Aïssata N'diaye | Morgan Stanley
At 30 years old, Aïssata is dually qualified as an Attorney in New York and authorised to Practice as an Attorney in France (Paris Bar – C.A.P.A).
She has been promoted to Vice-President after seventeen months in her role as Documentation Negotiator, within the Institutional Equity Division of Morgan Stanley, London office.
Coming from a working class family, it has always been essential for Aïssata to give back. Giving back became a way of life. Aïssata is a strong advocate for education in underprivileged backgrounds and for creating opportunities for kids that would not have them otherwise. She mentors a number of students and help them find their professional path. She is a member of the ”APRES” (the ”Association for the Promotion of Success at School”), a French association fostering success at school in underprivileged areas. She still goes twice a year in France to intervene in high schools in front of kids from underprivileged backgrounds and explain to them, through her own experience, that they can follow the professional path they dream about.
She was the Patron of ”La Dictée des Cités” (the ”Dictation of the underprivileged areas”), an event organised by an association which aims is to reintroduce the passion of writing and reading in underprivileged areas.
She is the member of the Jury of the Moot Court organised by the Human Rights League of Compiegne-Noyon.
During her second year at University, she gave lectures to inmates in prison through a students association promoting reinsertion after detention. This allowed them to have a reduced sentence.
Symbolically, on International Women’s Day (8th March 2019), she received an Award from the Mayor of Compiegne (former President of the Finance Commission of the French Senate – Philippe Marini) for her achievements.
Diversity and inclusion is particularly important to her and this is the reason why integrating the African and Caribbean Business Alliance at Morgan Stanley was natural.
She also volunteers fortnightly at a school through Morgan Stanley volunteering programme to help develop MEND exercice (Mind, Exercice, Nutrition … Do it !) for 8th grades.
Alongside her different involvements, Aïssata is a passionate bookworm. You don’t have to look far away to find a book on her desk. Passionate by Handball that she practices since 8, sport is an important part of her life as well as music.
Becca Naylor | Reed Smith
I am passionate about ensuring people have access to justice.
I am Head of Pro Bono at global law firm Reed Smith for EMEA, encouraging and inspiring all our lawyers to provide free legal advice to individuals in need, charities and non-profits.
I was inspired to a career in human rights after hearing Nick Yarris speak about his exoneration from death row. Before joining Reed Smith I volunteered at Reprieve as part of its Abuses in Counter Terrorism team and during my training contract I went on secondment to Liberty and worked in its Advice and Information Team. I qualified in our pro bono team and I am now a Senior Associate responsible for leading our pro bono work.
In 2018, I was seconded to Safe Passage as joint Head of Casework & Programmes to assist with reuniting unaccompanied children with their relatives in Europe. I work with Kids in Need of Defense UK on leave to remain cases for undocumented children and their families who have a right to remain in the UK and I am part of Reed Smith’s Global Refugee Protection Project in Greece and Jordan. A large part of my role is engaging lawyers across our offices on pro bono matters including disability rights, domestic violence, prisoner rights, ending female genital mutilation, combatting human trafficking and protecting refugees.
Chloe Weir | Barclays
By day I'm a lawyer for Barclays, by night (and day) I am obsessed with using my good luck, and platforms such as this, to promote better gender equality and better outcomes for women.
I do this through various initiatives, I Co-Chair the Legal Gender Network, running events and initiatives throughout the year. We also run a mentoring scheme and work closely with our male allies and the working families network. We are driving particularly to reduce the gender imbalance at the more senior levels of the function. I am keen to increase diversity of all kinds so that we can bring our whole selves to work. I aim to achieve this through being a Committee member of the Legal LGBTQ Network, as well as role-modelling diversity initiatives through different media channels. I volunteer on a scheme supporting underprivileged school students to improve career aspiration, on the Barclays Legal Experience Weeks, and am also a Committee member for a community theatre group.
My legal role is to advise business colleagues building products and services for and supporting Barclays' customers, both personal and small and medium sized enterprises. So whether it's bank accounts, or fintech solutions, I help the business support our customers in the right way. My focus this year is on reducing paper use through our products and services, so that we can better serve our digitally active customers, and reduce negative environmental impact. I also support our work incubating LegalTech startups and drive toward greater digital inovation both within Legal and the Bank.
Prior to my current role I worked in-house for the Royal Bank of Scotland International, and in private practice as a litigator at Carey Olsen and Clifford Chance LLP.
I juggle all of the above loves and career drivers with my number one best invention, my one year old daughter, and the rest of the family.
