Vanessa is one of the UK’s most well-networked women and has provided keynotes on a variety of career related topics for over 500 companies worldwide. Vanessa is also one of the UK’s most prominent figures in gender equality and often provides guidance and consultancy to both government and corporate organisations who are seeking to attract, develop and retain their female talent. Vanessa was awarded her OBE in June 2018 for her services to women and the economy.

At the height of her successful 25 year career in the financial services, Vanessa launched the award winning WeAreTheCity.com in 2008 as a vehicle to help women progress in their careers. WeAreTheCity.com now has over 120,000 members and provides resources/conferences/awards/jobs to women across the UK. Vanessa is the also the -founder of UK wide diversity forum Gender Networks. Gender Networks (formerly The Network of Networks) brings together diversity leaders from 85 cross sector firms to share best practice on a quarterly basis.

Vanessa is also the author of the book “Heels of Steel: Surviving and Thriving in the Corporate World” which tracks her career and shares 13 chapters of tips to succeed in the workplace.Over the past twelve years, she has accumulated over 20 industry awards, including Women in Banking & Finance’s Champion for Women, Financial News Top 100 Rising Star, The International Alliance for Women Top 100 Women globally & Brummells Top 30 London Entrepreneurs. In 2015 Vanessa was in GQ UK’s Top 100 Connected Women and the Evening Standard’s 1000 Most Influential Londoners. Vanessa is a regular guest on TV and radio and also sits on the Government Digital Services advisory board.

Vanessa is also the Pearly Queen of The City of London, a tradition that has been in her family for over 100 years. She is an avid charity worker and sits on the board for Cancer Research UK as one of its Women of Influence. Vanessa also sits on the Centenary Action Group founded by Dr Helen Pankhurst CBE.

Vanessa is one of the UK’s most well-networked women and has provided keynotes on a variety of career related topics for over 500 companies worldwide. Vanessa is also one of the UK’s most prominent figures in gender equality and often provides guidance and consultancy to both government and corporate organisations who are seeking to attract, develop and retain their female talent. Vanessa was awarded her OBE in June 2018 for her services to women and the economy.

At the height of her successful 25 year career in the financial services, Vanessa launched the award winning WeAreTheCity.com in 2008 as a vehicle to help women progress in their careers. WeAreTheCity.com now has over 120,000 members and provides resources/conferences/awards/jobs to women across the UK. Vanessa is the also the -founder of UK wide diversity forum Gender Networks. Gender Networks (formerly The Network of Networks) brings together diversity leaders from 85 cross sector firms to share best practice on a quarterly basis.

Vanessa is also the author of the book “Heels of Steel: Surviving and Thriving in the Corporate World” which tracks her career and shares 13 chapters of tips to succeed in the workplace.Over the past twelve years, she has accumulated over 20 industry awards, including Women in Banking & Finance’s Champion for Women, Financial News Top 100 Rising Star, The International Alliance for Women Top 100 Women globally & Brummells Top 30 London Entrepreneurs. In 2015 Vanessa was in GQ UK’s Top 100 Connected Women and the Evening Standard’s 1000 Most Influential Londoners. Vanessa is a regular guest on TV and radio and also sits on the Government Digital Services advisory board.

Vanessa is also the Pearly Queen of The City of London, a tradition that has been in her family for over 100 years. She is an avid charity worker and sits on the board for Cancer Research UK as one of its Women of Influence. Vanessa also sits on the Centenary Action Group founded by Dr Helen Pankhurst CBE.

Edwina Dunn OBE is a British entrepreneur and businesswoman, best known for co-founding dunnhumby, a customer data science company, with her husband Clive Humby in 1989. The company became known for its work with Tesco, using customer data to create the Tesco Clubcard loyalty program, which revolutionized the retail industry.

Dunn and her husband sold dunnhumby to Tesco in 2011 and she subsequently founded Starcount, a social media insights company, with her business partner Clive Humby. Starcount provides insights to businesses based on analysis of social media data.

Dunn has also been actively involved in promoting women and encouraging more diversity in the tech industry. In 2018, she co-founded The Female Lead, a non-profit organisation that aims to showcase women’s stories and provide role models for the next generation of girls. The organisation has produced a book and a documentary film, both titled “The Female Lead” which highlight the stories of successful women from various fields.

Nitu is a strategic business development leader at Accenture Plc, based out of London currently leading the Edge practice across Europe, a total of 63 countries.

With over 20 years of global telecoms and technology company experience stretching across IoT, Edge Computing, Big Data, AI, Unified Communications, Connectivity, Managed Services and regularly managing business units with revenue lines >$1 billion per annum. Nitu has been able to address the needs of both the Private and Public sectors within Enterprise. In addition to this, Nitu has executed pre & post M&As, turning business units back to growth whilst building strong empowered trusting teams.

Nitu’s teams have helped customers transition into end to end digitally enabled businesses through the integration of Internet of Things & Cloud enabled solutions, operating across Finance, Insurance, Manufacturing, Automotive, Transportation, Utilities, Healthcare, Education, Research and Government verticals. This arena covers hardware manufacturers, software development companies, access through 5G development and working with Start-ups and VCs.

Nitu has also been a Start-up business advisor to Outlier Ventures, TLA and DoThings, a board member at Barclays Corporate customer advisory, a member and advisor at CBI, influencing government policies for technology based businesses, Novartis UKI, an Exec Sponsor of the Women@HPE network UKI and Women in Business at London Business School.

Nitu has been awarded Top 35 Females Award at Vodafone Group Enterprise, The World’s Top 50 Edge Computing Influencers, 2019 award for her work in technology and ranked world’s top 5 Edge Computing Women of the Year 2022.

