Gary Ford | Moonshot Consultancy Ltd
I am an independent consultant working across the IT sector and the wider management environment, where I have a particular interest in the intersection between technology and diversity and inclusion. I am the founder of Moonshot Consultancy Ltd.
I have more than 30 years’ experience in the IT industry, focused on Financial Services.
Until early in 2020, I was a Managing Director within Global Technology at JPMorgan Chase (JPM), a large US financial services organisation with over 270,000 employees. Whilst there, he led a number of strategic programmes across the firm, as well running several large IT service management functions for their Corporate and Investment Bank.
In the last year, I have also set up 2 other new businesses in partnership with others. The first is a dialogic thinktank called the 4iforum which is looking to help people in leadership roles create new ways of thinking through the power of dialogue. The second is an EdTech start up which is looking to become the TripAdvisor for Education.
I am currently also working with NHS-Digital on a service management transformation programme.
Joe Fowles | Oliver Wyman
I am an Engagement Manager in the Public Sector and Policy team at Oliver Wyman, a global management consultancy firm.
I support governments, regulators, and public bodies across the world in dealing with their toughest challenges, focusing on areas such as economic development, combatting financial crime and organisational transformation. My previous roles were at the British Business Bank and PayPal.
A large part of my work looks at inclusion and under-representation. I co-authored Alone together: Entrepreneurship and diversity in the UK, as well as the UK Venture Capital & Female Founders report. At Oliver Wyman, I co-founded Men4Change, a network that seeks to actively engage men and other allies in reducing inequities at the firm and in our society. I also serve on the global committee of Oliver Wyman’s Women’s Network (WOW).
I live in North London and at the weekends you’ll either find me running along the Regent’s Canal or cheering on Arsenal and the England cricket team.
Gus Macfarlane | Barclays
Gus leads Technology Vendor Transformation, plus responsibility for the Vendor Management Centre of Excellence.
He provides senior day-to-day oversight of Barclays Vendor partnerships with a focus on increasing the commerciality of the relationships, both contractually and financially, maximising the relations with Barclays strategic vendor partners and developing broader relationships and ensure Barclays has smooth and transparent partnerships.
Prior to this, Gus was Chief Operating Officer for Group Technology, Innovation and Applied Research and Design. He was responsible for the coordination of innovation globally across the firm. His role was to define and own the Technology and Innovation Operating Environment, with a focus on maximising commercial and reputational opportunities both internally and externally. He owned the execution of the Innovation Strategy and embedding the position of innovation across Barclays Group.
Gus joined Barclays from Experian where he was Managing Director, Commercial Enablement. Gus has a long track record of managing business solutions and embedding commercial strategy. Prior to Experian, Gus worked globally for Transcom and Sky, and consulted for a variety of large and small organisations. He previously set up a tech startup which delivered risk and continuity based analytics, gaming and solutions. Gus served in the Royal Scots as an infantry Captain, and during his career, he has served 12 years in the reserves. Throughout his career Gus has championed Diversity and Inclusion.
Peter Palmer | S.E.E.D Lancashire
My main background is within management of occupational health and safety for over 30 years. I am a Chartered member of IOSH and a Fellow member of IIRSM.
As a Chartered Health and Safety Practitioner my role can be very challenging and diverse on a day to day basis. Predominantly, I assist clients in ensuring regulatory compliance, whilst mentoring and supporting management teams in system implementation and creating positive culture change. My consultancy services have enabled me to successfully share my many years of industry knowledge, skills and ethos across a wide range of companies in the north west.
I have volunteered with at Breathe Therapies and S.E.E.D Lancashire (Support and Education for Eating Disorders) since 2016 to assist with the implementation of the health and safety management systems. I continue to champion and support the services of S.E.E.D Lancashire and its driven, female weighted leadership team. Since 2020, I have also been a charity Director and Trustee with this much needed organisation.
Bernadette Thompson | Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Bernadette is the Deputy Director for Inclusion, Wellbeing and Employee Engagement in the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
She joined the Civil Service in 1998, starting as a Caseworker in the Legal Aid Board, and she has held a range of roles within the Civil Service across many Government departments, including, Ministry of Justice, Home Office, Treasury and Cabinet Office.
She is a notable diversity advocate and public speaker, working with leaders across government and the public sector to drive a culture of inclusion and increase the pace on representation of Black and Minority Ethnic employees particularly at more senior grades. In 2019, she won one of the Civil Service Charity's Community awards and in 2020 she won the Workplace Hero category in the Investing in Ethnicity Awards for championing and driving race equality and inclusion across the Civil Service.
For over four years, Bernadette has co-chaired the multi award-winning Race to the Top G6/7 network, a community of interest network group of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) G6/7 employees across all Government departments and agencies. The Network actively supports members by helping to increase preparedness for leadership at the next level, and the overarching intention is to help the Civil Service address BAME underrepresentation in the Senior Civil Service (SCS). She is also a Different Woman Ambassador where she campaigns for a more inclusive gender agenda, amplifying the voices of women of colour.
Bernadette has also been a Community Governor at a local infant school for over 18 years and volunteers at athletics/sports events such as 2012 Olympics, 2017 World Athletics and she is really looking forward to being a part of the 2022 Commonwealth Gamers. Bernadette’s most important job, however, is being a mother to her two children.
Fiona Barrett | Genius Within CIC
Fiona is the Director of Operations at Genius Within CIC with overall responsibility for our Social Justice Projects.
She is responsible for leading, developing and supporting the Senior Leadership Team to drive performance and develop customer relationships. Fiona is an experienced frontline senior manager, specialising in implementation and leading high performing teams in the Employability Sector.
