Hettle Vasani | Coty Inc.
Hettle Vasani, a commercially astute Board and C-level Executive Assistant with fourteen years of experience in the professional services industry within private practice law firms and in-house legal departments for FMCG companies.
Working her way up the ladder from Administrator, Personal Assistant, Executive Assistant to most recently Executive Business Partner. With a proven track record of diverse experiences serving international business leaders to help maximise time, increase efficiency, productivity, and bottom line within multinational organisations.
Having graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree in LLB Busines Law and completing law school at City, University of London, with a postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (LPC), Hettle began her career as a Legal Advocate and spent the early part of her career representing the world's leading financial institutions in County court hearings across England and Wales. She then transitioned to working as a Legal Administrator at LPC Law, where her passion grew for working as an administrative professional. Hettle found she could leverage both her legal and business skills gained from her qualifications by adding value to her executive and organisation, whilst working in a support role. Hettle expanded her career holding several PA/EA positions at some of the world’s top leading global law firms and multinational corporations, these included Allen & Overy, Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC) LLP, and Burberry based in London.
Hettle currently holds the position of Executive Business and Legal Operations Partner, reporting to the Chief Legal Officer and acting interim Chief of Staff to the CEO at Coty Inc., a global leader in the Beauty industry.
Hettle is a full-time working mum of two boys, aged 10 and 4, who continually worked throughout her career, balancing work and motherhood. She aims to be a role model to her boys.
Chantalle Sullivan | Industrial Construction (Sussex) Ltd
I joined the ICS team in 2011, just a few months after leaving college as Receptionist/Administrator, supporting all departments with their administrative requirements.
My role included general reception duties - first point of contact for visitors, organising refreshments, answering incoming calls and dealing with mail distribution, as my role progressed this lead to various accounting tasks including cross checking Invoices against purchase orders and entering onto accounting system, credit card and petty cash reconciliation being added, along with management of the company fleet vehicles and staff annual leave/ sickness.
After the first year I began to take on some ordering materials on behalf of the Contracts Team.
In 2015 I was promoted to Contracts Assistant assisting Contracts Managers with running sites, placing orders and coordinating deliveries across all live sites, I also took on the Plant Hire Management, Sub Contractor payments and Project Guarantees.
I progressed to PA to the Operations Manager in April 2019, working alongside the Operations Manager with running of the Contracts Department and labour management. My role now includes a number of responsibilities ranging from obtaining quotes, placing orders and coordinating deliveries, management of plant hire to various accounting tasks, training co-ordination and heading up the Marketing Team.
As I look back over the last 10 years I have seen growth in my confidence, this has grown with my understanding of the job roles, the company and industry.
Philippa Allen | Epic Games Animation UK Limited
Graduating from the University of Central Lancashire with a degree in hospitality, I relocated back home to Burton upon Trent as an Assistant Manager of the local ten pin bowling alley in Derby.
I moved back to the North West a year later as an Assistant Manager for a 12-screen multiplex cinema. 10 months later I was made redundant and fell into my first admin role as Legal Assistant to the Company Secretary at Swinton Insurance. I stayed with Swinton Insurance for 16 years, during which time, I made Manchester my new home, met my husband, got married, had a baby, went from Legal Assistant to Legal and Compliance Assistant to Personal Assistant to the Head of Legal to Executive Assistant to the Chief Finance Officer, Chief Risk Officer and People Director.
After 16 years, I decided to take a leap of faith and gain new experiences within the Charity Sector working as the Executive Assistant for the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer of a local North West International Humanitarian Charity, although it was a short contract I learnt a lot and the experience gave me the confidence to take another leap of faith and apply for an EA role in the world of Technology. I joined Cubic Motion the leading provider of automated performance-driven facial animation to the global video games market in 2018 as Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer. In March 2020 10 days before UK lockdown, we were purchased by Epic Games Inc and although my job title has changed, I still provide support for the senior leadership team in what is now a very different working environment to a two years ago.
When I am not organising people and meetings, I love horse riding, baking, encouraging and supporting local people as they begin their journey into running as a qualified England Athletics Run Leader.
Kallie Halai | Arup
With over 15 years of experience working as an Assistant. I currently at Arup as a Team Co-ordinator and PA to the Group Leader of BE3.
Prior to that, I've worked as a Personal Assistant to the Head of Consumer, Healthcare, Education & Business Services and the Director Strategy for Healthcare & Education, Africa & South Asia at CDC Group Plc, UK’s Development Finance Institute. I'm an active participant in initiatives, driving for a carbon-neutral working environment in the organisation; in addition, writing articles, project managing various internal projects; creating and managing the Communication Plan for an internal network.
Prior to CDC Group, I worked as an Assistant to the Board Director, Group Head of Strategy & Managing Director, Head of Family Services at Salamanca Group.
I have an HND in Business and Marketing at London Guildhall University and BA Honours in Business Enterprise at London Metropolitan University (formerly known as London Guildhall University). I've recently completed the Mini MBA for Senior & Executive Assistants with Your Excellency.
