Samantha Hiew | Founder | ADHD Girls
Dr Samantha Hiew is the Founder of ADHD Girls, a social impact company with a dual mission to empower girls and women with ADHD to thrive in society and improve societal understanding of neurodiversity via intersectional lens.
Sam is a storyteller with a background in communications and medical science PhD, specialising in demystifying ADHD & neurodiversity. Sam's work bridges two worlds - those with lived experiences of neurodivergence & those who don't - so we work towards integration within society.
Sam delivers neurodiversity trainings built on the foundation of lived experience research through surveys, event-based learning, and stories of other neurodivergents.
To fulfil her wider advocacy mission, Sam delivers talks around “Science of ADHD” to the public at large and “Girls and Women with ADHD” to schools, colleges and universities to catalyse a change in minds and hearts, renewing understanding of what life as a neurodivergent truly look like.
With Sam's own insights from living on the cusps of two cultures, ethnicity and class, balancing motherhood and career, working across 16 different sectors, she works to empower other female neurodivergents and champion gender equity at work.
Sasha Saville | CEO/Founder | The Executive Solutions Agency
Before I had my son I was working in communications in a fast paced role in the construction industry.
I worked in a different city each day with multiple delivery and client/stakeholder teams and at the time I loved it. However, after having my son things changed. I initially returned to work 3 days per week, but within 8 weeks of returning there was pressure for me to increase those my days and travel. As a result in March 2020 I took the decision to leave employment and set up The Executive Solutions Agency to provide outsourcing solutions for small businesses needing support in various areas of administration, delivery and marketing.
Over 3 years later we are a team of seven who about support neurodiverse business owners, enabling them to maximise their time and feel empowered to run the amazing businesses they have.
I am extremely passionate about what we do and I am often asked what drives and inspires me to work in this field?
I grew up with a loving and supportive family with my mom, dad and younger brother. School for me was great, I had a large friendship group, loved learning and breezed through my exams. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for my brother. He often struggled making and keeping friends, had lots of hobbies which he spent most of his time doing alone including Lego, war hammer, gaming and was in his own head a lot of the time. His journey through school was tough, he didn’t enjoy it, he had minimal friends for short spells of time, he struggled academically and he was bullied for most of his school years, it was awful but I’ll leave that there.
It wasn’t until he was in his final years at school, studying for his GCSE’s that it was suggested that my brother may have dyslexia which he later got a diagnosis for. I was amazed that after 12 years in education no one had even thought about this, even us his family.
After his diagnosis my brother understood himself much better, we were able to research tools and coping strategies to assist him through the remainder of his education and into the workplace. He is now a team leader and electrical maintenance engineer for an international machine manufacture, and travels alone internationally to learn and train about world leading technology and engineering, he is super clever and I’m incredibly proud of what he has achieved.
When I first launched my own virtual assistant business in 2020, a client of mine disclosed that they had ADHD. I had been working with him for almost 6 months and knew that from that point on, I could understand and support him so much better.
I knew the impact that support and understanding had made to my brother’s career so I went down the rabbit hole of researching and learning everything I needed to know about supporting neurodivergent business owners.
Every week I have conversations with people who aren’t aware that a service like ours exists and I am passionate to promote the support available and change many more lives in the future.
Susan Harvey | Owner | Nurture Gnomes
I am a wife and proud mum to two now adult sons (the youngest of whom is autistic), a children's author and art teacher.
When my children began school (all those years ago)! I supported a young, autistic child in nursery and enjoyed it so much that this started my passion of working with children with additional needs (working in Early Years for 13 years). I have worked in SEND education now for over 23 years (currently ad-hoc in a post 16 alternative provision) and I also volunteer as a parent support worker for a local Autism charity.
During Covid I began crafting gnomes to sell at Christmas, which sparked an idea of writing a children's book. So many parents/carers were worried about their children, so I wanted it to be fun and uplifting, but also gently highlight the importance of talking about your emotions. After my book was published I decided to create a workbook where children could use art as a way of expressing their emotions and also designed a fun card game. These were the first two items on my website, to which I have now added more children's social and emotional literacy resources.
I'm so pleased that they are being used by parents, schools and play therapists.
Amy Golem | Quantum Sales Executive | IBM
I have been passionate about the intersection between business and technology for almost 10 years.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Management Information and Systems, I began my career in technology consulting. Soon thereafter, I discovered a nascent technology called Quantum Computing through my personal interest in theoretical physics.
When my job role in 2017 was serendipitously expanded to include "Quantum Lead", I knew this technology and burgeoning industry was where I wanted to anchor my career long-term. In the years that followed, I worked alongside the Consulting CTO and subject matter experts to create, and ultimately execute upon, a strategy for the firm's approach to quantum. Today, I am proud to work at a leading full-stack quantum computing company that is spearheading quantum research and development with a resonant mission: "To bring useful quantum computing to the world".
Outside of quantum computing, I have held various roles ranging from technology infrastructure consulting, to executive workshopping, to leading a team focused on broad emerging technology market research and thought leadership. Across these roles, I continue to have an unwavering dedication to promoting women in STEM fields, and I am constantly inspired by the mentors and mentees I have encountered throughout my career.