Georgie Dickins works with the titans of the global financial markets as a thinking catalyst. She probes and invigorates their experience, thoughts and dreams to expand their minds in support of them making an even bigger impact.

Georgie supports a broad network of leaders, entrepreneurs and visionaries through her work in leadership development and as a C-suite executive coach. She is passionate about sharing insights and wisdom from the very top and has formed CEO Circles and Women In Leadership mastermind groups, bringing together and inspiring the next generation of leaders, visionaries, and entrepreneurs.

Georgie is the co-founder and Managing Director of Cajetan, a boutique business specializing in transformational leadership. Based in Suffolk, Georgie splits her time between home, London and New York.

Semsi is PwC’s Technology Talent Leader in the UK. She is an Audit Partner and specialises in running complex global audits, specifically leading the systems, controls and data part of the audit. Semsi was shortlisted in 2020 for the Women of the Year Award in the Women in Accounting and Finance Awards.

Semsi is a people leader and passionate about providing everybody with an equal opportunity to succeed at the workplace. At PwC we respect and value differences. We know that when people from different backgrounds, and with different points of view work together, we create the most value – for our clients, our people and society.

Our mission is for women to be equal participants in creating and developing the new tech businesses, products and services that shape our world. We provide opportunities for Women in Tech to learn, develop and support one another through a strong and engaged community. We have a structured programme of initiatives and regular touch-points in place throughout the year to connect, share experiences, support one another, learn, develop and progress whilst linking in with our wider Tech Talent strategy. We believe that increasing the number of women in tech will add essential diversity to our sector and help inspire the next generation.

Georgie Dickins works with the titans of the global financial markets as a thinking catalyst. She probes and invigorates their experience, thoughts and dreams to expand their minds in support of them making an even bigger impact.

Georgie supports a broad network of leaders, entrepreneurs and visionaries through her work in leadership development and as a C-suite executive coach. She is passionate about sharing insights and wisdom from the very top and has formed CEO Circles and Women In Leadership mastermind groups, bringing together and inspiring the next generation of leaders, visionaries, and entrepreneurs.

Georgie is the co-founder and Managing Director of Cajetan, a boutique business specializing in transformational leadership. Based in Suffolk, Georgie splits her time between home, London and New York.

Christina Scott joined OVO at the end of 2021 as OVO Energy’s Chief Product and Technology officer. She leads OVO’s Tech and Product teams to provide intelligent energy technology solutions to support the decarbonisation of UK homes.

Christina has more than 25 years experience in technology and 20 years in the media industry, having previously worked at News UK, BBC, FT and ITV Digital, specialising in digital transformation and leading high performing teams.

Christina has been recognised within a number of industry awards including the CIO of the Year awards and the Women in IT awards and has worked throughout her career on diversity initiatives within technology.

Nicola Courtney is a Managing Director of Morgan Stanley and Head of Governance, Regulatory Response and Client Engagement for Technology.

Nicola joined the Firm in 2005 as an Associate in Technology based in London, and has served in a number of risk roles across the Division. She was named Vice President in 2007, Executive Director in 2011 and Managing Director in 2023.

Previously, Nicola worked for IBM Global Services from 1997 to 2005.

Nicola holds a degree in Government and Politics from the University of Essex and resides in Essex with her husband and 2 children.

Data is everywhere and it’s one of our most valuable assets. After leading Sky’s Data Governance UK & ROI function Ciara’s focus is now in Sky’s data regulatory & change management space embedding the right data governance practices across Europe. A strategic thinker, she sets and manages expectations ensuring Sky continues to drive value from its data and builds invaluable trust with customers giving them more of what they love.

But that’s only part of it. As a people focused leader Ciara drives change from the front through positive messaging and focused coaching so people are motivated and feel inspired. An advocate for individuality – it doesn't matter if someone wears suits all day long or is tattooed head to toe - Ciara always encourages people to be themselves and be comfortable in themselves. So this year in addition to the day job, she’s stepped up to lead the people focused programme to drive better culture, balance and growth within Sky Data. Ciara believes everyone should remain curious, continue to learn, to teach and to grow; she encourages those around her to push outside their comfort zones, be open minded, and share ideas and knowledge.

Finally, Ciara is a leader in Girlguiding and is passionate about reinforcing the belief that girls can do anything they put their minds to, as can we all.

Oana Beattie is a Director in the EY Data and Analytics practice and leads data and digital transformation for the Financial Services sector in the UK. Oana is deeply passionate about leveraging data, AI, technology and human ingenuity to enable clients unlock value, make a positive impact on society and create a better working world. Over the last 20 years Oana has worked with some of the biggest FS brands in the UK Insurance and Banking sectors driving business value through data, AI and innovation.

DIPA KAPADIA is a Managing Director and Head of International Technology and Operations Control. Dipa drives oversight and adherence to Bank & Regulator risk policies and standards for Regional, Board and Legal Entity risk routines. She also leads pro-active risk management including Country Risk, Control Assessments, Technology Resiliency and Business Continuity.

Dipa joined Merrill Lynch in June 2002 and spent the first 20 years of her career in Application Support, initially as an Application Support Analyst for Derivatives Technology and increasing leadership responsibilities including promotion to Head of Application Support for Equities for Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) region. In 2018, Dipa was promoted to Managing Director and expanded her leadership role to lead Global Markets EMEA Application Support.

Dipa graduated in 1997 with a 1st Class Hons Bachelors Degree in Business Mathematics and Statistics from London School of Economics.

Dipa currently resides in London, England, with her husband and two children. Dipa is a member of Bank of America EMEA Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) committee representing Technology and Operations.