Memberships: Executive Personal Assistant Association (EPAA) and Institute of Administrative Management (IAM)
Shruti Saujani | England and Wales Cricket Board
Shruti Saujani is the Senior Manager - Cities & Volunteers at the ECB. She delivers a key part of their city programme linked to their South Asian Action Plan, namely engaging and recruiting 2,000 South Asian females into volunteering roles, along with developing crickets game wide volunteer strategy.
Shruti's lifelong passion is to create equal opportunities in the game and she dedicated her dissertation to understanding the barriers that women from South Asian backgrounds face in sport. Her dedication for a more equal playing ground in cricket has seen her appear on the BBC, Sky and a number of other media titles. Shruti has grown and developed her leadership skills in diverse commercial roles and has also been recognised for bringing culture change in the automotive industry.
Priyaneet Kainth | GlaxoSmithKline
I am currently the Global Diversity Equity and Inclusion Manager for Consumer Healthcare, GSK.
My responsibility is to co-create and embed the DEI strategy for Consumer Healthcare for over 22,000 employees. I graduated with a degree in Computing for Business and started my career at GSK as an IT industrial placement student at a manufacturing site in Coleford. Once I graduated, I worked for Deutsche Bank where I held various roles within Tech including Production Support, Test Manager and Business Analyst. In 2018, I returned to GSK’s Maidenhead manufacturing site where I worked as the Site Tech Delivery Lead, followed by working in the Tech Transformation Team as an Agile Coach for two years. I supported the Tech and Business functions with instilling an agility mindset and working with teams and their leaders to deliver value early and often. It also involved coaching, training, facilitating, teaching, mentoring teams and individuals, and helping them move from having a fixed to a growth mindset. I was the co-lead for the UK Disability Employee Resource Networks at both Deutsche Bank and GSK, as well as the Health and Well-being Champion for Consumer Healthcare Tech.
I am qualified Personal, Business and Agile Coach (ICF), I am an ambitious and driven individual and with mission to elevate DEI within organisations and continually work on ways we can better understand what this means for leadership and organisations’ success. I believe understanding the intersectionality of people by providing them with an open and safe environment to explore and to be themselves is fundamental for happy, successful, and driven employees in the workplace. I seek opportunities for continuous development, and I have a keen level of curiosity to understand people, their cultures, values, beliefs, and experiences. I think outside the box, a strong problem solver, an energiser and I am confident and articulate in what I want to do and achieve. I am the voice for others that have not yet discovered theirs and I share my views in a constructive and empathetic way that can challenge the status quo. I truly believe diversity is the key strength to an organisation, and inclusion is the way to retain diverse employees. My personal experiences of living with an invisible disability within the South Asian community has brought many additional challenges to my daily life, including day-to-day management of my disability and leading the fulfilling life that I want. I have overcome challenges and broken-down stigmas within culture, society, employment and life in general, and it has made me more resilient, compassionate and driven to wanting to make a change for those around me and the next generation.
Annika Allen | Barclays
Annika Allen works at the vibrant intersection of communications and diversity and inclusion building communications, strategies, developing initiatives, interventions and practices to empower others to build their capabilities and maximise their performance in an inclusive environment that fosters their success.
Annika currently works in Global Diversity & Inclusion at Barclays where she wrote and project managed Barclays inaugural Diversity & Inclusion Annual Report, led on the creation of the Power of Allies Toolkit, which is a popular internal resource to help colleagues take conscious, positive steps to make everyone feel that they belong. She also recognised that conversations around various topics on diversity, equity and inclusion are difficult, but having difficult conversations is vital to the success of all workplaces so she designed Courageous Conversations - a global monthly thematic webcast and podcast series, produced to share meaningful dialogue and to empower and encourage colleagues to listen to and learn from each other, and to speak up and challenge in thoughtful, constructive ways. She also drove forward the creation of a new D&I Hub and was involved in the Race at Work taskforce creating the internal site to engage colleagues on Barclay's Race at Work action plan.
Prior to working at Barclays, Annika’s communications background led her to a career that spanned journalism, content and TV production. She worked on entertainment and reality formats, on shows that appeared on the BBC, Channel 4 to MTV.
Annika is an award-winning speaker, broadcaster and podcast host and is passionate about championing diversity, empowering women and sharing and amplifying stories from underrepresented voices, breaking down barriers and helping others to fulfil their potential.
If that isn’t enough, she also co-founded The Black Magic Awards - an annual awards ceremony that celebrates, honours the changemakers and the trailblazers in the Black community and provides a platform for stories of triumph and shinning a light on Black role models. This event creates a space for people to see what’s possible and inspires the next generation of talent. She also sits on the advisory board for UK Black Business Week and the Birmingham Black Business Show.
Nisha Long | Citywire
Dr Nisha Long is the Head of ESG and Cross-Border Investment Research at Citywire where she is involved in fund selection and analyses the performance of over 16,000 fund managers globally.