Eman Hassan | Moore Blatch LLP
My journey to qualification has been somewhat unconventional and challenging having qualified in August 2018.
I graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2012 having unfortunately not obtained a 2.1. I remember the feeling of sheer disappointment and upset, thinking that potentially my aspiration to achieving my goal to become a Solicitor was impossible. I was resolved to succeed and decided to move to London from Preston to complete my LPC. Having moved to London, I secured a job at Moore Blatch Solicitors as a Facilities temp, photocopying bundles and various admin tasks. I took extra care to ensure that all jobs I completed were to a high level. I was pleased to progress to a Legal Secretary in 2013, then to a Paralegal at the same firm. I appreciated that my level of degree was not going to be helpful for me in terms of securing a training contract and having found my niche in 2016 within the newly established Major Trauma Service at Moore Blatch, I then opted to progress my qualification through the Paralegal Equivalent Means Route. I was the first at Moore Blatch to qualify by this route and whilst the thought was terrifying, I believed that with sheer determination and hard work, there was a chance that I would be successful and happily achieved this after 18 months of tirelessly building my portfolio to reflect the work and experience I had to be admitted as a Solicitor. I qualified in August 2018 and since have continued to work in the Major Trauma Service as a Solicitor, supporting my clients through their journey to recovery and have worked on high profile cases, such as the Croydon Tram Crash and the Westminster Terror Attack.
Sarah Mullin | Priory School
Sarah Mullin is a Deputy Headteacher and Doctor of Education student.
She is renowned for coaching and mentoring school leaders across the country and she presents at national education conferences and events for teachers. Sarah is the author of the Amazon number one best selling book 'What They Didn't Teach Me on My PGCE,' a collection of over two hundred narratives written by teachers, for teachers. Sarah recently received the 'Contribution to Education of the Year' award for her significant and sustained work in the field of education.
Rachael Ainsworth | University of Manchester
Dr. Rachael Ainsworth is the Research Software Community Manager for the Software Sustainability Institute and based in the eScience Lab of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester.
She manages the Institute's Fellowship Programme and Collaborations Workshop series, promoting better research through better software practices. She is passionate about openness, transparency, reproducibility, wellbeing and inclusion in research and STEM more broadly, and is a vocal and active Open Research Advocate.
She was previously a Research Associate at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and PhD Student at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and Undergraduate Student Intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She received her BSc in Physics from the University of Tennessee and her PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Dublin, Trinity College. Her research involved observing jets from young stars with next-generation radio telescopes to investigate the physical processes that assemble stars like our Sun.
She is also a Software Sustainability Institute Fellow, FOSTER certified Open Science Trainer, Mozilla Open Leader, Founder and Organiser for the Manchester chapter of the women in data meetup group HER+Data MCR, member of the first cohort of Tech Future Female Leaders, and TEDx speaker.
Alisha Airey | University of the West of England (UWE Bristol)
My commitment to social justice, equality and supporting others started before my professional careers as I began as a peer mentor aged just 15, supporting young BME males a risk of exclusion.
This was my first experience of this type of work and sparked my interest in how I could support young people in innovative way to overcome challenges but also consider how education and curriculum can be adapted to be more engaging and accessible to young people with diverse needs and backgrounds. After becoming a young single mother my self at the age of 18 I experience a number of challenges personally and decided to volunteer to support those with unmet mental health needs with a local charity; using my own experiences of adversity to support other’s recovery. I then went on to work as a supervisor to student mentors at UWE. Within my current role as BAME officer for University of West of England I have had the opportunity to support and advocate for BAME students throughout their university experience whilst also challenging discrimination and inequality. I have used my role to build positive working relationships with community groups and professionals to widen the impact of my work and ensure students have a wide network of support. By delivering training and workshops to academics, staff and students I have been able to highlight the importance of cultural competence, accessible curriculums and unconscious bias, all key components in tackling structural inequality and addressing the attainment gap within between BAME students and their white counterparts in our university.
Eno Maycock | Coventry University
Dr Eno Maycock is a Chartered Member of the CIPD and a fellow of the World Business Institute.
She a senior lecturer and an Assistant Professor and teaches on the Coventry University’s MBA and MSc Programs. She was the CPD & External Programmes Co-ordinator (which helps SMM deliver its Enterprise & Commercial priorities and targets) within the School of Marketing and Management, Coventry University, UK. Eno has expertise in the area of consultancy, building collaborative partnerships and new business, Decision Making, leadership, Organisational Behaviour, Diversity, Cultural Competence, Performance and Reward Management and International reward practices.