Combining her public sector knowledge, she can bring together an in-depth understanding of employability alongside diversity and inclusion. She recognises the barriers that people with disabilities face, and has a working knowledge of how to support individuals and businesses to overcome them. Fiona has been working in the Social Justice setting since 1999, training to be a Probation Officer and latterly working as a Senior Probation Officer in Surrey and Sussex Probation Trust. She moved to Genius Within in 2015 to take advantage of working in an agile Community Interest Company whose passion is for all people to maximise their potential and work towards their strengths. During her time at Genius Within, Fiona has grown the social justice team four-fold and prides herself on being able to communicate the vision and strategy effectively to build a high performing and well managed front line team.
Rikki Alderman | British Army
As a career soldier within the AGC(SPS), my journey began directly upon leaving school in 2004 at the Army Foundation College Harrogate.
Completing special-to-arm training, my first assignment commenced as a junior administrator with the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards. Embracing every opportunity of developing my newly learnt administrative skills, I also deployed with the Battalion to an exercise in Malaysia and on operational engagements to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Following an assignment to Headquarters 16 Air Assault Brigade as the Logistics Movements Clerks and promoted to Corporal, in 2009, I was selected to become a Section Commander with 2nd Army Training Regiment Pirbright. My appointment consisted of training the army’s future soldiers in addition to providing them with pastoral support. In 2011, I was selected as the army’s ambassador for an exchange post in New Zealand on Exercise Long Look, where upon I instructed personnel from the New Zealand Defence Force.
Upon return, my journey took me to the Falkland island whereupon I was employed as the movement Junior Non-Commissioned Officer in a Tri-Service environment within the Falkland Island Support Unit. During this assignment and being recognised for making the most contribution for a junior non-commissioned officer (NCO), I was awarded the prestigious Avery-Wilkes trophy.
Selected for promotion to a Senior NCO in 2012, I was assigned to 2nd Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment in the position of their Staff Support Assistant where I became a part of the Commanding Officer's TAC Headquarters and subsequently deployed on exercise and overseas on operations in Afghanistan. Upon return and selected to be the STRAP Focal Point to the Chief of Defence Staff in 2014, my role entailed the dissemination of highly sensitive material for Chief of the Defence Staff, Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Secretary of State and all other Defence Ministers.
Promoted further in 2017, I returned to Pirbright as their chief clerk, responsible for administrating in excess of 140 permanent staff members and 1,000 recruits within a busy training establishment. In 2019 I returned to 2nd Battalion, The Royal Anglian regiment as the Financial Systems Administrator and I have recently promoted to a Warrant Officer 2nd class and look forward to an appointment with the Light Dragoon Guards situated in North Yorkshire.
Maysoon Shafiq | Al Mu'Minun - The Believers
Maysoon Shafiq is the founder and Director of Al Mu’Minun (The Believers) a non-profit organisation dedicated to serving the youth through open spaces of spirituality, dialogue and empowerment.
Maysoon actively works in the community to promote gender parity, inclusivity and diversity through open dialogue in her communication. She holds several events, seminars and conferences for members of the community (Muslims and Non-Muslims) so they may understand fully the religion of Islam and the rights offered to women. She has mentored several women who have all trained to be successful champions in their own right.
Her work has been recognised through several awards; she was awarded the Commendable Award at the British Muslim Awards 2020 under the Leading Lights of the Year category and she received the Diversity Champion of the Year Award 2020 at the Kirklees Inclusion & Diversity Awards 2020.
She has published a book "First Steps in Understanding Islam" and it is available on Amazon to purchase as either an eBook or a paper copy.
Dawn Childs | National Grid
Dawn Childs is the UK Change Director for National Grid and is leading the transformation required to meet efficiency expectations whilst still delivering to net zero.
Prior to this she was the Group Engineering Director for Merlin Entertainments Group with responsibility for engineering delivery, standards, practices and processes across the worldwide portfolio of more than 130 theme parks, resorts and attractions. This followed a tenure at Gatwick Airport as the Head of Engineering, responsible for all of the infrastructure and technical services at the airport. She joined Gatwick in 2012 after 23 years as an Engineering Officer in the RAF.
Throughout her career she has been a strong advocate for women in engineering. To pursue this passion she actively engages in many outreach activities and in October 2018 she became the President of the Women’s Engineering Society and is also a Trustee for World Skills UK. She is also the Executive sponsor for WING (Women In National Grid) employee resource group.
Eneni Bambara-Abban | SOKOSHOPPER
Eneni Bambara-Abban is a Robotics Engineer, STEM Communicator, Tech Speaker and Content Creator, the Founder of Anime & Chill, an International Anime and Gaming Community as well as a Member of the BCS, Chartered Institute for IT.
She currently works as a Product Owner at Sokoshopper, an International Pan-African E-commerce Start-up, and is responsible for maximising the value of the platform, prioritising the team backlog and managing an agile workplace which centres on the core values of Scrum, such as full transparency and collaboration.
Whilst at Sokoshopper, Eneni also supports the business as a technical consultant applying her robotics and automation knowledge to creative innovative strategies to differentiate Sokoshopper from its competition.
An advocate for diversity and inclusion, Eneni has a strong passion to de-mystify and eradicate the negative stereotypes and limiting societal expectations placed on women worldwide. After being discouraged from studying robotics engineering for many years and later graduating as the only black woman on her course, she knew that she wanted to do something to increase diversity within STEM especially in the fields which will power and govern our future - Data, AI and Robotics. For the last few years, she has self-funded and organized several coding, robotics and wellbeing workshops in England and across Africa, as well as virtually during the pandemic to encourage, educate and support young people in pursuing and retaining careers in engineering and technology.