Harriet Burrows | Arup
A Change Specialist and confident communicator/facilitator, Harriet works with subject matter experts and senior managers to develop pragmatic, value driven solutions and overcome complex business problems through successful change initiatives.
Harriet challenges traditional thinking, developing innovative and sustainable methodologies that blends leading change management theory with a practical approach to enhance strategic capabilities of people and organisations.
Harriet has significant experience working with Transport for London and latterly Crossrail with a primary focus of developing Collaborative relationships with the Supply Chain. Harriet was accountable for developing an approach for building collaborative Supplier relationships through a transformational programme, consolidating 50 major contracts into 6 (£150m p.a.). Working with key operational stakeholders to merge theory and best practice into a pragmatic and comprehensive suite of products and guidance, she used “Organisational story telling” to create a burning platform for change from the ‘as-is’ and ‘to-be’ approaches to supply chain management. As a result of this work, Harriet was approached by the CEO of Crossrail to develop Collaborative supply chain relationships in Crossrail, after 9 months on the programme Supplier engagement was referenced as one of Crossrail's top three achievements for 2019. Harriet was asked to write a paper based on her experiences focusing on Collaboration and Supplier Engagement in Major Projects, looking at lessons learnt and recommendations for future projects.
Ingrid Norman | Network Rail
Being multi-cultural and actively promoting diversity in the workplace, I am an authentic leader who is known for my effective way of engaging with the supply chain and putting customers in the heart of everything I do.
I am the Head of Category Management of Eastern Region in Network Rail. My role is pivotal to lead the supply chain strategies and to connect people in our businesses to make Network Rail easier to do business with.
I have also been appointed as the Regional SME lead (small and medium enterprises) for Eastern region. I’m passionate about this responsibility as I have the firm belief that through listening to the external parties, we will gradually make a difference to the railway supply chain.
My core value is being fair, credible and doing the right thing, which has been rooted in my career in the last 16 years. My first procurement role was at Nissan Europe and from very early on, I was determined to grow my career in procurement and commercial. I have gained broad industry experiences at McLaren Automotive, Nissan, Safran, Coventry Building Society, Sainsbury’s Argos and Network Rail; these experiences allow me to apply best practices of stakeholder engagement from the private sector to Network Rail, where public procurement regulations must be followed.
Having studied for a Master’s Degree in France and now living in the UK, I speak fluent French, English and Chinese, with a notion to German and Spanish. I’ve been growing leadership skills by working together with a multitude of different people, coaching team members and always having a positive attitude while leading people through uncertain situations. I have recently completed the Rail Industry Leaders programme.
Thanks to my multi-cultural and multi-national background, I have been promoting diversity across Network Rail and championing gender equality. In my previous leadership role as Contracts & Procurement Manager at Network Rail Anglia route, I led a team of 25 people and recruited talent with diversified cultures and ethnic backgrounds. I am incredibly proud of the fact that there were 23 different languages spoken in the team.
Having studied Business and Management at the University of Reading's Henley Business School, Jennifer undertook a placement year at GSK, which lead to her return to the company in 2015 following graduation.
Jennifer joined as an HR Representative in the Shared Services area, and worked in various roles for 3 years, before moving into the Employee Relations team in September 2018. Currently an Advisor in the Employee Relations team, Jennifer works to support employees and managers with ER issues and trains and coaches managers in how to support their employees.
Jennifer sits on the award winning GSK LGBTQI+ network group's (Spectrum) UK Leadership team. Throughout her time at GSK, she has also been avidly involved in policy reviews, particularly the family related policies, and leads and participates in various inclusion and diversity activities. In addition to her work within the LBGT+ network group, Jennifer has collaborated with both GSK's Women's Leadership Initiative and the Disability Confidence Network, sharing her lived experience of thriving with an invisible disability.
Maryam Amussah | Shell UK Ltd
Maryam is a keen believer of using diversity and inclusiveness to improve business performance and uses her time supporting several D&I initiatives.
She is the winner of the 2019 Shell UK Country Chair Award for Diversity & Inclusiveness known as 'Our People Are Proud Ambassadors of Shell' award. She also received a Shell Special Recognition Award in 2019 for her roles in championing diversity within her team, and in outreach STEM initiatives.
Maryam Amussah, a Nigerian born Chartered Chemical Engineer, joined Shell UK as a Process Engineering Graduate in 2011 having obtained her M.Eng (Hons) in Chemical Engineering with 1st Class from The University of Manchester.
Since then, she has worked in Shell UK across various roles and facilities in both engineering and non-engineering capacities.
Alongside her day job, she provides STEM mentorship for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, led the Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Employee Network, and on the executive committee for the Aberdeen Muslim Women’s Association. In these roles, Maryam has helped address specific gaps and issues across ethnic, socio-economic and gender diversity in the industry.
Abbianca Makoni | Evening Standard
Abbianca Makoni is a junior news reporter for the Evening Standard and mentor based in London.
Born in Zimbabwe raised in London, Abbianca has always had a passion for youth and discussing the societal issues affecting young and minority groups. Her media journey started at the age of 15 when she first produced and published a print magazine giving locals in East London the opportunity to discuss politics, fashion and music - the magazine was eventually read in 13 different countries online when she published it online.
Charlotte Hugh | Dark Horses / Badass.gal
I'm currently a senior creative at Dark Horses working with clients such as Nissan UCL and Formula E, as well as Home Run, RugbyX and Wiggle.
