Vivienne Artz | Refinitiv
Vivienne is the Chief Privacy Officer of Refinitiv (formed from the Financial and Risk business of Thomson Reuters) since November 2017, based in London, leading the global Privacy Team and overseeing global privacy strategy and practice.
Previously, Vivienne was a Managing Director and Global Head of Privacy Legal and Head of International for the Intellectual Property and Technology Law Group at Citi in the General Counsel’s Office in London. Prior to joining Citi in 2000, Vivienne worked in private practice in London.
Vivienne chairs the International Regulatory Strategy Group Data Working Group and is on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), having previously served on IAPP European Advisory Board and been co-chair of the IAPP Knowledge Net for the UK. Until recently, Vivienne was the chair of the AFME Data Protection Working Group, and participated in the UK Finance Data Protection Working Group. Vivienne is also on the School of Business, Law and Society Advisory Board of St Mary’s University in the UK.
Vivienne is the current President of Women in Banking and Finance, having been awarded the “Champion for Women” Award at the Women in Banking and Finance Awards for Achievement 2016. Vivienne has many years of experience leading a broad range of diversity initiatives and groups both within firms and across sectors.
Vivienne has two teenage children and enjoys running, horseriding and cycling.
Sarah Atkinson | techUK
An experienced leader and former news journalist, Sarah Atkinson has over 20 years of experience in multinational organisations including Cisco, 3Com and most recently spent ten years as Vice President, Communications & Social Responsibility, EMEA at CA Technologies.
A member of the company’s leadership team, she also led the company’s Diversity & Inclusion strategy in EMEA - moving the gender balance from 32% women - 68% men to 36% women to 64% men in a typically white male dominated environment.
From 2015 to 2018, she served on the main board of techUK, a non-profit representing the companies and technologies that are defining today, the world that we will live in tomorrow.
Today, she is the Chair of the Diversity & Skills Council at techUK and is actively involved in several Diversity & Inclusion programs including Gender Pay Gap reporting, Returners Programs and is a founding supporter of the WISE Campaign's People Like Me. In 2018, she also worked with Girlguiding to incorporate STEM into their badges and attended 2018 Camp CEO as a role model for Girl Guides.
She was listed in Cranfield University’s School of Management 100 Women to Watch report - a supplement to the Female FTSE Board Report 2018 and in the Computer Weekly 100 Most Influential Women in Technology in 2017 & 2018.
A regular commentator on STEM, equality and inclusion topics, she has appeared on BBC News, BBC World and in various publications.
Foluke Akinlose MBE | PRECIOUS
Foluke Akinlose MBE is founder of PRECIOUS, the leading online network and resource for women of colour in business and leadership (www.preciousonline.co.uk)
Foluke is a trained journalist and editor with a strong background in digital and traditional media. Her career has taken in roles as Internet Europe Editor at Moreover.com; a Reuters backed technology start-up which provided business intelligence and news aggregation products for enterprises and consumers. She also served as editor of ATE Online, the world's leading provider of business information and services to the international gaming, coin-operated and electronic amusements and leisure industries. She has also undertaken editorial roles at the Natural History Museum, Sport England and David Lloyd Leisure Group.
She launched PRECIOUS in 1999 when working in the New Media Department at ITN. It was the first digital publication aimed at women of colour to launch in the UK, pre-broadband and wireless and was hailed as a pioneering initiative.
Foluke has a genuine passion for showcasing the achievements of women of colour, which in 2007 led her to launch The Precious Awards (www.preciousawards.com) a unique annual awards event that celebrates women of colour in business and leadership. Endorsed as ‘vital’ by former PM David Cameron, and an incredible opportunity by PM Teresa May, the awards celebrate the achievements of women of colour in business and entrepreneurship, across a range of industries.
In 2010, Foluke launched the PRECIOUS Girls project which works with schools to encourage, inspire, support and promote the next generation of women of colour by increasing entrepreneurial attitudes and provide access to positive female role models. Foluke is also publisher of The PRECIOUS Book of Quotes, a book featuring quotes and advice from 50 inspirational women.
In 2018, Foluke launched The PRECIOUS Lifestyle Awards, a platform that highlights the achievements of women of colour in the Creative Industries. The event hosted at Google put the spotlight on women creating products and services in digital, hair, beauty, publishing and tech.
In 2008 Foluke was named in the top 100 in Courvoisier's “The Future 500” a list of the country's top achievers across ten wide-ranging categories. She was honoured with an MBE in the 2010 New Year's Honours List for services to the Creative Industries. In 2011 she was listed on One World Actions List of One Hundred (Unseen) Powerful Women who change the World and in 2012 Foluke was awarded a Media Pioneer Award at the Specialist Media Show awards.