Dipa believes in the power of mentoring and is proud to mentor colleagues preparing for and returning from maternity leave and through formal programs including Cherie Blair Foundation and Code First: Girls.

Wies Bratby is a top-lawyer-turned-HR-Director-turned-coach-slash-consultant, who recently returned to her native Netherlands, after working and living across the globe for nearly a decade, the last 6 years in Switzerland. Through her coaching practice Women In Negotiation and her podcast “WINNING with Wies Bratby”, she helps corporate women to pro-actively navigate and negotiate their careers. Wies is also a sough-after keynote speaker and workshop trainer, inspiring women to ask for everything they want, need and deserve in their careers and lives.

As a career civil servant Cheryl has held a variety of leadership posts; gaining operational insight, spearheading transformational change and developing an in depth knowledge of customers.

Cheryl holds the vision of simplified experiences for colleagues and customers driven by life events and other user needs, regardless of channel or service line. Enabling safe, efficient, inclusive and consistent journeys across DWP. Enabling those services to operate securely with proportionate, tailored Identity and Trust solutions that meet both customer and service needs, whilst ensuring that the person, the data and the transaction are protected.

Cheryl is passionate about lifting other Women in Digital & Identity.

Birgit Neu is a senior DEI advisor and the former Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion at HSBC, with a broad career spanning multiple sectors including digital, retail, publishing and financial services.

She has been named in LinkedIn’s Top 10 UK Voices for Gender Equity 2022, WeAreTheCity’s Trailblazers Top 50 in 2021, Top 20 Diversity Professionals in Industry 2020 by the Global Diversity List, and was Head of Diversity of the Year at the 2019 European Diversity Awards.

Birgit has held leadership committee roles on a variety of diversity networks and campaigns, and is a regular contributor to thought leadership and advisory groups across different aspects of DEI and ESG for leading organisations worldwide.

Sophie is Group Director for META UK & Ireland. Sophie joined META from Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), where she was a member of the executive committee for Boots. She has over 30 years executive leadership experience spanning Marketing, E-Commerce, Strategy and Digital Transformation; including working in all things www since 1995.

A feminist since 1971, Sophie is a passionate champion of women’s health in the workplace and hosts a podcast aiming to break down taboos and stereotypes called Courage Is Contagious and in 2023 was named a Linked In Leading Voice on Gender Equity.

Sophie regularly speaks about embracing a life outside of the traditional expectations of society and helping to build a future where everyone has the greatest freedom of all – the choice to lead a life of their own choosing.

Ann Hiatt is a best selling author, executive consultant, speaker, and investor. She is a Silicon Valley veteran with 15 years experience reporting directly to CEOs Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Eric Schmidt (Google/Alphabet).

Ann consults with CEOs and their leadership teams across the globe on c-suite optimization. She has worked with executive teams at organizations such as Netflix, Starbucks, AWS, Google, Amazon, Prudential, Lockheed Martin, Siemens and more.

Ann has also been a featured speaker at major conferences such as SXSW in Austin, Texas, The Growth Faculty in Sydney, Australia, The Emirates Festival of Literature in Dubai and the Valencia Digital Summit in Spain.

Ann has written articles for publications such as Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and CNBC. She has also contributed to articles in The New York Times, Economic Times, The Financial Times and Forbes. Her bestselling book, Bet On Yourself, was published by HarperCollins in 2021.

Suki Fuller, a competitive strategic advisor, author, analytical storyteller, acclaimed keynote speaker and Fellow of The Council of Competitive Intelligence Fellows. She is the Founder of Miribure, Co-Founder & Senior Vice President of DC Analytics and Storyteller for Group of Humans. She is a contributing author to A Practical Guide to Competitive Intelligence.

Suki is a fierce supporter of intelligence, ethical tech, #SafetyTech, Security, Privacy and Surveillance. Her eclectic 20-year career within strategic intelligence and technology has taken her from the US Department of Defense to teaching business students in China.

She currently resides in London, where she is an intrinsic part of the tech community as a Board Advisor for Tech London Advocates / Global Tech Advocates, which includes key positions as Co-Lead TLA Women in Tech, Vice-Chair for GTA Black Women in Tech and board member for TLA Young Entrepreneurs. Suki was recently named by the 5th Most Influential Woman in UK Tech by Computer Weekly 2022. Financial Times’ Top 100 Most Influential Black, Asian, Minority, Ethnic Leaders in UK; Black Powerlist Top 30 Titans of Tech; Tech Nation’s 50 Most Inspiring and influential Black voices in UK Tech; London Tech Week’s 30 Changemaker to watch.

Delia Rosoga is the Global Head of Private Wealth Management (PWM) Data Engineering, and regional lead of PWM Engineering at Goldman Sachs in EMEA. Delia joined Goldman Sachs as an associate in 2004 and was named Managing Director in 2019. Throughout her almost 20-year career at Goldman’s, Delia also worked as a senior developer in Equities Derivatives Technology, later earning her title as Head of Equities Derivatives and Synthetic Product Group Operations Technology.

Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Delia was responsible for building voice over IP technology systems at Nortel Networks, UK.

Delia earned a BSc in Engineering and an MSc in Computing Science from Politehnica University of Bucharest.

Margaret Wagner is the regional president of Merkle and CEO of Dentsu’s Customer Experience Management (CXM) Service Line across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). She is responsible for leading and developing a regional organisation that delivers customer experience transformation for clients as well as partnering with dentsu’s Creative and Media Service Lines on broader transformation programmes. She joined Merkle in Europe as it launched in the UK in 2015 after serving in senior leadership roles for RAPP and Wunderman. Margaret is the executive sponsor for Merkle's Gender pillar for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion council.