Angela Tedone | Agile Coach | bp
Angela Tedone is an Agile Coach from Houston, TX.
She was selected as one of the first bp agile coaches (part of the global inaugural cohort) that started as a new profession to bp in 2020. Her journey to help bp transform is part of the largest transformations in the company’s over 100-year history.
Angela also serves as the Chief Product Officer, Board of Directors for Agile Austin. Agile Austin is a non-profit learning organization with a mission to connect people and foster professional growth through collaborative events that educate our community. Angela is an active member of the Board supporting the premiere Keep Austin Agile Conference and Special Interest Groups.
In addition, she is also a leader and longtime supporter and advocate of women through her women’s network. As a leader and advisor, Angela has provided leadership and guidance for 13 core team members for the Houston chapter (including membership of over 700 bp employees) with a purpose to advance gender equity in bp in line with Diversity Equity & Inclusion aims.
She was also specially nominated by the American Heart Association as a Houston Woman of Impact (campaign to raise critical funds and awareness to fight cardiovascular disease) candidate 2021 as part of the inaugural class.
Angela's passion is to help enable better lives for society through community support, education and empowerment. Her superpower is empathy!
Ayesha Afzal | Researcher | Erlangen National High Performance Computing Center
Ayesha Afzal is a researcher at Erlangen National High Performance Computing Center (NHR@FAU), Germany.
She is the recipient of First Place ISC PhD Forum Award 2021 that recognizes the most outstanding PhD work and is named in 100 Future Leaders Role Model List 2022 supported by Yahoo Finance. Her PhD research lies at the crossroads of analytic performance models, performance tools and parallel simulation frameworks in high-performance computing. Ayesha has authored multiple peer-reviewed publications and serves as an active speaker, reviewer, and/or committee member at various international events. She is a passionate advocate for inclusive technology and training new scientists in mentorship. She was named in 100 Future Leaders Role Model List 2022 supported by Yahoo Finance.
Blanca Vázquez de Castro | Associate | Latham & Watkins
Blanca Vázquez de Castro is an associate in Latham & Watkins’ Tax Practice, based in Madrid.
She represents large Spanish corporates and global private equity firms in strategic cross-border tax matters related to M&A, finance, and restructuring deals. She is a member of Latham’s Diversity Leadership Committee, an inaugural global leader of the Hispanic and Latin American Lawyers Group, and former local leader of the firm’s Women Lawyer’s Group, where she’s developed various initiatives to support the recruitment, retention, and promotion of individuals with a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives.
Karyna Tubolyeva | Team Lead - Conversational AI | E.ON Digital Technology GmbH
Karyna is 25 years old and was born in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Since she was 17, she moved to study in Slovakia and was active in international exchange programs. Back then she joined a market research company, where assisted with organising international educational events worldwide. After finishing her bachelor's degree, she came to Germany in 2019 to start her masters studies in International Management. While studying she joined E.ON as a working student and thank to her hard work and involvement she has has started her career as a Conversational Expert just after graduating in September 2022. Since then she has been coordinating a team of conversational designers and by September 2022 she got promoted to lead a German-based team of professionals in Conversational AI at E.ON. Now Karyna is actively contributing to development and automation of customer support channels at E.ON Group and represents the company externaly.
Meehika Barua | Freelance Journalist | Meehika Barua
Meehika Barua is a freelance journalist.
She has written for Vogue magazine, Cosmopolitan, The Guardian, British Vogue, The Washington Post, Harper's Bazaar, The Spectator, Glamour magazine, Business Insider, Elle, The Independent, Vice, Allure, Al Jazeera, Stylist, Grazia, Tatler, among other publications. She was nominated for the Asian Media Award 2022.
She also won the 2018 Journalism Now Scholar competition by Thomson Reuters.
She has written about crucial social issues, such as the rise of accent coaches for Al Jazeera.
She has also covered how toxic TV affects Asian women for The Guardian.
She has written academic longform reports for American Student publications such as CQ Researcher on Cultural Appropriation.
She constantly does panels on how to be a freelance journalist in order to mentor buddying writers.
Dr Laura David | CEO and founder Smart About Health | Smart About Health
I am an NHS GP by background, previously a surgeon, channeling all my clinical expertise and that of my now team of over 100 doctors in Smart About Health, into providing bespoke, evidence-backed, professionally-led workplace wellbeing programmes and trainings.
I am also an NHS England Clinical Entrepreneur.
I am also a mother of two young girls (now aged 8 and 5) and am bringing them up to be strong young women, knowing there are no limitations to their paths in life.
I suffered with post-natal depression after the birth of my second daughter and channeled my loss of identity, and need for discovery into creating Smart About Health - a purpose driven business enabling companies to truly support good health and wellbeing of it's staff, in a non-one size fits all approach. We focus on prevention, being proactive and understanding intersectional aspects of health, to empower people to prioritise their health and wellbeing.
I feel fortunate that we can connect clinical experts to workplaces to help everyone to be smarter about health.