Deborah Gilshan | The 100% Club
Deborah Gilshan has over 18 years of experience in investment stewardship.
Her areas of specialism include corporate governance, executive pay, diversity, corporate culture, sustainability and market policy work to protect the rights of shareholders. Ms. Gilshan is a regular commentator and public advocate on investment stewardship and her work has featured in the Financial Times, the New York Times and other mainstream financial media.
Ms. Gilshan is currently an Investment Director in the ESG (environmental, social and governance) team at Aberdeen Standard Investments, the global asset manager, having joined Standard Life Investments in May 2017 prior to its merger. Previously, she was Head of Sustainable Ownership at RPMI Railpen, the pension fund for the UK railway industry, and she started her governance career in December 2000 at the UK's Co-operative Insurance Society. She read Mathematics and English at the University of Manchester and previously worked in corporate tax at Ernst & Young.
Ms. Gilshan is a Fellow of ICSA: The Governance Institute and holds the CFA's Investment Management Certificate. She co-chairs the Investor Group of the 30% Club, the global market initiative to promote diversity in companies. Ms Gilshan chairs the Ethics & Systemic Risk Committee of the International Corporate Governance Network. She was a member of the Steering Group of the UK Financial Reporting Council's project on corporate culture and now serves on the FRC's Stakeholder Advisory Committee.
In October 2011, Ms. Gilshan founded The 100% Club, a multi-sector alliance for professional women that seeks to promote the importance of networking for career advancement and personal development. The 100% Club is based on a philosophy that values the distinctiveness women bring to the workplace and how that distinctiveness drives sustainable corporate cultures that respect diversity in all its forms.
Sarah Beardsley | Science and Technology Facilities Council, UKRI
Dr Sarah Beardsley is the Head of Space Engineering and Technology in the RAL Space Department of STFC, part of the UK Research and Innovation organisation.
She heads up a team of 60 engineers and technical project managers who design, build and test scientific instrumentation to go into space, furthering the understanding of our Earth and our place in the universe.
Sarah began her career as a planetary scientist, holding fellowships through Research Councils and the Royal Society. She has represented her scientific community on several national and international committees and working groups, elected by her peers to work with the Royal Astronomical Society and European Space Agency in particular.
More recently she has developed her career as a senior project manager and leader of groups of engineers, culminating in her current role as Division Head. She has overseen the recruitment of almost 70 people in the last 5 years and developed a collaborative style of leadership, demonstrating empathy and a culture of inclusion within her Division that is well respected. She leads by example – for example Sarah was one of the first in her organisation to share her maternity leave with her husband – long before it became a statutory right; she continues to work flexibly to accommodate caring duties, and is highly supportive of requests to work part-time and flexibly by members of her team. She is a member of the Graduate Training Panel within her organisation and is passionate about development of talent that secures the future of science and engineering in the UK. She regularly gives inspiring talks to encourage the younger generation, both female and male, into STEM fields.
The key highlight that Sarah draws out of her career is that against a national average of around 12-13% of females making up the workforce in the engineering and technical management domain, she currently has a massive 40% of females making up her staff, something of which she is very proud.
Carmel McKinney OBE | Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service
I started my career as a teacher moving through the professional pathways to become a school principal in an area of high deprivation with multiple barriers to learning including underachievement in literacy and numeracy.
Under my leadership the school moved from the lowest percentile ranking in literacy and numeracy to the highest percentile ranking for schools serving similar intake.
I became an Associate Inspector of schools and then changed lanes moving in to higher and further education as a teacher head of department and specialist tutor in dyslexia for which I and my team won the Pearson Teaching Award in 2013.
I became a non executive chairperson of an education and library board with an annual budget of over 200 million and a staff of 5000 and followed this up by another non executive position of a further education college.
In 2015 I realised that the skills and abilities as well as my achievements throughout my career were indeed transferable into an arena which is predominately male - namely a fire and rescue service.
The Minister, through a public appointment process appointed me as the first female chairperson of the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service which I feel is an example of breaking a glass ceiling. I am the sole female in the Boardroom and within the top two substantive tiers of the organisation.
Under my leadership I have brought about a number of hugely successful initiatives to promote and empower females to step forward for leadership positions both internal and external to the organisation.
