Sheree Atcheson | Deloitte
Listed as one of the UK's Top Most Influential Women in Tech & an international multi-award winner for her services to Diversity & Inclusion in the Tech industry, Sheree (@nirushika) is the U.K. Technology Respect & Inclusion Manager, Deloitte; Founder, I Am Lanka; Board-Appointed Global Ambassador, Women Who Code; Contributor, Forbes.
Sheree is a global tech outreach leader and as a paassionate advocate for gaining/retaining women in the tech industry, she launched & led the award-winning U.K. expansion of Women Who Code (womenwhocode.com), since 2013.
Women Who Code is the world’s largest global non-profit dedicated to helping women excel in tech careers. Sheree & her work have been featured in many publications, such as HuffPost, Marie Claire, Wired, ComputerWeekly, The Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, Newsletter & many more.
As a subject matter expert, she also delivers trainings/workshops on : allyship, privilege awareness, unconscious bias, understanding the business of diversity and inclusion, personal branding, empowering yourself to empower others.
The aim of her career is ensuring people are aware of the fantastic opportunities the tech industry has to offer & make certain that people (regardless of gender, race, social stature) are able to benefit from these & reach their full career potential.
Sharniya Ferdinand | NatWest
Sharniya has progressed quickly through NatWest during the past 7 years – growing a reputation as the face of the bank in communities across London.
With experience spanning personal, business and commercial banking this has involved her supporting businesses to grow, scale and create personal wealth. A key part of Sharniya’s success has been to host expert educational business events that encouraged customers to network and exceed their business expectations. These free to attend events quickly became famous both internally and externally to NatWest with significant media coverage.
An additional key part of the work Sharniya led during this time was to support female business owners. In 2017 Sharniya was recognised with the RBS Women’s Opal award for her contribution to Women in Business.
Following the success of her previous role Sharniya was promoted to Business Inclusion Programme Coordinator, a role that is unique to Sharniya. This position involves managing a customer led strategic programme of inclusion activities across the bank and for commercial clients.
As an individual, Sharniya is passionate about diversity and inclusion and empowering those who are underrepresented in their industries and communities. Sharniya is an Inclusion Champion and supports NatWest’s aspiration to be a truly inclusive place to work.
Sharniya has a drive for personal improvement and knowledge which has seen her achieve a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and a Masters in Events and Exhibitions Management. In her spare time, Sharniya writes an online blog - sharing her personal experiences in life - whilst being an avid traveller.
Salma Zulfiqar | SBZ Creative Media
Salma Zulfiqar is an International Artist and Activist empowering refugee and migrant women, promoting integration, working towards preventing hate crimes and extremism.
Salma has also highlighted the underreported plight of women and children all over the world with the United Nations.
In 2017, she was voted one of the most inspirational women to hail from Birmingham and her work was documented in the book Women Who Dared to Dream alongside Nobel Laureate, Malala Yousafzai.
Elizabeth Seward | Airbus
Elizabeth Seward has over 15 years of experience in the space industry and is a Senior Strategist for the Space Systems division of Airbus Defence and Space, responsible for the UK strategy across all areas of satellite manufacturing.
Previous roles include leading the Earth Observation, Navigation and Science marketing team, thermal engineering and mission systems engineering in the future programmes team, where she worked on projects such as the first study for the ExoMars rover and a mission to return a sample from an asteroid.
Elizabeth is on the executive board of Women in Aerospace Europe (WIA-E) and the chair of the WIA-E UK local group, which she helped to set-up in 2016. She is also active in the International Astronautical Federation, sitting on the Entrepreneurship and Investment committee, the Honours and Awards committee, the GEOSS committee and is a previous vice chair and continuing committee member of the Workforce Development and Young Professionals Committee.
As a STEM outreach ambassador, Elizabeth has presented to groups and schools, and has made appearances as a space expert in various media.
Elizabeth has an MPhys degree in Physics with Space Science & Technology from the University of Leicester.
Sarah Garnett | Telefonica UK Ltd
I joined O2 back in 2010 as an apprentice in our Operations function.
I’ve spent the last 9 years in a number of different roles from Internal Communications to project managing Europe’s biggest technology event, Campus Party.
I made the big leap into HR where I worked in Early Careers helping to drive our generation agenda bringing talented under 30’s into the organisation.
