Claire Farrow | Outsource UK
I am Outsource’s Inclusion and Diversity Client Partner, and I work with Clients to create an inclusive culture where all employees feel valued.
I consult businesses on where they can improve or change their attraction and hiring processes in order to widen their candidate pool and ensure everyone is invited to apply, regardless of sex, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion, race, disability, marital, and parents and carer status. This includes coaching the hiring community on their perceptions of the role, identifying where biases might be at play, and working with the business to identify the right solution for them, whether that’s reframing the problem, removing the role description or CV entirely, or using external interview panels, to give a few examples.
After a year of teaching English as a Foreign Language, I began my 10 year career in recruitment sourcing candidates for a number of Outsource’s financial services Clients. After 6 months in this role, I was quickly promoted to manage Outsource's two largest financial services Clients, Santander Technology and Nationwide Building Society, supporting with contingent, executive, graduate and permanent hiring strategies. In 2017, after a discussion around the lack of women entering and returning to the tech sector, I established the ‘Diversity Matters’ team within Outsource to highlight the lack of inclusion and diversity in Technology, Engineering and Logistics, with the aim of helping businesses to drive change in these areas.
In the last 2 years, along with the Diversity Matters team, I have delivered 4 successful knowledge sharing events to firstly inspire Women in Tech and latterly, Inclusion in the Workplace, welcoming over 180 Clients, and a wealth of speakers from diverse backgrounds sharing their lived experiences – from being one of the first female Chief Data Officers, the importance of male allies from a Director of the Tech Talent Charter, the problem solving skills picked up when living with a disability, and the importance of language when creating a culture of belonging from the perspective of a transgender awareness specialist, to name a few.
As a proud ally, I take 100% responsibility for empowering others, giving a voice to those not in the room, calling out prejudice, and supporting future talent. Driven by my passion, alongside my account management duties, and whilst also delivering Inclusion events, I designed and launched a full Inclusion and Diversity audit programme to support Clients with everything from consulting on job adverts, websites, and general brand perception, to educating the wider business, through carefully curated partnerships with experts in specific areas of Inclusion and Diversity, and designing and delivering bespoke assessment strategies.
With the full support of my CEO, I was appointed as Outsource’s Inclusion and Diversity Client Partner, and am now fully established as a subject matter expert in Inclusive Recruitment Strategies, delivering workshops and audits to external Clients UK wide, as well as consulting with Outsource’s internal exec team.
I am also an associate member of the Institute of Diversity and Inclusion Professionals and I recently co-founded The Swindon Inclusion and Diversity Network to offer peer to peer support to businesses in and around Wiltshire.
Sophie Theen | 11:FS
Sophie was described as a reformed engineer when she had her first taste of HR with IBM Australia.
She went on to pursuing a career in fixing problems in people, not machines. For 8 years, she had led recruitment projects with Ford, General Motors, IBM before moving to 11:FS (a Challenger Consultancy) to define their ultimate working culture via a series of employer branding efforts.
Her focus is aimed at cultural paradigms during hyper growth stages in a start-up and championing diversity and equality in a future focused way. She loves a challenge in solving people problems in organizations using structured, disruptive thinking. “People are your future”, she recites. New to Fintech, her contributions to the industry had gained her the Standout 35 in Women in Fintech Powerlist 2018, by Innovate Finance.
Stephanie Chant | ENGIE
After graduating from the University of Southampton with a BSc in Psychology, I began working for Thomson Reuters.
I learned quickly and within 6 months became responsible for coordinating the global business graduate scheme, delivering training workshops across Europe, the US and Asia. After a brief stint working for a law firm I joined Nomura, an international investment bank, where I was leading the team responsible for the corporate graduate recruitment and development function. It was in this role that I launched Nomura's first formal Apprenticeship scheme, growing and refining our early careers opportunities over time to reflect the changing approach apprenticeships with the introduction of the Levy.
More recently, after taking on an advisory role for Fidelity, I moved in to a permanent role at ENGIE, where I am now responsible for the UK's early careers schemes, managing the graduate leadership scheme and overseeing the company's strategy for our 350+ apprentices across the business.
For me, I do what I do because I find it greatly rewarding knowing that I have been able to help someone grow and develop during a hugely significant time in their life, in being able to see potential in a young person with very little experience, and being able to help them become a young professional in their chosen field. I am incredibly passionate about apprenticeships, and actively promote them as genuine alternatives to university. In my personal life, I have recently decided to start training as a counsellor, recently completing my Level 2 Counselling Skills qualification and progressing on to the Level 3 course.
Leah Bracha | RBS
Leah has six years’ experience in recruitment and HR, and she has been with RBS since 2015. In her current role as an Executive Researcher, she supports external executive search, internal mobility and talent development, and succession planning across the top tiers of the organisation.