In an organisation of over 2000 employees and around 12% female this has been a priority for myself and my colleagues who support me to drive through the the work in diversity and gender, The impact is evidenced adnd recognised through a number of highly prestigious awards including myself winning the Institute of Directors Non Executive Director of the Year 2018 and NIFRS winning the Guardian Public Services Diversity and Inclusion Award in 2018
Wai Foong Ng | Matchable
I was born in London and spent my formative years in French schools in London and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
After graduating from Cambridge in 2005 with a double degree in Law with French Law I joined PricewaterhouseCoopers as a graduate where I spent 13 years specialising in tax structuring for real estate and private equity funds. In my most recent role, I spent 8 months as Implementation Lead on the roll-out of Salesforce across PwC's tax practice, helping to influence over 4,000 people to adopt this digital change.
In 2014, I started a blog, Suit & Pie (http://suitandpie.co.uk), documenting my professional journey and interviewing inspiring leaders and entrepreneurs. The blog accumulated over 20,000 reads in its first year and landed me a gig as a Judge at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards (with WATC founder, Vanessa Vallely!).
As my network grew, I was drawn towards startups and the drive and tenacity of their founders. In 2016, I co-founded Suits & Startups (http://suitsandstartups.com), a website and community bringing together City professionals and entrepreneurs to share their stories, exchange ideas and innovate outside of their normal networks.
Most recently I have left PwC to become the founder of Matchable (http://wearematchable.com), a platform that matches corporates and their talent with non-profits to work on skilled volunteering projects that will help effect radical change in the social sector. I believe that in the future doing good will be embedded in every company’s DNA and am hoping to help make this happen through Matchable!
Arya Taware | FutureBricks
The idea of FutureBricks came to me when I was working for a small housebuilder in London Bridge back in 2013.
Our job was to look for sites and appraise them. We would find a number of good quality sites but the developer was unable to get financing from the banks at the time.
This was largely due to the 2008 financial crisis which has had a ripple effect and impacted housing in the UK in various ways. For example, mainstream banks are refusing to lend to SME housing projects below £5 million.
At the same time, I was fed up with my money sitting in the bank and not earning any interest. So I decided to solve the gap from both sides of the market: If small and medium-sized housebuilders could somehow get access to finance and if people like you and me could simultaneously invest in these fully vetted secured projects from as low as £500, then it’s a win-win solution from both sides and that’s how FutureBricks was born.
Holly Rafique | #techmums
Holly is on a mission to save the world through technology, believing that an understanding of technology is critical to living in the increasingly digital and integrated world.
For children today, digital literacy is as fundamental a skill as reading and writing.
After over a decade as an IT Consultant and developer in Financial Services, Holly took some time out to focus on building Lego and cardboard swords with her two boys, rather than building software systems. Now Holly has rediscovered a life-long curiosity for how things work and is reapplying her skills to new technology challenges and helping others to educate themselves in all things digital.
Holly is currently Head of Digital and Content at #techmums, a non-profit that seeks to empower women, their families and communities through technology. In her role she has overhauled and recreated the #techmums digital skills course to teach Mums, who start with limited tech experience, a range of topics including Blogging, App Design, Web Design, Python Coding and educates them in keeping themselves and their families safe online. Holly has created the physical content, build an online portal to support and enhance learning and created educational videos for an accompanying online course.
Holly has re-trained extensively in diverse areas, including analytics, genetics, bioinformatics and artificial intelligence, to ensure that she is able to normalise prominent technologies and bring them into everyday conversation. Holly is focused on taking every opportunity to demystify technology and remove stigma and stereotypes around technology. In her spare time she works with her children to create videos to encourage children to explore technology and robotics.
Holly is also pushing the agenda on ethical computing - she contributed to a manifesto, by the Women Leading in AI group, recommending regulation and evaluation of algorithms that utilize artificial intelligence solution. This manifesto, containing 10 regulatory recommendations, was put forward to MPs at the House of Commons in February 2018. Holly is passionate that ethical computing should be a core teaching requirement for all computer science courses.
Holly is keen to reframe the question from “How can we get more women into tech?” to “How can we bring more technology into women’s lives?”; encouraging women to consider how digital solutions can enhance the areas they are already passionate about.
Leah Robson | Your Energy Your Way
Leah co-owns a social enterprise installing renewable tech on building sites and in homes with an emphasis on giving opportunities to women in construction.
I graduated from the University of Liverpool with a BA in Social Science. Then after a year’s voluntary work in Tanzania teaching IT, I moved to London as a graduate trainee software developer. After taking an MSc in Corporate Governance and Business Ethics and a successful career in IT consulting, I realised I wanted to work in an area I was passionate about – caring for the environment.
I then worked for an installer of solar panels, ground and air source heat pumps for five years. It amazed me how few women I met when working on building sites, so decided to set up my own social enterprise specifically targeting providing training, work experience and apprenticeships to women who want to work in construction.