Ella Walters | PwC
I joined PwC Assurance in Bristol in 2014 with a determination to do well and affect positive change. Having attended a failing state school, and seen the difference in outcomes from amongst my peers, I have had a long commitment to equal opportunity, diversity and inclusion. And at university, I tutored for and coordinated the Team Up mentoring charity, organising university students to tutor local pupils on free school meals in core subjects.
As part of the PwC graduate scheme, I gained experience across multiple sectors in both internal and external audit. My stand-out contributions included high-impact internal audit engagements (in one instance a member of staff was appointed for a year to implement my recommendations from a week-long review) and my work on highly complex financial services external audit engagements. However, I was also keen to continue having a positive social impact and develop my leadership skills, which I did through taking on additional roles. In my first year, for instance, I wrote the business case for, and set up a Centre for Social Impact with a director. This became the PwC Social Entrepreneur’s Club, through which we continue to support, mentor and coach local social enterprises.
In 2017 I moved to London, choosing to fully specialise in Insurance Internal Audit. This has given me the opportunity to develop deeper technical understanding, work with some fascinating financial services clients and gain a national perspective on PwC as a business itself. This has benefited me this year in my role as the pathway lead on our Internal Audit target operating model programme, through which I am leading transformational change in our recruitment, skills and training as a national business.
I was also selected as the 2017 UK PwC Assurance representative at One Young World, a global young leaders’ summit with 1500 young people from 194 countries. I came back from the summit particularly determined to help staff to better connect with the purpose of their work and fulfil their personal and social purpose at PwC. I also set up a reverse mentoring initiative within the Insurance business with the aim of increasing the diversity of leadership ideas and reducing unconscious bias at a leadership level. Based on the success of my reverse mentoring pilot, it has been rolled out further this year.
Hessie Coleman | Starling Bank
Hessie Coleman is Head of People Operations at Starling Bank – the first mobile-only bank offering UK current accounts. Since joining Starling in July 2016, Hessie has been responsible for the entire People remit, including growing the company from 25 employees to 150 and creating innovative career development programmes such as the Passport to Starling, for which she has been recognised at the CIPD People Management Awards.
Prior to Starling, Hessie was HR Manager at British Gas with responsibility for c.1000 employees following an intense HR graduate scheme.
She studied International Relations & German at Leeds and is currently completing a Masters-level CIPD qualification.
Alana Drew | The Marketing Store
I have been working in HR and L&D for the past 4.5 years across Advertising/Marketing, Finance and Hospitality industries.
Kickstarting my career off in Sydney, I worked various unpaid internships whilst studying my degree and then landed my first role in HR & L&D at advertising agency BMF. During the 3.5 years I was there, I learnt and honed the skills needed to build a career in HR, I had fantastic mentors and managers who guided me, which is how I developed a love for L&D. I worked my way up to creating my own content, facilitating in-house workshops and ultimately becoming a certified trainer.
The big change in my career (and life) came in 2017, when I made the decision to move to London by myself and see what the world had in store for me. 2 weeks after I landed, I scored my current role at The Marketing Store.
This has been the biggest leap for me in my career and has retaught me why we do this job - the people - and how to bring them back to the heart of the business. I have been pushed and stretched more than I ever thought I would and am about to embark on the biggest L&D project I've ran - launching and delivering my businesses first L&D Platform.
Parisa Namazi | Cicero Group
Parisa is currently Head of Talent at Cicero Group. Having joined Cicero in April 2016, she is responsible for providing strategic business partnering HR advice to Cicero’s Executive Committee and provides a supportive role to our talented employees. She is responsible for all aspects of human resource management including; employee engagement, diversity and inclusion, internal communications, benefits and reward, training and development, CSR and charity initiatives and group wide recruitment of Cicero's top talented teams.