She previously worked as a Resourcing Consultant specialising in Risk and Compliance, with experience recruiting at all levels and responsibility for internal and external hiring, as well as redeployment and outplacement activity. She began her career at Katie Bard recruitment, joining on the graduate programme in 2013 and working as a Recruitment Consultant before moving in-house.
Leah is a Board Member for the ‘RBS Women’ employee network where she supports communications and marketing activity, and the network’s internal female development programme. She is a volunteer for Moneysense, the bank’s free financial education programme for young people, and has previously supported the Envision youth charity as a business coach and mentor. She has also mentored students on a one-to-one basis through the University of Birmingham Alumni Mentoring Scheme, and the BPS Birmingham Mentoring Scheme.
Prior to moving to London in 2017, Leah worked in Birmingham during which time she spent two years volunteering for BPS Birmingham’s Talent Committee, which aimed to support and develop aspiring talent and young professionals in the city. After 12 months as a committee member, she took on the role of Chair; during this time, the committee ran 16 events attended by over 600 people, including a lifestyle and careers fair to connect university students with prospective employers and local lifestyle organisations.
Leah has a BA in Economic and Social History from the University of Birmingham.
Emily Lewis | Finlay James
After a fixed term contract in HR for a Charity protecting Young Women and Girls in London; I joined Finlay James as a Talent Consultant, recruiting Salespeople into Technology Sales sector.
I earned one of the fasted first promotions in my companies history, through perseverance and self-educating, and guidance from my peers. Shortly after joining, I realised that there was a huge lack of Women both in the Recruitment sector and, primarily, in the Tech sector. Less that 20% of our current database were Women, and the majority of clients & candidates that we engaged with were Male.
I decided to focus my time on headhunting, building relationships with, and networking with Women, to raise more awareness and promote the conversation, and ensure there were more Women being introduced to our clients.
I actively encouraged Women to join my network, and grew my connections from 20 to over 3k in around a year, mostly with inspiring, hard-working and, unfortunately, under-recognised Women. through speaking with Women, I noticed that they all shared the same fear within the industry - firstly that their jobs were at risk from their Male counter-parts, but also that they were being underpaid in comparison to their Male colleagues, sometimes by only a few percent, but sometimes as substantially as 10-20% less.
Knowing this, I knew I had to do something, so I actively started working with clients who were committed to increasing diversity, who were looking for talented female salespeople. I made it very clearly when working with Women that I was completely aware of the gender pay gap, that my primary focus was to ensure more Women had access to opportunities and that they were getting the recognition they deserved.
On the side, I began researching the gender splits, writing blogs, posts and making videos about the benefits of having a diverse workforce (please see my blogs on LinkedIn), and working on a consultancy basis around their hiring strategies, including looking at job descriptions, advertisements, hiring processes and on-boarding. I found that many companies who had an all-male leadership team, hadn't taken into account the possibility that they may experience unconscious bias within their processes.
On top of this, I average 17%-19% pay-rises in 2018 for my Female candidates, ensuring they were getting the pay they deserved. In 2017/18 - 66% of my placements were Women, way above industry standard, which is only 9%!!
I don't refuse to work with Men, especially if someone is referred to me, or if they are the right match for a specific need of a client, because I am firm believer that in any case, the client deserves the best person for the job; my ethos works on the principle that a Woman is less likely to directly apply, or to move roles, unless she feels she meets 95% of the criteria, so what I like to do is to encourage that Woman that she CAN do it, she CAN get a pay-rise, and she CAN be more successful in a new position.
More than anything, I find my job much more fulfilling on a day to day basis. I enjoy having my personal and professional lives running concurrently, to bring my values and ethos to my job, so it's so much more than a typical sales/recruitment role, but I genuinely believe that I'm raising awareness, celebrating Women's successes and increasing diversity within the Tech Sector every day. This isn't just a job for me, it's my life. I appreciate I'm not changing the world in a larger sense, through working in the 3rd Sector or saving lives in the NHS, and I'm lucky enough to receive commission for my work,but when a person spends 45 years at employment age, and 35% of that is at work, I want to make sure that people love the job that they do as much as I do - and that's a blessing to be able to do.
I know I'm a very small fish, in a very big pond, but I love what I do, and I'm very committed to the the Championing of Women in the Tech Sector.
Mikahla Chapman | Accenture
I am passionate about using psychology to understand and benefit the modern workplace.
In 2017 I was 1 of 4 individuals to land a place on Accenture’s HR Talent Accelerator Programme, a leadership development programme aimed at accelerating high potential talent. Since joining I have rotated around the company to fill my backpack with experiences across a variety of positions in HR Supply Chain, Recruitment, Inclusion & Diversity, and Technology Consulting.