Dame Stephanie’s story begins with her 1939 arrival in Britain as an unaccompanied five-year-old Kindertransport refugee. This defining experience equipped her with fortitude at a very young age and made her determined to live a life worth saving.

In 1962, she started a software house, Freelance Programmers, and pioneered radical new flexible work practices that changed the landscape for women working in technology. She went on to create a global business and a personal fortune which she shared with her colleagues, making millionaires of 70 of her staff at no cost to anyone but herself.

Since retiring in 1993, Dame Stephanie’s life has been dedicated to venture philanthropy in the fields of IT and autism. She initially founded Autism at Kingwood in 1994 to support her late son Giles, and her charitable Shirley Foundation went on to make grants of nearly £70 million. It spent out in 2018 in favour of Autistica, the UK’s national autism research charity founded by Dame Stephanie. In 2009/10 she served as the UK’s first ever national Ambassador for Philanthropy.

Dame Stephanie’s memoir Let It Go was first published in 2012 and re-published in 2019 for worldwide distribution. The first translated version was launched in Germany in 2020 and a Spanish translation is coming soon. Dame Stephanie is currently working with The Development Partnership, to make a multi-part TV series with one of the major streaming services. During lockdown in 2020, Dame Stephanie produced her second book, So To Speak, a collection of 29 of her speeches given over the last 40 years. All proceeds from the book go to Autistica.

Dame Stephanie has been much honoured. In 2013, she was named by Woman’s Hour as one of the 100 most powerful women in Britain. In 2014, the Science Council listed her as one of the Top 100 practicing scientists in the UK. In 2015, Dame Stephanie was given the Women of the Year Special Award, and in the same year her TED Talk received a standing ovation from more than a thousand of the world’s most recognised technical entrepreneurs, thinkers, creators and doers. It has since received 2.2m views on YouTube. In 2017, Dame Stephanie received a Companion of Honour (CH), a membership limited to only 65 individuals globally, for her services to the IT industry and philanthropy.

Cecilie is a user experience designer from Norway who worked as a UX designer for software development company. Cecile also founded and now runs the action:reaction foundation - an organisation which supports victims of fraud. She participates in public speaking and as a victim of fraud, is a spokesperson on fraud detection and prevention.

In 2019 Cecilie was the victim of the Tinder Swindler and went on to seek justice through Netflix’s most watched documentary of the same name. Cecile first matched with her ex-partner on a well-known dating app in January 2018. She had not long moved to London when she found herself started dating what she thought was a globe-trotting millionaire businessman. But despite hundreds showering her with supposed love and attention, he scammed her out of £185,000 in the three months after their first date.

In 2018, she took her story to the Norwegian newspaper VG, and later shared it for Netflix.    Cecilie is a regular user of social media and has 276,000 followers on her Instagram page. She describes herself as a "fraud fighter, founder, public speaker & activist" in her bio and you can follow her on @cecilie_."

In September 2022 she launched her own YouTube channel, and describes it as "my place, my vulnerability and my opportunity to speak my truth".

June Sarpong OBE is one of the world’s leading speaker’s, educator’s, and Top 10 DEI executives with over two decades of professional experience in the U.K and U.S. She made history in 2019 when she became the first-ever Global Director of Creative Diversity for the BBC and the first Black woman to sit on the corporation’s Executive Committee, Sarpong led the D&I strategy and implementation for the BBC’s 500million plus global audience as well as internal creative teams and external production supply chain.

June has enjoyed a 25‐year career, in which she has become one of the most recognisable faces of British television. June began her career at Kiss 100 and later became a presenter for MTV UK & Ireland. It was when she started on Channel 4’s T4 that she became a household name.

June is also an author of three award winning books; ‘Diversify: Six Degrees of Integration’, ‘The Power of Women’ and ‘The Power of Privilege’.

I am an Award-Winning Strategist and Consultant in Organisational Health, Mental Health and Wellbeing with more than 20 years of unparalleled experience working with organisations of all sizes including multi-nationals, FTSE 100s, International Parliaments, big 4 accountants, SMEs and start-ups. I am well respected and considered a thought leader in this space. I have run a mental health tech start up for a decade (before they were fashionable), been a Wellbeing Lead for a big 4 (writing and implementing their UK strategy) and have gone on to write international and global strategies.

Ali Roff Farrar is a wellness writer, yoga teacher, and mindfulness expert. She is passionate about combining the western sciences of psychology, neuroscience, and coaching with the Eastern philosophies of meditation, mindfulness, and yoga, to cultivate true wellness of body and mind. Her first book ‘The Wellfulness Project (Aster, £16.99) was published in 2020.

I am an Award-Winning Strategist and Consultant in Organisational Health, Mental Health and Wellbeing with more than 20 years of unparalleled experience working with organisations of all sizes including multi-nationals, FTSE 100s, International Parliaments, big 4 accountants, SMEs and start-ups. I am well respected and considered a thought leader in this space. I have run a mental health tech start up for a decade (before they were fashionable), been a Wellbeing Lead for a big 4 (writing and implementing their UK strategy) and have gone on to write international and global strategies.

Ali Roff Farrar is a wellness writer, yoga teacher, and mindfulness expert. She is passionate about combining the western sciences of psychology, neuroscience, and coaching with the Eastern philosophies of meditation, mindfulness, and yoga, to cultivate true wellness of body and mind. Her first book ‘The Wellfulness Project (Aster, £16.99) was published in 2020.