I am now the Inclusion Manager for the UK which means I work with our senior leaders to drive and implement our D&I strategy.
I work really closely with our three employee networks (BAME, LGBT+ and Womens Network) to ensure we are meeting/exceeding our targets.
I am really passionate about my work and I want to create an open and inclusive culture, where everyone feels empowered to come to work and be themselves.
Fabia Howard-Smith | Accenture
Fabia is a digital consulting analyst at Accenture, prior to that she graduated from UCL with a BASc in marketing and psychology.
During her time at Accenture she has helped clients navigate digital innovation and strategy, delivering marketing and transformation projects across myriad industries.
Working in technical environments often driven by functional requirements, Fabia challenges her clients to focus on the end-user’s needs. She has proactively achieved the IDEO human-centred design certification. Becoming an advocate for user research and incorporating design thinking into her work; including training clients and colleagues on the topic.
She’s passionate about Girls in STEM initiatives: organising leadership events for colleagues to engage in meaningful discussions about gender, facilitating hackathons to teach young children about STEM and leading groups of school girls at Accenture’s Girls in STEM events. She thrives on creatively solving challenging problems, helping clients identify and address pain-points through innovative solutions. An example of this was when she won the Ulster bank Hackathon in 2018 with her customer-centric idea based on retention and loyalty.
Combining her interests of human-centred design and innovation, Fabia has co-authored a paper on AI and ethics, published by the House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Committee. Also, she’s actively involved in a grassroots ethics network that publish the ‘Ethical Hotlist’- a monthly roundup of digital initiatives at the intersection of ethics and technology.
Charlie Lait | TicToc by Bloomberg
I’m a digital content creator for a global millennial audience with 6 years experience across digital roles in the public and private sector, in the U.K. and in the U.S.
I currently work in the EMEA hub of TicToc by Bloomberg, a 24/7 social media news network. I’m obsessed with how people think and what motivates them to make choices. That obsession underlies the two things that matter most to me in my career – making smart digital content that people respond to and interact with, and making that content in a team pursuing a common vision.
I’ve been singular in pursuing my career since I hit 18 – never did a semester of my university education go by when I didn’t have a media job while keeping a full-time course load. But my curiosity about people has taken me around the world, and I’m lucky to have lived abroad in Italy, New York and Chicago aged 18-24. That international experience continues to shape my worldview and ambition.
My current job is to grow the EMEA audience and create stories from EMEA that resonate with users globally, be it breaking news, a hyperlocal story with a global resonance, or anything in-between. I might be working on a program of content including video, animations, graphics, writing, and interactive mediums (Instagram stories, Twitter moments, etc). Depending on the day and the story, I’m a one-man band, producing and packaging content, or I'm working with others in London, New York and Hong Kong.
On a daily basis I manage the workload of video editors in London and early New York hours – setting up the brand’s daily news agenda for EMEA and the Americas. I deputise in approving final content for the Global Editor In Chief, as needed - but I’m not a line manager, and don’t hold a managerial title. I have grown into this responsibility by developing my relationships and responsibilities across the team.
I partner with teams across Bloomberg’s global network to turn written stories into dynamic social media packages. That could be a reporter in Ireland, a stringer in a remote Morocco town, or an external agency. As part of this collaboration, I also sometimes write for Bloomberg News traditional properties.
Previously I was digital editor for HM Treasury during the EU referendum, and at the Prime Minister’s Office during the 2017 general election. If you know the Treasury has a cat, and that cat has an Instagram (www.instagram.com/treasury_cat), that’s because of me. Within four months I managed that account directly, with a completely nonpaid social strategy that resulted in 15,000 followers within six months. I ran the digital communications strategy for the New £1 Coin campaign, winning the PRWeek Awards 2017: Public Campaign, I oversaw the work of the external agency -- delivery of the website, promotional materials and social media strategy, including setting paid media spending.
Prior to that, I worked across multiple digital roles at Yahoo EMEA editorial. I was Launch Editor of Yahoo Live, a live video events project that streamed high-profile events (The Academy Awards red carpet, NFL games, exclusive concerts) used entertainment influencers and high-profile events to engage the digital millennial audience. As editorial lead, it was my responsibility to design the digital content strategy that would deliver a large, continually engaged millennial audience.
