Lara Bernard | Accenture
I have been working in the Management Consultancy space since graduating from the University of Leeds after receiving a degree in Economics and Geography.
I joined Accenture in early 2015 as part of their consulting graduate scheme. From very early on, I got involved in a number of extra-curricular activities at the company centred around Inclusion & Diversity and sustainability. In regards to developing my functional skillset, I found myself in our excellent Talent and Organisation practice that focusses on the people-side of transformations. Within the practice I focus on behaviour change and adoption of data and analytics. Whilst in the graduate scheme, I joined a small steerco team of African and Caribbean analysts, assembled by the Managing Director of the graduate scheme to look at how we can attract and retain our black talent. This is a passion that I have carried through my career at Accenture where two years ago I took on the role of Accent on Ethnicity lead for our retail, FMCG and life sciences practice.
Whilst the day job is supporting our clients on the people side of transformations, the work that I can do in the I&D space at Accenture is an added bonus and something that I am truly passionate about.
Zainab Kwaw-Swanzy | Barclays
Zainab is a Digital Product manager with a passion for diversity & inclusion and inspiring the next generation of future leaders.
After graduating with a Masters in Mathematics in 2016, Zainab joined Barclays and underwent a two year graduate programme. She completed placements in Strategy, Product Management and Transformation, and worked on a number of projects relating to digital adoption and innovation. Upon completion of the graduate programme, Zainab secured a role within the Digital Banking team. Zainab is a Digital Product Manager within the Barclays Global Digital & Platforms team, focusing on introducing new and innovative features into the Barclays app via Open Banking technology. Zainab helped to set up and shape the Diversity and Inclusion agenda within the Digital Banking Team, and leads the Multicultural pillar, which aims to raise awareness and support colleagues from different backgrounds.
Zainab is Deputy chair of the Barclays Black Professionals Forum (UK), overseeing career and development initiatives. As part of this, she co-leads a sixth from mentoring programme for students from South East London, pairing them with a Barclays colleague as a mentor, and equipping them with skills needed to excel in any industry/career that they choose to pursue. The success of the mentoring programme was recognised when the Black Professionals Forum won the Inclusion Champion Category at the Global Barclays Citizenship and Diversity Awards 2019.
Whilst on the graduate programme, Zainab was a Barclays representative for Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) London, a non-profit organisation that prepares students from ethnic minority or low socioeconomic backgrounds for career success. She delivered talks and workshops over the two years providing an overview of Barclays to SEO candidates, many of whom went on to apply and subsequently secure places on the Barclays internship and graduate programmes.
Zainab was named in the EMpower Top 100 Future Leaders list 2020, and Powerful Media Top 100 Future Leaders 2016-17.
Qi Pan | GSK
Qi Pan is a Global Programmatic Manager on the Future Leaders Programme at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a world-leading healthcare company.
Born in China, Qi started her career at GSK on the Future Leaders Programme as the GDPR expert for Consumer Healthcare Tech, successfully rolling out compliant technologies to the GSK Consumer Healthcare sales teams across Europe in 2018. Following this she led a review of programmatic vendors, delivering a whitepaper on the final recommendation to senior leadership. She currently works within the Global Digital Media Strategy team, where she is the product owner for the innovative digital marketing technology TRGR. This utilises real-time data signals based on location to inform the ways in which brands buy media globally. Her ambition is to scale the product further within GSK markets whilst continually evolving the product to reach even more consumers in need. Qi also leads the implementation of GSK’s global brand safety strategy, defining the guidelines, tools and measurement.
She co-founded a series of thought leadership debates in GSK offices around the world, where external experts are invited to bring the benefit of their experience and inspire colleagues with transformative ways to benefit both consumers and patients. She also ran an internal ‘Dragons’ Den’, taking in ideas to solve significant business problems from colleagues all around the world, with the winners bringing their ideas to life with funding from sponsors of the programme. A “Let’s talk” champion, she gathered candid employee feedback around culture from a team of over 300 colleagues and presented the key themes to the CEO of GSK.
A staunch advocate of women in STEM, she has mentored students, organised an outreach day for Oxford Women in Computer Science and written an article for Spectra imparting her advice for overcoming imposter syndrome. In 2018, Qi published a chapter entitled ‘Privacy in the New Age of IoT’ in the Springer-published book Women Securing the Future with TIPPSS for IoT, alongside other eminent women around the world.
Qi Pan studied Biochemistry at the University of Oxford. For her research into the role of epigenetics in X chromosome inactivation, she was featured as a contributing author in Nature Communications.
Anima Verma | Consultant
Am a thorough Digital Transformation Leader with 20+ years of versatile IT experience in Project & Program Management, Service Delivery and Customer Success leadership.
