Dr Pearl Jarrett | CEO | Veranda Connect Ltd
Dr Pearl Jarrett is a multi-award winning Disruptive Changemaker who is devoted to impacting the world.
Consequently, as the Founder and CEO of The Jarrett Foundation and Veranda Connect Ltd, she is at the forefront of philanthropy and sustainable innovation. Pearl is also a “serial reinventor” of herself so her career has not been a straight path in tech. She is multi-talented, consequently she is an entrepreneur, doctor, actor, singer, public speaker for conferences and podcasts, musical theatre producer, playwright, and mentor as “Aunty Pearl” to numerous young people around the world. Her biggest achievement however, is that she is a wife and mother of 3 phenomenal kids and has been married for 33 years to her best friend and hero, Dr Errord Jarrett.
Georgina Robinson | Director - Estate Agency | G.R. Estates
After previously working at one of the regions larger firms in 2019 I took the plunge to open my own estate agency, initially as a one-woman band focusing on house sales.
Shortly after launching in Dec 2019 the nation was faced with the Coronavirus outbreak forcing the housing market to close. Not only did I emerge from the pandemic, but I feel I came back stronger than many of my local competitors. In August 2020 I employed my first staff member, a month later launched my lettings department, employing my second staff member. During 2021 I employed a further three staff members and moved my team into our first office space. By the end of 2022 I had a competitive sales department and a rapidly growing lettings department and a team of eight behind me. So far in 2023 I have employed another team member and will receive the keys to my second office on April 1st 2023.
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.
Laura Jardine Paterson | CEO & Founder | CONCAT Tech LTD
Laura is on a mission to code a more inclusive tech sector, one that encourages more refugees and women to join the sector to find long-term, sustainable employment.
An experienced Communications and Partnerships expert and having worked at WPP in the UK, in 2020, Laura founded CONCAT - the first web development agency to be led by marginalised communities. CONCAT works with international corporates and SME's looking for high quality yet affordable websites, and connects them to the talented CONCAT team from the Middle East who need employment.
Parm Plummer | Assistant Headteacher | Victoria College Jersey
A teacher for over 25 years, I have worked in London, Devon and the Channel Islands in a range of roles.
At present, I am an Assistant Headteacher at Victoria College Jersey, where I lead on staffing and wellbeing. I established WomenEd Jersey in April 2019, and became a Global Strategic Leader for WomenEd in 2020. I am now a trustee of the charity and support networks in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Guernsey and Wales. I believe passionately in a more equitable society and have worked with the Government of Jersey on DEI matters. I recently completed my Masters and am in the final stages of my NPQH.
Samantha Haigh | Software Engineering Coach | Multiverse
Growing up in a working-class family in one of the least educated areas of the country, the odds were stacked against me.
Despite this, I had the drive to succeed and was always intrigued by the tech industry. Pursuing this passion, I studied Software Engineering at university and started my career as a software developer for a small company, churning out code, fixing bugs and wondering how I could use my programming powers for good. The transition to my integration developer position at the Sheffield College provided me with the job satisfaction I craved. In this role, I continued to write code, but now it was to support the learning of young people. My start at Sheffield College was quickly followed by the pandemic which gave me the opportunity to modernise the way our courses were delivered, implementing online learning tools that enabled teaching staff to create interactive and effective online classes. I thoroughly enjoyed this role, and it was difficult to leave when the position of Software Engineering coach at Multiverse opened up. Nonetheless, joining Multiverse gave me the chance to utilise my software engineering expertise to support more people than I ever imagined. As a Software Engineering Coach, I help apprentices build their technical knowledge while navigating the complexities of the working world. I support them through their ups and downs, and it fills me with pride to watch them begin their careers as fully-fledged software engineers.
Emily Davies | Head of Student Entrepreneurship | University of Exeter
I grew up in Hertfordshire and studied for my degree in Nottingham with a year abroad in the USA.
I've had a varied career through which I have had opportunity to live and work in many different parts of the country.