She has delivered a number of leadership and management programmes and consulted for private and public sector clients which include the Bill and Malinda Gates foundation, The CRRC Corporation Limited (CRRC) China, SheCreatesAfrica, UK Civil Service (DWP), The Foreign and Commonwealth programmes in India and Ethiopia, The NHS, Scarborough Borough Council, Highways Agency, Bank of Ireland, West Midlands Police, The Nigerian Civil Service (MDG), The National University of Singapore, Scottish Police Authority, and National Trust for Scotland (Scottish Heritage).
She also developed, and designed the new organisational behaviour online course for the Coventry University online MBA program, designed & lead through the accreditation process the UNITE programme and was also a course Director for the BA Business &HRM programme. She designed and implemented a new reward scheme for Standard Guardian Group of companies, which operates in 4 countries in Africa.
She also designed and developed the MIDS, programme and 2 courses for the Ethiopian Foreign and Commonwealth Office Senior Leadership Programme which was taken through approval here at Coventry University between the year 2019 and 2020.
She also advices for a number for charity organisations within the Sub Saharan African Region enabling the the sub grantees to work collaboratively while building partnerships across West Africa. Eno has extensive experience lecturing in Human Resource Management with specific research interest in Public sector reforms, organisational behaviour and misbehaviour, Entrepreneurship, Diversity, cultural competence, Reward and Performance Management, Leadership, Gender and Women in public/private sector Leadership and International HRM and Culture. She also sits on the board of 3 organisations.
She also leads a social enterprise, called SheCreatesAfrica, to uplift women in eight African countries out of poverty by helping them build entrepreneurship skills, confidence and their financial literacy skills, giving them the expertise needed to run their own micro and small business enterprises. To date, SheCreatesAfrica has trained over 470 women entrepreneurs and have financially enabled 83 women with small loans to set up their own businesses. SheCreatesAfrica currently has just over 57 thriving and profitable female owned small businesses (within the agricultural, manufacturing, sales and educational sectors) that has emerged from the support, training and workshops that we have provided. In 2019 we teamed up and collaborated with a community bank to provide banking and financial services to women who are part of the SheCreatesAfrica network.
Katie Cotton | Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (UK) LLP
I read Natural Sciences at Cambridge and then converted to law. I completed my training contract at Jones Day and moved to Orrick in 2008. I was promoted to Partner in the M&A and Private Equity team in January 2020.
The focus of my practice is acting for buyers and sellers of technology companies and for technology companies seeking an exit through an IPO on the public markets. I am a leading adviser for entrepreneurs and investors seeking to sell UK technology businesses to major international trade buyers. Recent transactions include acting for Michelin on its acquisition of the Masternaut Group; for App-DNA on its sale to Citrix; for Tails.com on its sale to Nestle Purina; for OneFlow Systems on its sale to HP, Inc.; for Cloudpipes on its sale to QuickBase; and on confidential sales of UK technology companies to some of the world's largest tech giants. Public company transactions include the IPO of Cerillion PLC and the acquisition by Amryt Pharma PLC of Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. I have also advised the FIA on its interest in the Formula E series since its inception in 2013.
Alongside technology, Orrick's other key area of focus is the energy sector. I advised CDC Group on its $380m public offer in Zambia for Copperbelt Energy Corporation PLC; Infracapital on its investment in Bioenergy Infrastructure Group ; and Bioenergy Infrastructure Group on its subsequent investment in the first waste-to-energy plant to utilise the UK Government's contracts for difference regime.
Denise Chippindale | General Assembly
Denise Chippindale is Marketing Manager at General Assembly.
Having worked there for more that 3.5 years, her work has spanned from partnerships, campaigns, events and community initiatives. She has developed over 400 events for the public, implementing free workshops and classes to make education accessible to all.
Denise believes in expanding the skillset of the London community and is quite passionate in helping individuals to pursue a career they love. She is co-founder of 'The 2030 Movement' which is a free, full day festival that hosts over 30 workshops for people to participate, learn new skills and having fun whilst doing it. Alongside her incredible team, Denise aims to strive to continuously create an inclusive and supportive environment when people walk through the doors of GA.
Previously, Denise was a graphic designer at a small education startup in which she took on the role of expanding operations across Australia and developing her skillset into sales and marketing. Denise previously was The Design Kids host in both Sydney and London, which has formed into a global meet up that helps individuals bridge the gap between students and industry. As you can see, her passion lies deeply in education in various forms.