During my placement on the Inclusion & Diversity team, I primarily worked on driving the mental health agenda. Under my administration, the Mental Health Allies network grew by nearly 500 people. Through a range of culture change initiatives such as Time to Talk Day, World Mental Health Day, Mental Health Awareness Week and educational webcasts, my contribution helped gain the programme company wide recognition for its success at raising awareness and understanding around mental health in the workplace. As a result, the UK Mental Health Programme won the particularly competitive category of ‘Best People Programme’ in Accenture’s global recognition awards, as voted for by the company’s 450K employees.
After leaving I&D I have continued to co-represent the UK in the Global Mental Health Network which is aimed at supporting other Accenture countries in the development of their own local mental health programmes. Since 2017, the global network has grown from 3 countries to 17 with more in the pipeline to launch this year. It has also been my honour to speak about the programme internally and externally at events such as The Lord Mayor Appeal’s Power of Diversity panel on ‘Creating Mentally Healthy Workplaces’.
On Early Talent Recruitment, I worked on attracting and hiring a target of 50%+ females and 38% BAME candidates into our entry level programmes. I further solidified my interest in diversifying the future generation of talent by supporting the design and implementation of Accenture’s first HR Apprenticeship; a programme aimed at supporting individuals with unique backgrounds through an unconventional route into the company.
Originally from Toronto, Canada, I fell in love with the UK while completing a MA(Hons) in Philosophy & Psychology from the University of Edinburgh. I then moved to London to complete a MSc in Occupational Psychology from London Metropolitan University.
I am grateful to work in an empowering environment and hope to continue to make a positive impact through my work in Human Resources!
Morgana Aiyer | Accenture
I started my career in sales, but my true calling came when I was seconded to cover maternity in HR role for a colleague.
My future roles from that point were in HR, Talent Succession Planning to Recruitment and over the last 3 years focused on Inclusion and Diversity.
In 2017 I started a role as UKI Inclusion and Diversity Lead which focused on the attraction and hiring diverse where I was able to combine my passion for Inclusion and working with people. My interest in diversity grew and this encouraged me to take the opportunity to co-lead Accenture’s LGBT+ Ally network in 2018 and to move from my role as UK and Ireland Inclusion and Diversity Recruitment and Candidate Engagement Lead to Field HR Team Lead in late 2018.
In my spare time, I have volunteered at a local Arts Centre hosting class for young people providing a safe environment to talk about any concerns. I also have presented and gave career advice at Mums Network events and Graduate Recruitment insight days the importance of an Inclusive Culture and Environment.
Millie Smyth | Accenture
I’m fiercely passionate about enabling people to bring their best selves to work every day, and I feel very lucky to focus on that as my day job.
After an HR internship at an energy company and a stint teaching English as a Foreign Language, I joined Accenture as a graduate in 2015 within the Management Consulting business – driven by a curiosity to learn about different businesses quickly! From here, I soon found my way into world of Talent and Organisation, specialising in the people-side of our client transformation projects, and developing an interest in behavioural science, innovative communications, cultural change and future workforce trends.
Meanwhile outside of my client work, I became very involved in the wider engagement agenda at Accenture and took great joy in mobilising initiatives across project teams and business areas: from fundraising for charity to shaping wellbeing initiatives, to establishing bottom-up feedback processes, to leading an employee interest group for gender parity. Six months ago, I followed my heart and transferred internally to our Human Capital & Diversity team to make this my day job – where I partner with the business, our HR teams and our people to co-create and embed solutions that make a meaningful difference.
As someone with ‘neurodiversity’ (both dyslexia and bipolar disorder), I have experienced first-hand the difference the right support can make, and I’m deeply invested in designing a workplace that allows everyone to thrive.
Edleen John | KPMG
Edleen is currently in the People function at KPMG and is responsible for co-leading KPMG's Inclusion, Diversity and Social Equality Team.
She is incredibly passionate about diversity and has spent a lot of her personal and professional life focusing on driving gender equality and equality more broadly across society. She is focused on ensuring that gender diversity and equal access to opportunities is a top-priority in the recruitment, retention and progression of women. Edleen's passion is not just restricted to the corporate environment and she believes that she has a key role and responsibility to inspire future generations of young women. To that end, she spends significant time engaging with and mentoring students and young people from all backgrounds and focuses on sharing her experiences, providing academic support and encouraging them to strive to be their best.
In the world of work, Edleen's career has enabled her to work with and support students, experienced professionals and employees to drive gender equality as a business critical agenda. Key initiatives she has driven include delivering organisations' Return To Work Programmes making sure that mothers returning from a career break have an entry-route back into the world of work, designing career development programmes for women at specific career stages, and engaging with men and women through Employee Networking Groups. Edleen vocally advocates for empowering women to drive and shape their own careers in a way that suits them, and that enables them to balance their work and personal lives for the maximum benefit of their wellbeing. She believes that progressive organisations also strive to support this through action and not just lip-service.