With my graduation in Physics, Chemistry & Maths and Masters in Computer Applications, I was an inspiration to many local female aspirants back in India in 1997. My passion for technology was not just to master computer languages but to understand “Technology” holistically, hence my initial forming years in startups were pivotal in widening my aperture to understand the IT business, from pre-sales to support and marketing to customer success. I grew from a developer to Project Manager to lead international web and online projects in ASP/.Net/C#/ PHP/Java/Networking broadening my technical and team management skills.
My versatile and in-depth experience of delivering customer projects and team management got me headhunted in General Electric entity in 2005, to resurrect a failing GE service desk business suffering from employee turnover. With my empathetic and people-centric approach, I quickly became a trusted ally and partner to the business and stakeholders, which helped me climb up the career ladder to lead a major outsourcing function and flagship HR Shared Services program. winning many awards and accolades.
After a short career break to enjoy motherhood, I joined Microsoft in 2011 as a Technical Account Manager and progressed my career to establish myself as a role model in enhancing customer satisfaction and strategies to collaborate with various business models utilizing the power of technology and cloud.
Currently, am on a small break to re-energize and re-fuel towards the next phase of career where my purpose of closing the gender gap and amplifying women potential will drive my next role.
Kassy Cho | Journalist, Social & Audience Strategist
Kassy Cho is an award-winning independent journalist and audience and social strategist pioneering an Instagram-first approach to growing young audiences.
She was previously an Audience Development Editor at QuickTake by Bloomberg and BuzzFeed News, where she made the @world Instagram – which she single-handedly ran – the fastest growing news account on Instagram in 2018. Innovating an Instagram-first strategy to grow the BuzzFeed World brand across digital platforms, she grew @world organically by more than 1,500%, from 50,000 followers to more than 785,000 followers, in just over a year. Her work on @world led to her partnership with Instagram for International Women’s Day 2019. She was awarded both the Silver and People’s Choice Lovie Award in 2019 for Best Use of Stories for her “#WCW: Badass Women You Should Know About” story series on @world. Kassy is known for her reporting on tech and online culture in Asia Pacific and is responsible for popularising Chinese memes such as “Karma’s a bitch” and the Four Generations challenge in the West. She has worked with companies including Amnesty International, Flo, Doha Debates and Loftwork.
Patricia Keating | Tech Manchester
I am currently the executive director of Tech Manchester, an incubator for early stage tech startups in the North West.
Our primary purpose is to help founders reduce the costs of launching their businesses and to help them find ways to operate that are both smarter and leaner. This is provided by a host of support initiatives, including business skills workshops, a structured mentoring programme, non-executive director development and backed up by a variety of online resources.
Since Tech Manchester's inception in 2017 I have been striving towards our goal to develop a greater Manchester and contribute to the city’s vision of being a leading European tech hub. Now in its third year, Tech Manchester’s mentoring programme supports hundreds of startups in the Manchester area, and collaborates on a mentoring level with key stakeholders including The Growth Company, Salford University, and Manchester Entrepreneurs Student programme.
This year has also seen the launch of a project that I am especially passionate about. Working in collaboration with Tech Equity, Tech Manchester is delivering ‘Women in Linux’, a social mobility career programme for women living in some of the most underprivileged wards in Greater Manchester.
Prior to this I worked for Regus in Northern Ireland for nine years, working my way up to become area manager, running two business centres of £1.5 million turnover. In 2015 I launched a startup, Wedoo, a personal support and destination company. Myself and my co-founder bootstrapped the business for two years, building an ecommerce portal to manage the business and its customers.
It was an invaluable experience into the challenges that entrepreneurs face and the types of support they need and has fed the approach I’ve taken to building Tech Manchester. The earliest stages in the life cycle of a business are the most under resourced but need the greatest support. That’s where Tech Manchester comes in.
Harriet Glen | Crossrail
Harriet began her transport career in 2013 after completing a geography degree at Durham University and gaining an MSc in Transport Planning at UCL.
After a successful stint working across various departments across Transport for London, from bus network planning to building the strategic case for Crossrail 2, she has since taken on a leadership role completing Europe’s largest infrastructure project as Head of Programme Close Out for Crossrail.
Harriet is also passionate about driving diversity within the transport industry. She was elected as Chair of Transport for London’s Women’s Network Group from 2016-2018 and won the EveryWoman ‘Industry Champion’ Award in 2018 for her voluntary efforts promoting and retaining women in the transport industry. Harriet is also passionate about mentoring others and has served as an advisory member of The Girl's Network, a charity that supports mentorship and advancement of young women from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Lucy Maddin-Uden | Keltbray Group
As Group Strategic Project Manager at Keltbray, Lucy is responsible for delivering & implementing strategy for group-wide projects, ensuring joined-up thinking and a tactical approach to major opportunities.