Joining Citywire a year after completing her Doctorate at Imperial College, London, she has 15 years’ experience in fund and manager analysis. Her investment commentary and research features in Citywire’s media and the international press, including The Times, Bloomberg and Handelsblatt. Nisha regularly presents to the international fund selection community at conferences held worldwide on investment topics such as new fund selection techniques and the latest developments in sustainable investing.
She spearheads Citywire’s annual Alpha Female report which shines a light on gender diversity issues in the fund management industry and presents unique performance data to show why a diverse team can enhance performance in fund management. Nisha is a member of Citywire’s inclusion and diversity executive committee and is a Certified ESG Analyst (CESGA) from the European federation of financial analysts society. She also holds the CFA UK Diploma in Investment Management (ESG), and the CFA Institute’s Certificate in ESG Investing.
Aurelie Herrero | Bloomberg
I grew up in Cancun, Mexico with a very limited landscape of what I could achieve, the most common careers choices involved tourism and communication and this was not something I was interested in, I had a dream of going into the corporate world.
I wanted to leave my small hometown and find my own passion. After turning 18, in 2010, I moved to Paris as I have some family there that welcomed me in their home. I started working in a fast-food restaurant hosting, cleaning bathrooms, cooking and then moving to the cash register. Whilst working in this restaurant, I started studying my bachelor in International Languages and Trade at the Sorbonne University. Through the 3 years of that degree I worked and studied at the same time. I worked in Sales, in restaurants, in shops and I babysat. I then had the opportunity to study 2 Master degrees, one in International Trade and another one in International Business and Exchanges. During the later, I had a class in Human Resources that sparked my interest in a future career in this sector.
In order to graduate from my Masters degree, I had to complete a 6 months internship in 2015. As a child, I've always dreamed of visiting and living in London so my research for this internship focused in opportunities in this city. I was lucky enough to be selected as a Summer Intern in Bloomberg as a Project Coordinator in the support team. After completing the internship, I was offered a full time role in the team. Since I had a strong interest in moving to HR in the future, I used my time in the Support team to network and learn more about the opportunities in the HR team. In 2017, I moved to HR as a Talent Coordinator, during this role I had the opportunity to learn about the candidate experience, the business needs, the importance of recruitment and the strategy behind meeting targets. With the help of my peers and managers as I was able to develop my skills and my knowledge. I had the opportunity to do a secondment in 2018 in Singapore that help me gain confidence in my knowledge and skillset. After this experience, and as I continue developing as a senior Talent Coordinator, I started taking opportunities to interview, screen and analyze data that will then help the strategy meetings. In 2020, I was given a secondment as recruiter whilst a colleague was out on maternity leave. This helped me ground myself in the recruiter role and continue developing my skillset. Finally in 2021 I was given the full time role as a recruiter at Bloomberg covering our User Support areas.
Through the years in the company, I've been part of different projects such as leading our Early Engagement programmes like our Insight Weeks, co-leading our Summer Internship and creating and managing our Bloomberg Launch programme. The later has now been recognized globally within the organization and has had a fantastic impact in our recruitment efforts, increasing the diverse representation in our entry-level roles.
Cheyenne Clark | Zone
Cheyenne graduated from sixth form college in 2019 with A levels in ICT, German and English Literature and Language.
She joined Zone’s first apprenticeship scheme at the end of 2019 after switching over from her part-time job, which included interior designing with 3D technology as well as selling products to customers.
As one of three apprentices - and the first female apprentice - at Zone, Cheyenne spent 18 months completing multiple projects to go towards her apprenticeship portfolio, including a Content Editor Toggle with JavaScript, React, HTML and CSS and a CRUD application using C#, MySQL and GitHub GraphQL API. Cheyenne completed two exams and was awarded certificates in BCS Level 4 Diploma in Software Development Methodologies and HTML5 Application Development Fundamentals. Alongside this, Cheyenne took responsibility for client work with Genomics England and BMW. She now has a level 4 Software Developer qualification.
For Genomics England, Cheyenne worked in an agile method to build a new system for the NHS to find and order genetic tests for patients. Currently, Cheyenne takes leadership of building and maintaining emails that are sent out by the 150+ BMW and MINI retailers in the UK. She also builds digital display banners for BMW and MINI, that are seen by millions of people on websites including Gumtree and The Daily Mail, and Rolls Royce that are shared in the UK and across the globe.
Cheyenne has used her own experiences and knowledge to help others entering the industry: sharing her story with new Zone apprentices, being a first-time interviewer for four candidates of the next apprenticeship programme and recently being invited back to her college to deliver a talk at their Digital Futures Conference Event.
She has written several blog posts for Medium and LinkedIn on her experiences at Zone. Cheyenne volunteered to organise, plan and present a live-streamed YouTube talk as part of the Code First Girls MOOC series on behalf of Zone and taught over 300 women to code for free. Cheyenne was also involved in a roundtable discussion for Zone’s Women in Digital network discussing her experience with mentoring and providing valuable advice. The event has been promoted on Zone’s marketing channels with over 28,000 subscriptions. Cheyenne has been an active advocate for Google’s I Am Remarkable initiative within the company to empower her colleagues.