As a Holistic Health and Wellness Specialist, Jessica is dedicated to empowering individuals to take control of their own well-being through education, support, and personalised guidance. With a belief that true health encompasses physical, mental, and emotional wellness, and that a comprehensive and individualised approach is key to achieving sustainable and long-lasting results that improve quality of life. She completes assessments with her clients to obtain an in-depth understanding of their current health in relation to their goals and creates a personalised plan for nutrition, physical training, mindfulness and other approaches that foster holistic wellness. Then utilising a wide range of mental health therapeutic methods, ongoing support is provided to encourage mental well-being, accountability, reflection and ongoing personal development.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb is a 5-time winner of the Entrepreneur and Businesswoman of the Year award. Having developed the hugely successful Nosh Detox in 2008 after her son was born with severe food allergies, eczema, asthma and anaphylaxis, she has built a formidable reputation for success in the heath and nutrition industry counting Gwyneth Paltrow as one of her first clients.

She retrained from lawyer to a health & wellness coach for successful professional women in 2014. Over the years she’s built up a roster of world famous clients working with the Duchess of York, Nadia Swarovski, Sam Smith of finnCap and numerous other successful women CEO’s, Charity Heads & Celebrities.

Her coaching clients describe working with her as ‘transformational & life changing’ and credit her coaching with helping them get promotions, double revenue, manage successful IPO’s and launching massive company growth. And with helping them create successfully happy personal lives alongside.

Her motto “Anything is possible. If you can see it, you can do it; if you can dream it, you can make it happen.’

Ria Johal is an award winning global program manager at Amazon, devising and managing programs spanning across different business lines and impacting employees at all levels. She is a trailblazer in the ERG space, frequently working with Amazon’s UK leadership team on DEI programs and initiatives, in addition to being the EMEA Chair for Amazon’s disability employee resource group. She also recently founded the companies first Social Mobility focussed ERG as well as representing the company on external committees and charters.

No stranger to the WeAreTheCity family, Ria was named on the 2022 Tech100 Woman list, as well as a Rising Star in the technology sector. She founded Mentor Compass, an organisation designed to audit and create impactful mentorship programs that drive tangible change and she is passionate about getting more girls into coding. Ria frequently works with student-focussed organisations to demystify tech careers and support students into the industry.

Prior to joining Amazon, Ria worked at JP Morgan in Sales and Trading, and has a background in Microelectronic Engineering.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb is a 5-time winner of the Entrepreneur and Businesswoman of the Year award. Having developed the hugely successful Nosh Detox in 2008 after her son was born with severe food allergies, eczema, asthma and anaphylaxis, she has built a formidable reputation for success in the heath and nutrition industry counting Gwyneth Paltrow as one of her first clients.

She retrained from lawyer to a health & wellness coach for successful professional women in 2014. Over the years she’s built up a roster of world famous clients working with the Duchess of York, Nadia Swarovski, Sam Smith of finnCap and numerous other successful women CEO’s, Charity Heads & Celebrities.

Her coaching clients describe working with her as ‘transformational & life changing’ and credit her coaching with helping them get promotions, double revenue, manage successful IPO’s and launching massive company growth. And with helping them create successfully happy personal lives alongside.

Her motto “Anything is possible. If you can see it, you can do it; if you can dream it, you can make it happen.’

As a speaker, facilitator, trainer and coach, with a background in psychology, a decade in investments and a further decade coaching senior women on confidence and leadership - I specialise in working with companies in traditionally male dominated industries including banking, financial services and tech. I support my clients to recruit and retain the best female talent at all levels; to shift their culture to one of outstanding allyship and to get a genuine ROI on their gender-focused DEI initiatives.

I offer a range of services from one off workshops designed to start a different kind of conversation about DEI, to a series of workshops, programs and consultancy that help companies break through the diversity glass ceiling. I also run in house confidence and leadership programs for senior and “rising star” women and take on a handful of 1-2-1 coaching clients each year for bespoke support.

I have 16 years of experience as a Software Engineer, Tech Lead and more recently Engineering Manager.

I love solving problems through tech and strive to build strong and diverse teams. My career and personal experiences of being a woman in tech have led me to be passionate and personally involved in creating a more diverse and accepting industry and society.

In my spare time, I am an avid baker, a Disney Geek, a Musical Theatre enthusiast, and a mountain and ski fanatic.

Lin leads the Data Platform team at Funding Circle. She is passionate about building a data-driven culture and data systems at scale. She's mostly in meetings these days, but before that she spent several years as an engineer, building everything from data infrastructure and streaming analytical pipelines to machine learning models. She has a pug called Bug.

Auguste started her journey in tech by developing STEM kits and teaching kids the basics of programming while at university. Since graduating she joined Funding Circle as a Software Engineer working on a variety of technologies and languages.

 

In her spare time she plays ice hockey, travels and loves to cuddle with her cat.

Maria Aldous is a highly respected Partner at Options Group's Executive Search, where she is a key member of the firm's London Management Committee and Global Electronic Trading Practice. She is also the Head of the EMEA Electronic Markets team. Throughout Marias illustrious career she has gained extensive experience in the Financial Markets and has placed hundreds of the most talented, best in class professionals around the globe. In doing so, Maria has been instrumental in providing key insights on all issues relating to executive assessment, on-boarding, inclusion and diversity management.

Prior to joining Options Group, Maria co-founded MCL Search in 2012, a firm specializing in the FIC Electronic Trading Market and Financial Trading Technology space that was acquired by Options Group in 2017. Maria began her career in HR before moving into the Recruitment space in 2000.

As a founding member of the OG Diverse Committee, Maria works closely with colleagues and clients to promote diversity, equal equity and inclusion in the workplace.

Maria is an angel investor in a women’s health company @thewellhq, a cutting edge health and education platform, offering education from period to menopause and everything in between, geared towards health and fitness at all levels. In addition to this Maria is an ambassador for the Youth Sports Trust UK, a leading charity improving every young person’s education and development through sport and play.