Previous to this I worked for Kellogg’s One, a partnership between Digitas & Leo Burnett working on all the Kellogg’s brands (Crunchy Nut, Coco Pops, Pringles, etc) across ATL & BTL campaigns. As well as working with the wider Publicis Groupe on digital projects for GSK. Over the past 7 years in the creative industry I’ve worked on everything from big budget TV campaigns to small reactive social pieces. In-store activations to mobile experiences.
I rarely sit still, and when I’m not writing ads I’m working on my ‘side hustles’ including Badass.gal & The YCC.
Badass.gal is a platform my colleague Danny Pallett and I set up on International Women's Day 2018 after being fed up of brands, agencies and CEO's only putting gender equality at the top of their agenda for one day. We wanted to make it a top priority every day. So, that's just what we did. Sharing a different female #Badass creative every single day for 365 days. Badass.gal is now entering year three and we have featured over 450 badass women. The platform has become a recognised source for agencies to hire. We've become a daily go-to source of inspiration and we've hosted a bunch of great events all with the aim to up-skill our community, for free. A we enter our third year, Badass.gal is now, not only just a database of the best female creatives in the bizz, the community is growing and we're now hosting more events and creating more opportunities for women to be heard with the recent launch of the badass blog.
The Young Creative Council is a team of creatives from across the industry working to bridge the gap between industry and education. We host talks, workshops and events. More info here: http://youngcreativecouncil.com/
I'm also in the middle of co-writing a TV comedy, which was shortlisted by Film Market Hub to pitch at Raindance film festival.
Charlotte Schreurs | OMD Create
Before I started my professional career I ran an eating disorder support group on social media and face to face support groups.
My first job just out of University was in a charity which I opened my eyes and allowed me to see how many different people there were that always needed help and support. When I moved to London I started working at Rapier as an account exec, and worked by way up to a Senior Account Manager in 2 years landing myself at OMD Create via RAPP.
Personally I have completed a BA in Graphic Design, and a Masters in Global Marketing.
Radhika Patel | Capco
Radhika is the Product Manager for the Capco UK Digital Lab, overseeing a multi-disciplinary team who take generate modern, digital solutions for financial services client challenges using customer-led techniques coupled with cutting edge technology expertise.
Within 2.5 years, Radhika has gone from a new entrant in consulting to being a recognised leader at Capco who has made a significant impact to both clients and Capco itself
Radhika has worked on high profile projects from the get go. She was part of the team that won £30m of funding to build a banking platform for a leading UK retail bank which is now live in the market. She has since worked on developing new digital propositions, including a new youth banking proposition for a leading retail bank and a number of new open-banking propositions for a major payments provider.
Innovation has always been Radhika's passion. Prior to joining the industry she completed an industry-sponsored PhD in condensed matter and material physics at University College London. As part of her research, she developed instrumentation to study layered materials and was awarded over £10k from the Natural Environmental Research Council to investigate the commercial opportunity for the IP. She filed an initial patent for the instrumentation, and it has led to successful research papers from her research group.
While at UCL, Radhika set up the UCL Physics Postgraduate Society which she co-founded with a group of her peers. The community is still thriving 5 years later organising external speakers, multi-day hackathons and providing hundreds of students with the opportunity to share their research and collaborate.
Cheryl Laidlaw | Website in a Day
In 2015 I knew that I had to niche and that's when Website in a Day was born.
This came around because it was taking ages to get websites finished and I knew that sitting with the client would add so much value and make me stand out when most web designers would never leave their desks. Being visible was a massive part of the success of Website in a Day and the efficiency of getting it down in one day. The word soon got around and my diary has been booked ever since.
In 2017 I changed all my social media handles to London Web Girl. I wanted to stand out in this industry and I knew I had to be bold. My following on social media channels grew so much and as a result, londonwebgirl.com became a brand on its own.
in 2018 I decided to niche once more by focusing on private practices in a collaboration with Dr Cath and Gemma who also serve Doctors and Surgeons. We created Clinic Alchemy (http://www.clinic-alchemy.com) which practical advice for doctors to accelerate their private practice & Grow their personal brand and wealth.
In 2018 Liz and I created our youtube channel 'Work the Room' as we networked a lot we wanted to have a platform where we could review networking groups around London so we could help people to choose a tribe that represents them and actually gets them business. In 2019 we then set up the 'Work the Room' networking event ourselves using what we think are the best practices to network.
Karina Klimaszewski | Aon
I work at Aon in our Retirement Practice, advising clients on their pension strategy.
In addition to building strong relationships with my clients and helping them meet their objectives I am involved in Aon's DC thought leadership, in particular on DC member engagement and financial wellbeing. For example, I co-wrote this year's 2020 Aon DC Survey and regularly present at external events including Aon's 2019 Pension Conferences -which I love.
I also spend a lot of time getting to know and developing others.
Within Aon, I spend time implementing change to improve the working experience of colleagues. For example, organising speed mentoring, presenting at meetings to help others understand their strengths and weaknesses and mentoring colleagues. I also oversee apprenticeships for Aon's Retirement and Investment department in the UK (three school leaver and two graduate programmes), considering overall strategy and on-programme experience.
Externally, I helped to launch NextGen, a cross-industry committee aimed at encouraging the next generation of pensions professionals. We have over 300 members and as part of this I have chaired events and launched a cross-industry mentoring initiative. I also present at events encouraging diversity in STEM careers and in the actuarial profession.
I studied Maths, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics at Warwick University. I joined Aon as a graduate in 2010 and qualified as an actuary in 2013.