the privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, where she led the NGO’s campaigns. She regularly appeared in the media, including on Sky News, BBC News, BBC Newsnight and Radio 4 Today. In 2014 Emma also co-founded TechCentral, the dedicated technology and digital hub at the political party conferences.
Emma was named one of PR Weeks 30 under 30 in 2015.
Emma has an MSc in Public Services Policy and Management from King’s College London. Her dissertation explored the collaboration between the public and private sectors in tackling cyber crime.
Emma Molloy | Moonpig
Emma is the Trade Planning Manager at Moonpig, responsible for the execution of marketing and promotional plans as well as identifying new product opportunities.
Working across the e-commerce and commercial teams, she consistently delivers results in order to drive Moonpig’s mission of unleashing the caring instinct.
Before joining Moonpig, Emma served as the Commercial Manager for noted travel brand Secret Escapes. Overseeing the product pipeline for Wales and the South East and West of the UK, Emma’s daily activities included forecasting product potential, monitoring sales performance and sourcing and negotiating products and prices.
Always looking to grow her many talents, Emma spends her free time writing, traveling and practicing yoga. She plans to start piano lessons in the Summer and will study to become a yoga teacher this Autumn.
She received her BA from the University for the Creative Arts.
Serena Chana | 23 Code Street
Since graduating in Education and Psychology I’ve built a career in marketing and communications across different industries, mainly with a focus on working with companies and start-ups that are driving social change.
I started my career at an international NGO and assisted on several fundraising campaigns including a Syrian refugee appeal which was nominated for a JustGiving award. Here, I learnt the art of storytelling and why it’s so important to always work with a passionate team. After being immersed in the world of International Development, I decided to work abroad and actually work on an international project myself. I spent three months working in Bangladesh working alongside local people and created campaigns and programmes that promoted women’s rights’ and preventing child marriage.
Following on from this I entered the London startup scene with Digital Mums, a social media training company enabling mums to work flexibly. I played a pivotal role in the national #CleanupFword campaign which snowballed from a petition to our campaign posters arguing for better flexible being displayed across billboards and shopping centres across the UK. I now currently work for 23 Code Street, a women’s coding school - under my leadership the brand has grown significantly and we successfully launched our pilot webinar course, enabling more women to learn to code.
Outside of work, I’m a mentor on the Digital Pipeline scheme and have supported a WOC for the past 6 months to secure a tech job and I’m the STEM editor for the Lucy Writer’s Platform and commission/ edit stories to inspire more women to work in STEM. Working with a group of women, I have also helped start a monthly Punjabi female forum; it’s a safe and confidential online and offline space for women to talk about their wellbeing.
Esther Harris | Bookollective
Esther Harris has twenty years experience as a marketing professional, journalist and book publicist.
Esther has an instinctive understanding of what makes a book and author newsworthy and she regularly achieves writers meaningful editorial coverage across print, online and radio, in places such as The Mirror, The Guardian, The Independent, The FT, The Daily Mail, Huffington Post, BBC Radio 2, The Jeremy Vine Show and more.
Esther is an experienced editor and loves getting her teeth into a manuscript, helping authors shine and tell the story they always wanted to tell in a way that fits best with dual market needs. You have to sell a book twice over - the first time to editors in the industry and then all over again to the reader. As a fiction writer herself, she understands how hard it can sometimes be to get the story in your head on to the page - without losing the magic! In her spare time, Esther writes short stories and mentors new writers. She has a Masters degree in Creative and Critical Writing and now mentors female writers as part of the WoMentoring Scheme, run by best-selling author Kerry Hudson. Esther has been obsessed with books since the age of two, when she used to chill with her Ladybird library.
Leigh Rimmer | LendInvest
Leigh started her Public Relations career at Vauxhall Motors, before making the move into the tech industry; working for start-ups including including personalisation software provider Qubit.
Leigh joined property finance FinTech LendInvest in 2017, currently heading up the business's Public Relations efforts as PR Manager, and sits on the company’s CSR Committee.
Christina Warner | 1 MCB Chambers
I am a barrister at 1MCB Chambers. Originally qualifying as a solicitor-advocate, I cross-qualified as I believed my skills would be better utilised at the bar.
I am a LGBTQ/I+, women’s and human rights activist. I have contributed to campaigns and conferences raising awareness of social mobility and access to justice for those of marginalised communities, in particular those of the LGBT and Spanish-speaking communities in the UK.