With a 20-year career in communications, Rebecca Donnelly is a Senior Partner at Tyto, Europe’s fastest-growing B2B tech PR agency. She helped build the company into a fully-remote business with a diverse, 60-strong team based across Europe, and works with high-growth and established tech companies to build their reputations.

She is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion in the tech sector and a non-executive director for the Tech Talent Charter. She also hosts their podcast, in:tech where she had the pleasure of talking with Vanessa Vallely about the importance of networks in retaining female talent. Rebecca believes in the transformative potential of remote and hybrid work for building inclusive workplace cultures where anyone can thrive.

Lucile is the Head of Diversity and Inclusion at ITN, one of the UK’s most respected news provider, reaching over 10million people every day. A go-getter with a creative mind, she is an award-winning leader with a decade of experience specialising in driving and implementing cultural change as well as empowering individuals to help them become conscious leaders. Lucile is also a Guest Lecturer in Business Schools across Europe, lecturing on a variety of topics such as International Business Ethics, Inclusive Leadership and Harnessing the power of Consumers’ new behaviours.   

 

From a French and North African background, and the first person in her family to attend university, Lucile believes in the power of diverse and inclusive teams to transform the workplace. She enjoys helping others explore the intricacies of intersectional identities, the psychology of inclusion and behaviours that promote authenticity and belonging. She is passionate about creating safe and brave spaces to facilitate conversations and connecting with people to create long-lasting relationships by bringing everyone on a change journey.    Lucile comes with a wealth of cross industry experience having worked within the third sector, construction, legal sector and the media industry and  has a BA (Hons) in Politics and International Relations and a MA in Human Rights Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Beth Carter is Flexa’s Head of Growth and can usually be found in a spreadsheet, talking to customers, or getting excited about great teams building great companies. Flexa is the employer brand platform for flexible companies. With over one million users, Flexa has become the place to search for companies based on “how” people want to work as well as what they do.

Recognising that startups are ultimately all about people Beth is passionate about how we work, as well as what we work on.

Beth is an Ada Ventures Angel Investor and SYSTM Growth Coach who has worked with hundreds of startups to draw out their growth models, have difficult conversations about product market fit, and scale businesses.

With a customer-first approach to Growth, Beth loves talking about finding the right metrics for your team, getting to the bottom of customer value, content marketing, and how people are your most powerful business asset.

Heather has a career spanning over 40 years in financial services. Heather is a thought leader of business, an innovator with a noteable track record of building high performing diverse teams. Heather has acted in an advisory capacity to FTSE CEO's across a multitude of industries and sectors. Heather is a sought after public speaker and has addressed senates, royalty and global audiences worldwide. Heather is also a member of the Executive Leadership Council (ELC) and the CFO's Diversity Forum for Business in the Community (FTSE100).

Heather has worked in partnership with HRH the Duchess of Edinburgh as part of her role as the Chair CMI Women. Heather also assisted Queen Maximus of the Netherlands with advisory for her women in entreprenuership programme.Heather received her OBE for services to business in 2017 and has recently been appointed as the black chancellor of the University of York. Heather is also the Patron of Women in Banking and Finance.

Heather also supports a number of charities and not for profits in an advisory capacity, and currently sits on the board of Enterprise Enfield.

Ramat is a multi-award winning strategist, public speaker, community builder and storyteller who also happens to be a woman in tech. She is the CEO (that's the Chief Encouragement Officer) at The Inspiration Box an organisation dedicated to encouraging intentional personal development.

She's a pocket cheerleader for anyone that needs it, and believes in the power of  helping others to discover, embrace and nurture the truest version of themselves. Her passion to help others extends into her day job at Google, where she is the Strategic Partnerships Lead for EMEA in the Diversity Recruiting team.

In this role she is focusing on strategies to diversify the talent pipeline at Google.  Ramat is very familiar with the TechWomen100 awards having been recognised in the 2019 TechWomen100 cohort and she was also recognised as a Rising Star in Marketing, PR and Communications in 2018.

Having developed her career across global locations over the last 25 years, spanning multiple industries, in both business operations including managing P&L and leading strategy, to front line consulting services and in senior leadership roles, Kate brings her insight and reflections in corporate strategy, markets and cultural perspectives to enable a very succinct approach to her project and client interactions.

A skilful facilitator, speaker, consultant and coach with a dynamic, engaging and empathetic style, Kate’s dedicated work has a focus on personal & leadership development, inclusive leadership at individual and organisational level for career pathing and systemic change, op to exec leadership transition, growth mindset, personal impact and brand, cross cultural working and career development. Kate also advises on corporate strategy, leads and advises start-ups, and serves as mentor and trust for charity boards.

Maddie joined dentsu International in 2018 to oversee the network’s strategy for data and technology and to improve the products and services offered to its customers. Maddie brings an innate understanding of how to tackle the challenges that businesses face in the digital economy, having previously worked as Head of Digital Products at EE and Chief Product Officer at British Gas, leading their digital transformation. During a career that spans more than 20 years, Maddie has also held senior positions at some of the UK’s leading digital business including cloud technology company Rackspace, the UK's largest pay-TV broadcaster Sky and Virgin Media.

Cate has managed and led editorial teams for some of the world’s largest media and tech companies, including Google and Microsoft, and was a founding member of BuzzFeed UK. Her writing has appeared in The Independent, iNews, The Big Issue, Insider and Grazia Magazine. Her book 'How To Work Without Losing Your Mind' is out now.