I worked with the marketing department to highly shareable create digital assets for maximum social sharing reach, and with our production partners to ensure original content was delivered to specification from the ground. I was personally responsible for pitching and delivering the social media strategy for many of these events directly to the PR teams for the high-profile entertainment figures we worked with. My digital strategy for one of our events resulted in a global hashtag trend on twitter, which was re-trending the next day in multiple international markets.
I started my media career in news production at CNBC and Sirius XM in New York. I went on to work in online audience development and social media management for an investigative magazine transitioning to web-only, and a media non-profit looking to increase its donor base. In both of those roles, I assisted the Heads of Audience redesign the website and implemented new social media strategies to grow their 16-24 audiences.
From 2010 until 2015, I was a freelance digital video production assistant in New York and London, working for global media clients including the BBC and Endemol. I continue to informally advise small businesses today on their social media strategies, via Bloomberg Philanthropies partnerships.
I have a BA in Journalism and Religious Studies from New York University, U.S.A.
Ciara Riordan | BBC News
Ciara Riordan is the Assistant editor of BBC News's social news team.
Ciara is based in the BBC News headquarters in London and oversees some of the largest social media accounts in the world. This includes the BBC News Facebook page which has 49 million followers, the biggest breaking news Twitter accounts @BBCBreaking, @BBCNews and @BBCWorld, and the BBC News Instagram account. She manages a global social news team with BBC hubs in Washington DC, Toronto and Singapore.
Originally from Ireland, the Cork native is an award-winning producer, presenter and reporter. She has presented many BBC News Facebook lives which have had millions of views including her interview with Sir David Attenborough which went viral. She has also reported live from major breaking news stories including the Westminster and Manchester attacks.
Before her current digital role, she was a reporter with BBC World TV News and a producer on BBC Breakfast TV. Ciara’s first gig in the UK was with LBC Radio but has been with the BBC since July 2012.
Her career started in Newstalk radio in Dublin producing the Moncrieff radio programme but after four years she got an itch to go travelling and that itch brought her to ABC in Sydney, Australia.
After her year out, she returned to Ireland to work for an Irish NGO ‘Haven’ which saw her lead a volunteer team out to Haiti after the deadly earthquake in 2010. Ciara visited Haiti twice and saw the devastation that the earthquake brought to its capital Port Au Prince.
Ciara has also worked for RTE television and Radio Kerry in Ireland.
Helier Cheung | BBC News
Helier Cheung is a senior journalist and news editor with a passion for digital storytelling, championing minority voices, and involving younger audiences.
She has covered several breaking news stories abroad, including the Thai cave rescue, the Trump Kim summit in Singapore, and political protests in Hong Kong. She has a track record of finding compelling stories that make an impact online, including the story of a Norwegian murder mystery cold case that had over 1.7 million hits and inspired one of the BBC’s most popular podcasts: “Death in Ice Valley”.
Within the BBC, she has led initiatives to diversify the website and make its hard news coverage relevant to young and underserved readers. She helped set up a buddy network for trainee journalists at the BBC, mentors new journalists, and regularly attends careers talks at schools as part of the Inspiring the Future Network. She also volunteers as a school governor.
Alice Pelton | News UK / The Lowdown
Alice currently works as the Head of Strategic Programmes at News UK, where she coordinates strategic programmes central to the future growth of the organisation and supports and advises News UK's Chief Operating Officer and his Executive leadership team.
Alice started her career in marketing and business development, launching a new e-commerce pet food business www.bobandlush.com in 2011. A year later she was selected from over 500 candidates to join News UK on the Marketing & Sales graduate scheme. She has quickly risen through the ranks at News, working in a variety of digital product and programme delivery roles, in which she has built and monetised multi-million pound news and gaming products for some of the UK’s biggest media brands including The Sun, Dream Team, The Times & The Sunday Times.
Recently Alice has founded The Lowdown www.thelowdown.com - the world’s first peer to peer review platform for contraception. It enables men and women to submit and compare reviews forcontraceptives that they have tried or are using. The Lowdown platform analyses this data, and produces trends and statistics on every type, showing what the most common side effects are, and how it impacted reviewers' weight, sex drive, periods and mental health.
Alice created The Lowdown because she is passionate about empowering women with better information on contraception. She hopes the platform will help to force society take these side effects seriously, and shortcut the trial and error approach many women have to finding the right contraception for them.