My career began with a traineeship in a local Arts Centre and I continued to work in Arts marketing for a theatre and then a music festival. I then moved to London to re-launch a restaurant in the heart of the City - in the crypt of St Mary le Bow church. I managed Front of House and within our first month of opening, we received a brilliant review from Jay Rayner in The Guardian. In 2011, I moved into Higher Education - working for an International Education Provider - leading a successful Internship Placement programme for 800+ American undergraduate students per year studying abroad in London. In 2017, I moved to Devon and began work at the University of Exeter, starting with 9 month maternity cover position as Global Employability Consultant. Subsequently, I secured a permanent post as Student Startup Manager. I have since been promoted to Head of Student Entrepreneurship where I deliver impactful entrepreneurship & venture creation programmes and am supporting delivery of an ambitious strategy to embed entrepreneurship throughout the institution. The threads throughout my professional career are the desire to take on new challenges, to make a positive difference, to unlock the potential of others and to create and nurture connections between people.
Dr Emma Yhnell | Senior Lecturer (Teaching Focused) | Cardiff University
Dr Emma Yhnell is a passionate and multi award-winning educator, science communicator and senior lecturer in (neuro)science based at Cardiff University.
Emma uses her international expertise in science communication to deliver engaging and interactive teaching with passion and infectious enthusiasm, she consistently receives phenomenal student feedback. Alongside significant teaching and management responsibilities, Emma provides vital pastoral support to learners as a personal tutor and mental health first aider.
Emma’s ethos is grounded in equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), driven by personal experiences, she wants to ensure that all learners can excel during their time at University. Emma is an advocate for supporting, mentoring, and championing others, in recognition of this she was made Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) in 2022. She is EDI representative to the British Neuroscience Association, a national organisation of ~2,600 neuroscientists. She sits on the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies Communication Committee, an international organisation of ~21,000 from 44 member societies and she co-chairs the ALBA External Events Working Group, a global neuroscience diversity network.
Emma is a well-respected academic who has built a strong reputation for her ability to untangle the academically technical and translate it into entertaining and relevant content. In recognition of this, in 2022 she was elected Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (FLSW), the youngest ever Fellow. Emma is a regular media commentator and as a first generation academic, she is changing the typical image of academia, to make (neuro)science more accessible, engaging and fun for everyone.
Dr Harveen Chugh | Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship | Warwick Business School
Harveen is dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs through teaching and practice.
She is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Warwick Business School and Course Director for the Distance Learning MBA London programme. She co-leads two of the largest modules at Warwick Business School, which are Entrepreneurial Mindset (taught to 705 undergraduate students) and Business in Practice (taught to 680 postgraduate students). She is also a Mentor on the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Leaders in Innovation Fellows programme.
She founded and managed VIS-3, which provided entrepreneurship programme design and coaching services to universities. She worked on the UK government's graduate entrepreneurs programme with PA Consulting Group, where she managed a portfolio of 25 startups to raise £4.97mn in equity investment.
Harveen has previously held academic roles at Imperial College Business School, Royal Holloway University of London and LSE. She gained her PhD in Entrepreneurship from Imperial College London, holds an MSc in Bioinformatics from Birkbeck College London and BSc in Biology with Business Studies from Queen Mary, University of London.
Katharine Childs | Research Assistant | Raspberry Pi Foundation
I am a Research Assistant at the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre, and my current focus is working on projects to broaden participation in computing.
As a former network manager and primary classroom teacher, I bring dual perspectives of technological knowledge and learning science to all my work, and am committed to exploring ways to engage a diverse range of students in computing.
My recent work includes being part of the project team that delivered a 4-year research programme called Gender Balance in Compuitng, which trialled a range of interventions to increase the uptake of Computer Science at GCSE and A-level amongst female pupils. This was the largest research programme of its kind in England, and I was responsible for recruiting over 500 primary and 250 secondary schools to take part in research trials. I also played a key role in presenting findings from the trials to a wide audience by writing summaries and blog posts so that teachers can apply the research in their classrooms. I am a contributing author to academic papers that have been written about the trials.
I also believe in working with others to strengthen the message that girls belong in computing and seek out opportunities to collaborate with others in order to bring this important conversation to as wide a network as possible. An example of this is my 2015 TEDx talk “Coding the Hairy Toe” which argued for the importance of coding as an essential skill in this digital age.