Faye Kilgour-Neves, otherwise known as The ‘What If’ Coach, is deeply passionate about supporting future leaders to find their voices and to develop the skillsets they need to thrive in the ever evolving world of work. She has worked in both the corporate and start-up world, as well as in the education sector. Faye has experience training educators in coaching skills, delivering coaching programmes to undergraduate students and facilitating workshops to support professionals develop their leadership skills. She is certified by the Co-Active Training Institute, has studied BSc (Hons) Psychology, and has experience training leaders from all over the world. Faye is an avid learner and is always learning something new in the realms of psychology, performance or wellbeing.

Passionate, fun and straight-talking, Lucy has become one of the business world’s most popular motivational speakers. Over the course of her Founder journey, Lucy has worked as a TV presenter, awards judge, ICF Accredited coach and award-winning speaker.

With over 20-years leading recruitment industry experience, Lucy founded C&C Search to redefine and elevate both the client and candidates’ recruitment experience.

Faith Ruto is an exceptional role model, triple-certified Executive Coach, and International Keynote Speaker, specialising in female leadership development and partnering with organisations to help retain and advance diverse talent. She is the author of Transform Within – 7 Strategies for professional growth and resilience and the CEO & Director of Transformation21st.

Faith has over 20 years of global experience in Personal Development, Marketing, IT and Business Transformation. Coaching is delivered one to one, in groups, in-person and online.

Aubrey Stuart Aubrey is a high impact Learning and Development professional with a background in Organisational Development and a reputation as an insightful, collaborative, passionate and inspiring consultant. He has worked across a wide range of business sectors becoming experienced in delivering the highest quality global training programmes and business solutions to a wide variety of blue-chip organisations.

Aubrey’s career journey as an L&D professional over the last 18 years has taken him into thefollowing business sectors: Financial Services Investment and Retail banking, Global Management consulting, Food retail, Energy services, Global property, Music industry, Media, Transport, Entertainment/Leisure/Travel/Public sector, Accountancy, Telecommunications, and Pharmaceuticals.Aubrey has a people-focused and collaborative approach to delivery.

He has experience of working vertically within large and small organisations and enjoys working closely with clients at organisation, team and individual level. Aubrey is passionate about inclusive leadership and supporting organisations and teams to create an improved sense of belonging, and is known for his impact and moving clients forward. He is always keen to learn and role models growth mindset in all he does.He is also Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Personal and Development MCIPD. He is a Published contributor to People Management. Aubrey is based in the UK, and a keen traveller.

Anthony is passionate about facilitation and coaching. He is an inspirational keynote speaker and is always looking to learn from every interaction with his clients. He seeks to make an immediate impact, identifying together the small changes that can have a big impact with the senior leaders and their teams to ensure lasting behavioural change and a long-term shift in mind-set.

Anthony has spent over 28 years years working for KPMG and PwC as a Senior HR Business partner, OD Consultant and Senior Executive Coach. He has also spent 4 years as the Head of L&D for the University of London. Anthony adds value through offering creativity and a pragmatic solutions.Anthony offers the highest standard of coaching. With many years of coaching and facilitation experience from senior to junior levels, he brings the right level of challenge and experience to both teams and individuals globally across all industries and cultures.

His number one aim is to bring psychological safety working through four main values – trust, honesty, respect and enjoyment.These values are combined with his expertise and experience to ensure you reach your goals with great interactions and outputs. He has worked with clients in the private, public, and third sectors.

“I offer a bespoke flexible holistic approach to coaching. I seek to make an immediate impact, identifying with clients, those small changes that add value in the short to mid-term and create a tangible shift that can be measured to ensure lasting behavioural change and a long-term change in mind-set”.

Edel is Head of Architecture, Practice & Governance responsibility for Barclay’s Group Technology Architecture shaping the banks landscape for tomorrow. Edel has over 25 years of experience in the financial sector, leading diverse technology teams focusing on transformation.

As an Enterprise Leader Edel’s skills range across Enterprise Architecture, Acquisitions Integration and Organizational Transformation. Her regional responsibilities include Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Lead and is passionate about inspiring and encouraging women in technology.

Edel holds graduate and postgraduate qualifications from University College Cork and Advanced Project Management from Stanford University.

Jon is a strategic and commercially-focused business and technology leader. He’s a member of the Barclays Group Technology Executive Committee, and oversees performance against the strategic plan and all commercial consequences of the global Technology function as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Group Technology. Jon is responsible for Customer, Business and Colleague enablement through Technology, with the latter including the very successful Group Technology Employee Value Proposition (EVP) activity.

Across Jon’s career, he has led a number of high profile and complex technology integration initiatives and large-scale change delivery portfolios. Past roles since joining Barclays in 2011 have included Open Banking Chief Information Officer (CIO), Personal Banking CIO and Barclays UK Head of Change.

Jon is a proud male ally and is actively engaged in initiatives to attract, retain and develop diverse talent at the Barclays Technology Centre Radbroke and more broadly across the firm and wider industry.

Hena is a Director for Strategic Development in Finance leading on a Big Data Programme. Hena is a qualified accountant and has spent the last 10 years working on a number Programmes spanning Technology and Finance.Hena is a member of the Women in Technology (WiT) committee that aims to empower women of all levels and backgrounds to achieve their career aspirations in technology.

Hena has also led on various wellbeing initiatives and passionate about DE&I.

Birgit Neu is a senior DEI advisor and the former Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion at HSBC, with a broad career spanning multiple sectors including digital, retail, publishing and financial services.

She has been named in LinkedIn’s Top 10 UK Voices for Gender Equity 2022, WeAreTheCity’s Trailblazers Top 50 in 2021, Top 20 Diversity Professionals in Industry 2020 by the Global Diversity List, and was Head of Diversity of the Year at the 2019 European Diversity Awards.