Parisa has a great interest in promoting diversity in the workplace and was appointed as one of 12 on HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter Board in 2016, representing SME signatory firms. Parisa also sits on the Membership Committee for OUTstanding, LGBT+ network and is an associate member of Chartered Institute of Professional Development.
Before Cicero, Parisa delivered HR at international advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson.
Parisa holds MSc in International Human Resource Management and Comparative Industrial Relations from Manchester Business School. She has always been passionate about diversity and conducted award winning research into female leadership experiences in male dominated industries as part of her undergraduate degree at University of Manchester.
Cheryl Hart | DXC Technology
Honestly, I've only just formally started my career. Whilst in university I wanted to build up my job portfolio, so I took on three roles - first as a Student ambassador in October 2012, and although I liked giving careers advice to people wanting to come to university I wanted to inspire people at a much younger age, so started Junior university as well which targets Year 9's just before GCSE. Here I found my calling and became a mentor later in October, 2012. As I went from strength to strength in mentoring and coaching I tried teaching and became a research assistant voluntarily to research how young child (4/5 years old) learn and what is the best method to access in the early years where they are likely to struggle in education and then find a fun way to solution that. In 2013 I moved on to tougher challenges, working gaining a place with the wellbeing mentors in June, mentoring people with mental issues, then, moving on to mentoring in the Children's Society with disabled and abused children in the December. After that, I went back to research how best to help students study in the health department at University of Central Lancashire but decided I wanted to be back on the ground, so to speak so began working as a Speech Therapy Assistant to a private family and a TA with severely autistic and mentally challenged children.
After a year of reflecting on my experience so far while I worked as an enrolment assistant and career advisor at Preston's College I decided to start my career - it was time to get in a big company and start making a real difference to people. On a graduate scheme you can move around the company, so I did so to find my calling, and now here I am. I coach and mentor a lot of people about what the business expects from them and about the early stages of raising a job request, over 50 and I formally mentor 2 individuals. I'm doing what I love - giving people the knowledge to do what they do best.
Toni Osoba | Accenture
I started my career in HR Consultancy, leveraging my Microeconomics skills to advise senior HR executives on how to take their functions to the next level, using tried and tested best practices. This role gave me great C-level client exposure and valuable insight into how the best organisations are run.
Following this, I transitioned to an HR practitioner role, leading a project to help my organisation prepare for upcoming government legislation changes. This gave me great project management experience, as I was in charge of leading the project and mitigating potential risks.
I now work as a Talent Retention lead, in charge of the engagement, leadership development and recognition of over 13,000 employees. I have thoroughly enjoyed this role so far, and have hit the ground running, due to my ability to leverage and build upon the skills gained in my previous role.
In my spare time, I also volunteer as a school governor and a community manager for Lagos Business Academy, which is a not-for-profit organisation, commited to upskilling and connecting BAME individuals in the Tech space.
Leanne Armitage | St George's University of London
At present I am a third-year medical student at St George’s University of London. Between my second and third year of medical school, I took a year out to study a BSc degree in Global Health at King’s College London. During this year, I also set up and piloted a medical outreach programme called ‘Leanne’s Amazing Medics’ (LAM) designed to increase diversity across UK medical schools. Lack of diversity in the field of medicine is a significant issue because less than 5% of medical students come from deprived backgrounds and half of all schools across the UK do not produce a single medical applicant (BMA, The Right Mix 2015). Personally, I believe statistics like these are shocking and the LAM programme is working towards changing them.
As well as increasing diversity across UK medical schools, I am also passionate about inspiring young people to achieve their full potential. As such, in my spare time I engage in various public/ inspirational speaking opportunities which enable me to do this.
Thorrun Govind | Sykes Chemist
Having studied at King's College London and undertaking her training in Newark on Trent. Thorrun qualified as a pharmacist in 2016 and has continued to work hard to promote community pharmacy utilising national and local media. This has been alongside her role as a locum pharmacist and her studies undertaking a law conversion course which she aims to use to defend healthcare professionals. Having appeared on the national BBC news talking about the pharmacy cuts she subsequently went on to appear on BBC Newsnight showcasing local pharmacy and highlighting the continued impact of government policies on the sector. This drew attention to the impact of each manifesto on the care pharmacists aim to provide.