Recognising that organisations benefit from diversity only when people can be themselves and are engaged in their roles, she is avid about focusing on creating a culture of inclusion. She believes that individuals can only thrive in an environment where they are valued, respected and listened to and can just be themselves. She firmly believes that diversity isn't just about those from underrepresented groups and is passionate about driving meritocracy. Edleen believes that it's vital for organisations to recognise intersectionality and advocates that creating a world with equality for all means engaging with everyone to achieve success.
Edleen has worked across a number of organisations and has done a variety of roles across the HR and client-facing spectrum. Due to her expertise and experience, she has also shared her learnings, insights and experiences with corporate clients, government agencies, third-party suppliers and the wider business community to help others with the implementation of their Inclusion, Diversity and Social Equality policies, processes and practices across all diversity focus areas. To further the diversity cause across society, Edleen firmly believes in collaboration, sharing best-practice and working with others to drive large-scale change.
Edleen aims to inspire, educate, challenge and influence others and regularly shares her insights via multiple platforms, including at schools, universities, industry and company conferences, diversity focused conferences and female-focused campaigns such as the IAmVisible.
As a British-born Sierra Leonean, she attended local non-selective Comprehensive Schools, before completing her MA (Cantab) in Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge and subsequently her MSc in Organisational Psychiatry and Psychology at King’s College London. She is a GBR member of the British Psychological Society and was recently awarded a Chartered Fellowship (CIPD). In terms of career achievements, Edleen is the youngest person to be promoted to her current level within KPMG Business Services and is the youngest member of the People Leadership Team. In her previous role at Morgan Stanley, she was also the youngest person in EMEA to ever be promoted to Vice President within HR.
Before her career in HR, Edleen started her career as an Investment Banker at Lehman Brothers International.
Narelle Allen | PwC
Ambitious, resilient, determine and driven, I constantly strive to make a difference with young people.
I want them to be the best possible version of themselves that they can be and everything I have done in my career to date has been with this focus. At school I was labelled average and so for the first years of my career, I focuses on proving the doubters wrong and now have a masters in Communications, a postgraduate diploma in Biomedical Engineering, two degrees (Computer Science & Drama) and a teaching qualification.
Currently, I am the Education Outreach Manager for PwC Northern Ireland and have over ten years experienced within the technology and educational sectors. I specialise in the design creation and deployment of the technology educational programmes which are internal and external to the firm covering topics such as coding, cyber security, artificial intelligence, VR and AR. I have an in-depth understanding and awareness of the national curriculum and business training requirements allows me to create education and training programmes that cater to an organisation purpose as well at the educational sector as a whole. Since joining PwC NI I have designed, developed and deployed Hive Academy - an education outreach program aimed at inspiring young people into careers in technology. I have directly taught more than 6000 students in 112 schools since the programs creation and upskillied over 350 teachers at the same time. I coach and train my team members in all programmes and the programme has been so successful that it now being rolled out in the Channel Islands (April 2019), Manchester (May 2019) and Isle of Man (summer 2019). The learning content I designed is now embedded into the national student recruitment offering and into the new joiners programme for the firm.
Previous to PwC I was a lecturer in Queen's University Belfast, where I taught programming fundamentals and Android App Development to classes of up to 400. This was challenging and rewarding, especially due to the fact I was only one of two females in a heavily male dominated department. During my time in Queen's I championed a lot of causes, including women in tech, the SWANN initiative and brough new and innovative ways into the department on how to deliver enriching learning experiences. During my time a Queens I also designed, created and delivered a teacher upskilling course in C# educating all the teachers in northern Ireland on programming concept. The material is now integrated into the GCSE curriculum within NI schools.
Prior to Queen's University Belfast, I was a lecturer in Belfast Met, where I again worked with a high number of young people, often those on alternative pathways and those who were disillusioned with education. I strived to inspire them to believe in themselves, and coached and mentored them to succeed. I was the blended Learning coordinator tasked with improving the use of ICT within the classroom. I facilitated professional staff development workshops (June 2013) which involved the delivery of two formal staff training sessions on blended learning to all colleagues within the department. I was also the Barefoot Trainer(2012-2013) project manager (a programme by the British council focused on upskilling people on blended learning techniques for the classroom) and was responsible for the management of the project ensuring end deliverables were achieved, liaising closely with partner countries (Greece, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Hungary, Ireland) to ensure all objectives were met and created learning resources and content using Adobe Captivate for an ONC accredited course.