I often represent individuals who form part of alternative family structures, promoting their rights and those of their children as well as better visibility of the community before the family courts. Providing voluntary support and training for charities who are all too often underfunded, I aim to raise awareness of social mobility and access to justice.
I have contributed to numerous leading legal publications, including Criminal Law & Justice Weekly, Criminal Bar Quarterly and Counsel, raising awareness of the impact of violence and abuse on children and families on both a national and international scale.
After a sabbatical at the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, where I contributed to the draft guidance on policies involving children and also formed part of a team of prosecutors bringing cases against individuals involved in the recruitment of child soldiers and girls involved in sexual slavery; I was appointed associate counsel in January 2018 with a particular interest in representing the victims of gender-based violence.
I was the only individual to have been a finalist shortlisted in two categories (Lawyer of the Year and Diversity Champion) at 2018’s UK Legal Diversity Awards, I was also credited by Amnesty International during their ‘Suffragette Spirit’ Campaign in March 2018, where I was listed on their Suffragette Map of Britain of modern-day, leading female human rights campaigners.
I was appointed a magistrate in 2008, one of the youngest magistrates at the time.
Lisette Dupre | Dawson Cornwell
Ranked as a "Recommended Lawyer " by The Legal 500 2017, Lisette trained as a barrister in 2005 and cross qualified as a solicitor in 2008, before joining Dawson Cornwell in 2010. She was promoted to Senior Associate in 2017.
Lisette advises on all areas of private family law from cohabitation and pre nuptial agreements through to divorce, financial disputes on separation, contact with children and enforcement. She also has experience securing financial remedies following a foreign divorce and maintenance for "abandoned spouses". She regularly advises on cases involving complex jurisdictional issues. Her private international law expertise covers the EU Maintenance Regulation 4/2009, 2007 Child Maintenance Hague Convention, Brussels I and Brussels IIR. She advises the team at Dawson Cornwell and her clients on issues concerning enforcement and variation of maintenance under the Regulation and Convention.
Lisette holds a Masters’ degree in law with the University of Bristol, her dissertation for which, completed in 2014, was on the EU Maintenance Regulation 4/2009. She is the Founder and Chair of the EU Law Working Group and member of a Brexit and Family Law Working Group.
Lisette is a member of Resolution, the Family Law Bar Association, the Franco British Lawyers Society, AIJA and the Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA).
She is committed to her pro bono activities which include volunteering for the Rights of Women advice line, helping vulnerable women obtain advice they need and could not otherwise afford or obtain elsewhere. She sat on the Young Resolution Committee for 3 years until October 2018 and was a co-opted member of the Law Society Family Law Committee due to her international private law expertise, becoming a full member in September 2018.
Through her membership of various working groups to include her own she has helped raise awareness in the House of Lords during the debates on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill of the serious implications of Brexit on family law.
She is a regular author and speaker on family law.
Lisette is passionate about water sports in particular sailing. She has competed in two Fastnets and a JOG race to Cascais. She regularly competes throughout the year in various classes around the Solent.
Whitney Joseph | Mayer Brown International LLP
I am an Associate in the market leading Banking and Finance team at the London office of the global law firm Mayer Brown International LLP, where I advise on complex financial transactions.
As a black, state school educated female, living with the complications of sickle cell disease my career journey was more challenging than most, but has been incredibly rewarding. As a Social Mobility Ambassador for the Law Society of England and Wales, I have helped to raise the profile of social mobility, diversity and inclusion within the legal profession by demonstrating how the profession can better support candidates from less traditional backgrounds.
In 2017 I set up The City Prescription, which provides advice and guidance on matters relating to education and employment to young people living with long-term health conditions, particularly Sickle Cell Disorder. Through this, I raise awareness of the condition and helps to provide support and mentoring to young people on how to better understand their academic and professional options and pursue a range of careers.
In my spare time I act as a mentor for the Royal London Hospital, the Sickle Cell Society, the Law Society’s Diversity Access Scheme and in an individual capacity to support students and young people. I speak at events to share my own experiences and best practice in relation to social mobility, diversity and inclusion and help to highlight the challenges faced by minority groups. I help to raise awareness and understanding of what firms and businesses can do to support students and also encourage young people to consider how they can help themselves to overcome some of the challenges.