She has continued to dispense free pharmaceutical advice to the public as the Resident Pharmacist on BBC Radio Lancashire, which she has been doing for over a year now. This involves speaking to a variety of local listeners of different ages and backgrounds. This has also led to her being approached to do the same since January as the Resident Pharmacist on BBC Radio London.
Actively seeking appearances on Radio 1 discussing illicit drugs and being quoted in national newspapers regularly Thorrun has been able to promote the sector, showcasing the great work pharmacists do in reducing pressure on the rest of the NHS. She has worked hard to advocate for the profession and raise awareness of the great work pharmacy teams do. Having been dubbed a 'one woman pressure group' for relentlessly campaigning for the sector and she is not scared to challenge key figures.
Thorrun actively pushes to get pharmacy on the agenda locally and nationally. Appearances discussing pharmacy have enabled her to “myth-bust” a number of common complaints patients raise about pharmacies generally, such as the time taken to process a prescription. It’s not quite as simple as “picking a box off a shelf,'' and this has educated the public and engendered good will towards the profession.
Adama Ibrahim | Biogen
An innovation award winning operational strategy expert and patient engagement thought leader with over 17 years in the NHS on commission by the DOH and in Industry (Hoffman La-Roche, Amgen, ALMAC, ICON and Biogen). Worked in England and Northern Ireland with temporary assignments in the USA (Pennsylvania, Texas and Massachusetts). Currently part of the DIA Patient Engagement Voluntary Community Leadership team.
Experience across various therapeutic areas such as Neurology, Inflammation, Metabolic Disease, Gastroenterology and Oncology across various phases of trials in drug development include creation and execution of successful strategies for research protocols and CRO oversight, patient and site feasibility, expertise in eClinical tools such as electronic Patient consent technologies, electronic clinical outcomes assessments and interactive response technologies, creation of optimal drug packaging and administration concepts, mapping the patient journey, planning and executing effective global site and patient engagement campaigns using direct to patient methods, leading and coaching remote and complex global teams.
Currently working as one of the Co-Leads for a cross-industry group with 7 other Bio-pharma companies to create an educational white paper on the use of Blockchain technology in clinical trials. Presented findings at Orlando at the Internet and Engineering Standards Forum (IEEE).
Vijay Kunadian | Newcastle University
I am an Academic Consultant Interventional Cardiologist based at Freeman Hospital Newcastle and Newcastle University having completed all my clinical cardiology and interventional cardiology training in the North East of England and an International Academic Fellowship in Cardiology with the TIMI/PERFUSE Study Group, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. I am one of handful of female Interventional Cardiologists in the UK and to my knowledge one of few female interventional cardiologists holding the clinical academic position in the UK in my sub-specialty. I am a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh, European Society of Cardiology and American College of Cardiology. I currently serve as a Steering Committee member of the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Intervention Women’s Committee (Since 2013), Young Interventionist’s Committee (Since 2013) and British Cardiovascular Intervention Society Research & Development Committee. I am an invited Speaker and Faculty member of major cardiology scientific sessions. In addition to practising interventional cardiology in one of the busiest cardiac centres, I spend a significant proportion of my time in clinical cardiovascular research with primary focus on strategies to improve cardiovascular outcomes in high-risk patients including older patients and those with co-morbidities. I am a Chief and Principal Investigator in a number of national and international clinical trials. I serve as an Academic Lead in a number Cardiology training programmes including National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) academic foundation programme, NIHR academic clinical fellowship, and DOH Modernising Scientific Careers Master of Cardiac Science programme in Newcastle. I am also lead academic supervisor to a number of students in Newcastle (MBBS, BSc, MSc, Masters for Research, MD, PhD).