Currently focusing on Heathrow Expansion, with a remint to assist, challenge & advise Board Directors in strategic & tactical thought processes.
Lucy has worked at Keltbray Group for over 5 years, beginning her career in the construction industry as Group Business Development Manager. Following 2 successful years in this role, Lucy saw an opportunity to thrive in a position that spoke to a direct business need. This new role was & is the first of its kind at Keltbray & provides a singular strategic approach across 20+ business units, offering cohesive & integrated delivery, right from inception.
Lucy has a 10 year background in Event & Hospitality Management working for clients including Google & Samsung.
Elisabeth Pywell | CBRE
Following a stroke at the age of 19 whilst undertaking her undergraduate degree and inspired by her Great Great Aunt Alice Hawkins (a leading suffragette among the boot and shoe machinists of Leicester) Beth has dedicated herself to living life to the fullest and ensuring equal opportunities for all within Planning and the wider property sector.
After the completion of her undergraduate and master’s degrees Beth started at CBRE in September 2017, where she has since become a Chartered member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and been promoted to Planner.
As a Chartered Town Planner Beth has been involved in a number of large-scale planning applications, including the High-Speed Interchange Rail Station at Solihull and is also the Planning client lead for one of the largest operators of restaurants, pubs and bar chains in the UK.
Within CBRE Beth also sits on the Junior Board and is the regional chair of the CBRE Birmingham Women’s Network, through which she has organised multiple successful events including a number of charity collaborations with Suited for Success, career engagement events and female-focused panel discussions. Beth is also a Committee Member of the West Midlands Branch of Women in Planning, an organisation dedicated to championing gender equality in the planning and wider property industry. Through which she has co-organised multiple events and chaired a seminar event for over 70 attendees.
Alongside her work within the Property sector Beth is an Ambassador for the Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital, with a specific focus on raising funds for their Woodland House appeal (a purpose built baby-loss bereavement centre), and a co-chair of a women in business roundtable discussion group called eight@8, who gather monthly to discuss topical cross-industry subjects and develop relevant skills through peer to peer learning.
In her personal life Beth is an enthusiastic Cellist, amateur runner and has just started tap dancing.
Simona Stanynaite | Transport for London
My career started during University years when, due to parent’s financial struggles, I had to juggle full time studies and work on a 32h/week minimum work contract.
Due to my persistence, resilience and time management, I’ve successfully graduated with a 2:1 BA degree in Politics with International Relations. Even when working during university years, I have always sought and have been awarded leadership positions – be it performing the role of a front of house leader on duty at Pret A Manger or training to become a manager at busiest Caffe Nero in the area.
After working briefly in the localisation industry, I have applied to and been successful in joining extremely competitive TfL’s Project Management graduate scheme. Whilst on the programme, I have worked on diverse portfolio of projects including the £1bn Silvertown Tunnel, Central Line Improvements Programme (CLIP), property management and retail projects. Leading teams as a young female graduate has been challenging due to preconceptions that exist around younger people but my drive and persistence proved to be working and brought the results despite my non-technical background. I have been recognized as an Emerging Leader within the company and rolled off to a Project Manager role.
After rolling-off, I have been leading a portfolio of retail construction projects across in London zones 1-2. The projects aim to identify and create new commercial space within underground stations in order to increase non-fare revenue for the company. Managing retail construction projects in an operational railway environment safely and without disruption to the customers is a challenging, however, extremely rewarding work as it helps improve customer experience within stations and allow TfL to be a self-sufficient organisation.
During my career, I have quickly realized that for TfL to be successful and self-sufficient, it is not enough to deliver projects successfully myself. It is crucial to enable my colleagues to be able to do the same by changing the way we work. For this reason, I have volunteered in multiple departmental initiatives and projects to improve the way projects are managed within my Renewals & Enhancements (R&E) directorate whilst still managing retail projects. I have become a leader for R&E 2020 ‘Scope’ workstream where I worked on improving the way we scope our projects as well as has been selected to lead on ‘Optimum Delivery Model’ project aimed at identifying evidence based delivery model(s) best suited for the construction projects R&E delivers.
Being extremely passionate about improving the way we work, I have recently been selected to set up and run a new portfolio of change projects as ‘R&E 2021’ full time alongside Senior Project Manager. This includes working with Heads of Delivery in identifying the issues present in the directorate that need addressing, designing improvement actions and implementing them.
I believe that there is still much to improve in the way construction projects are delivered within R&E, TFL and the industry as a whole. I feel excited about the prospects of leading this much-needed change.