Birgit has held leadership committee roles on a variety of diversity networks and campaigns, and is a regular contributor to thought leadership and advisory groups across different aspects of DEI and ESG for leading organisations worldwide.

Sharon Freach is a Managing Director, EMEA Head of KBS Resilience at Morgan Stanley based in London.

Sharon joined the firm in 1994 as an Associate and held a variety of positions across Operations and Technology, spending 16 years in New York.

She was named Vice President in 2000, Executive Director in 2006 and Managing Director in 2014. Sharon earned a Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, graduating in 1987 from South Bank University in London.

She resides in London and Yorkshire, with her husband, Seth, and their son. In her spare time, Sharon is an avid skier and scuba diver.

Sam Cooper-Gray is the Global Head of Market Strategy and Engagement for HSBC Business based in London. Sam was appointed to this role in 2019.

In this role, she is responsible for leading the market strategy for HSBC’s SME customers, including international connectivity, sustainability and social impact supporting over 1.3 million customers in over 50 markets and territories to access the best products and services for their needs.

In addition to her responsibilities at HSBC Global Business, Sam is the Global Sponsor for HSBC Change Makers, an employee led initiative to drive inclusion across the organisation and previous Global Co-Chair for HSBC BALANCE. HSBC BALANCE has over 50,000 members, 220 Executive Leader Ambassadors and 1,000 Advocates across 48 markets and is an employee resource group focussed on ending gender imbalance within the bank and across the industry. She is a Board member for Women on the Wharf and The Financial Alliance for Women and a trustee for the Kent Community Foundation. She has led the Women of the Wharf Beyond Mentoring programme connecting over 1000 mentors and mentees across 20 major firms base in London since 2019 and is a mentor for Business in the Community’s Race Campaign Mentoring programme. In addition to this Sam has experience as a non-exec director for a number of firms, advising on diversity and inclusion.

Sam was Named as one of the Top 50 Trailblazers in Gender Equality List in 2021 and winner of ‘We Are the City’s’ Top 100 Rising Stars Champions award in 2022 and Editor’s Choice award in 2020. She was also listed as one of the city’s Inspirational women by Brummell Magazine in 2019 and is a judge for the Inclusive Companies Awards.

Prior to taking on her current role, Sam was the Global Head of Learning for HSBC Commercial Banking, supporting the development of over 24,000 employees across 53 markets and has held senior positions within HSBC for over 23 years, including roles in Risk, Trade, Leadership and the Chief Operating Office.

Rajni joined DWP Digital 2 years ago following a 17 year career as a management consultant where she led IT and business transformation engagements primarily across central government organisations. She currently leads Performance and Planning for DWP Digital, where her project, programme and portfolio management skills have proved to be extremely useful.

Rajni is passionate about putting people at the heart of performance and change. She has a continuous improvement mindset and strives to find the most effective and impactful way to deliver results.

Vicky is a partner in PwC's UK Tax ERP and Data team, specialising in large scale ERP enabled transformation programmes. She has 18 years' experience advising large UK and overseas listed businesses on how they manage tax processes, systems, data, compliance and reporting.

Clare is a member of the Cross-Divisional Projects and Architecture team within Core Engineering, where she manages strategic business and regulatory programs that require cross-divisional collaboration. She is a member of the Regional New Activity Committee in EMEA. Clare also serves as regional co-head of the EMEA Firmwide Black Network. She joined Goldman Sachs in 2010 as an associate and was named managing director in 2021.

Prior to joining the firm, Clare worked at JPMorgan Chase as a project manager and business analyst within the Rates and Credit business for almost five years. Before that, she held a number of roles within IT service management at a variety of financial services companies.

Clare earned a BA in History from Queen Mary, University of London, in 2001.

Katarina manages EMEA Equity Automation Engineering, global Marquee Equity Execution and Equity Risk Engineering teams. She founded Equity Derivatives Automation Engineering in 2018, and prior to that, she was a member of the Client Synthetics Engineering team. Katarina serves on the EMEA Women Engineering Committee and is a sponsor to the committee's Technical and Business pillar and also serves as a parenting champion for the Global Banking & Markets Parenting Community. She joined Goldman Sachs in 2013 as analyst on the Equity Derivatives Technology team and was named managing director in 2021.

Prior to joining the firm, Katarina worked as a software engineer at Sermo, a social network platform for physicians.

Katarina earned an MSc in Computer Science from Queen Mary University in London in 2011.

Ashima Bhalla manages the Public Investing Fundamental Research platform and Fixed Income Analytics team within Goldman Sachs Asset Management Engineering. Ashima joined Goldman Sachs in 2010, originally working in the Securities Division as a Tech Lead in the Equities One Delta Technology team in London, and later joining Asset Management in 2016 where her responsibilities include leading the development of ESG and sustainable investing analytics and research capabilities for Fixed Income and Public Equities.

Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Ashima worked at UBS in Fixed Income and Structured Products Technology. She graduated from Imperial College London in 2007 with a Masters in Mathematics and Computer Science.

Jon Morris Smith is the Global Head of Kubernetes Engineering within Foundational Infrastructure. Jon joined Goldman Sachs in 1997 working as a Systems Administrator covering Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities. Since then his career in the firm has covered a range of technology disciplines including infrastructure, application development, operations, risk, data-centre migrations and strategy. Jon’s responsibilities include leading the engineering, deployment and adoption of a Kubernetes both in the firm’s data centres and the cloud.

Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Jon worked in Equity Strategy at Schroders. Jon completed a PhD in the diagnosis of skin cancer using computer vision at the University of Birmingham where he had previously graduated with a Batchelors in Electronic and Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Computer Science.