Human Resources Director, Deloitte / Co-Chair, Internal Comms, APAC association of Communications Directors

Rajesh heads the Human Resources function for ING Investment Management India and provides leadership oversight to Communications, Technology and Administration functions. With over 18 years of intense HR leadership experience in managing matrix organizational structures, cross cultural staff and driving innovative best practices in India & Asia Pacific region, Rajesh is known for his passion for People Engagement. Considered a change agent expert in building organizational themes & developing new concepts, Rajesh has already catapulted ING Investment Management in the league of ‘India’s Top 50 Best places To Work’ ranked by Great Place To Work Institute (GPWI) in 2012.

Under his leadership, ING has also received recognition for its Talent Management practices at Asia's Best Employer Brand Awards and also at Asia Pacific HRM Awards held in Singapore and India in 2012. World HRD Congress has bestowed upon Rajesh with a coveted title of ‘HR Professional of the Year’ at Asia's Best Employer Brand Awards held in Singapore in July 2012.

His professional journey spans across domains such as Banking and Financial Services, Informational Technology and ITES, in MNCs such as ANZ Bank, HSBC Group and CMS Computers.

Martin has held international HR director roles with Dow Chemical, Ericsson, Serco and BP including vice President resource management for Ericsson based in Stockholm and HR Director Operations Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific for the BP Group. Martin has experience of running a business as a General Manager and has also led major change and transformation programmes.

Martin was the lead in HR at Transport for London for the 2012 Olympics after which he decided to focus on non-executive director and consultancy work. His clients include the Cabinet Office, UK (Cabinet Office supports the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, and ensures the effective running of government) and healthcare charity ‘Action for Change’ where he is also a non-executive director.

Paul was most recently  Global Head of Internal Communications at BG Group where he led BG’s communications for the recent acquisition by Shell. Prior to this, he was Global Head of Internal Communications for Philips based in Amsterdam and was Corporate Communications Director for Colt Group S.A. He was a Partner at Brunswick Group and created and led their Internal Communications Practice. He also led the Communications Practice at Hewitt Associates. Paul has a wide range of international experience in digital communications and led the team which created one of the most successful global enterprise-wide social media platforms. Paul has also created digital innovations in video and leadership communications which won the European Digital Excellence Award and Digital Company of the Year in the Netherlands. His also has experience in restructuring, M&A and post-merger integration, change management and HR communications. Paul’s early career was spent with NatWest Group where he was Speechwriter to the Chairman and Chief Executive and was responsible for developing leadership and employee communications for the RBS/NatWest acquisition process.

Katharina is an internationally recognised business communicator with proven delivery of effective global communication strategies and programmes, and has Lean Sigma qualifications for process and performance improvement.

Previous roles include Head of Internal Communications & Engagement at ABB, Head of Employee & Executive Communications at Zurich Insurance, Head of Internal Communications at Rio Tinto, Head of Global Internal and Management Communications at Shell, Head of Global Internal Communications at AstraZeneca, Corporate Communications Lead at GE Capital EEF and Corporate Communications Manager at Corange/Boehringer Mannheim. Katharina has worked in Nigeria, Hong Kong, the UK, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

Liam FitzPatrick has 25 years of experience with change, PR and internal communications comes from working in-house and in consultancy.
Liam has worked in civil engineering, energy, manufacturing and transportation as well as telecoms. He was Global Head of Internal Communications at Marconi during its financial restructuring and has worked on change and transformation projects in a wide variety of situations. He is particularly interested in developing teams, research and planning.
He is a council member and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

Gugu Khazi is an author,  career coach, and International speaker on Talent Management, Personal Career Management as well as leadership.  She holds a Master’s in Business Management as well as an MSc in Industry, Trade & Development from Milpark Business School and the university of Manchester respectively.

She has over 20 years of experience as a senior HR leader in various international businesses such as Kimberly-Clark and The Coca-Cola company in the Europe Middle East and Africa region.

Gugu’s strength is working with businesses in ensuring that they have the right talent at the right time. This she does through  connecting Talent strategy to business strategy, Workforce planning, succession planning, leadership development, as well as career management.

It is Gugu’s personal mission to help others use their talents, strengths and passion to build successful  and fulfilling careers. This inspired her to write her book Passion To Careers – to share her knowledge with others on how they build  successful and fulfilling careers.

Eric is a senior HR VP with an extensive international experience in developing HR into a global function, facilitating organisation transformation, driving sustainable performance, growing a diverse talent pipe-line, building an inclusive culture and coaching executives in line with the business strategy. He has worked in different industries during down-turn and high growth phases i.e. Oil and Gas, Mining, Manufacturing, Real Estate, Facilities, Financial Services and Professional Services. In addition to holding roles in the UK, France and Argentina, he has travelled and worked globally in particular in the emerging markets.

Eric has an executive degree from the Harvard Business School (AMP) in addition to an MBA and an engineer degree. He is a Board member of 2 international HR MBAs. He also does consulting and gives international conferences on leadership in a VUCA world, employer branding, global talent management, diversity, CSR and emerging markets.

Elizabeth Lichten’s career spans a number of heavy-weight industries from Engineering and Energy, to Property and Healthcare. Ambitious, growing and highly technical, these organisations all have specific challenges and targets and she excels at developing tactics for success.

Elizabeth is a practised brand champion, having worked with a number of exciting professional services organisations at times of transformational change.

As Head of Marketing for DTZ UK and then enlarged Cushman & Wakefield London business, Elizabeth’s remit is to plan and execute marketing strategies to promote and differentiate the business through creative innovative solutions.

Sanjoy has over 21 years’ experience of leading internal and change communications for major global companies. Amongst these are Fortune 500 companies such as Reckitt Benckiser, HSBC, Coca-Cola European Partners, Philips Electronics and Teva Pharmaceuticals. Most recently he was Brexit Communications lead for international insurance company Hiscox plc.

With a degree in anthropology, Annabel began her career as a lumberjack’s assistant before becoming a ski guide and then a sailing instructor.  She then joined the marketing team at Gulf Air, promoting the Gulf States as a tourism destination at the time of the first Gulf War.  Annabel then joined Le Fevre Communications and cut her teeth on consumer and corporate clients handling PR campaigns for Anchor Foods, NatWest and BT.  Annabel then became a TV presenter fronting The Biz on Six TV, the first regional TV station interviewing CEOs on the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Oxfordshire. In 2003 Annabel joined 3 Monkeys Communications and appointed MD three years later, overseeing growth of the award-winning top 50 PR consultancy to £7.1m revenues with 75 consultants.  Annabel left the PR jungle launching Question & Retain (Q&R) – the Pulse Check company – in 2012 –  measuring and managing the employee experience, client and membership satisfaction.  Annabel has been a judge for PR Week and PRCA Awards and most recently for the UK Employee Experience Awards 2018.

Nicholas has over a dozen years’ internal comms experience, both in the UK and in the Middle East. He’s worked in the public and private sector, and for for a major international retailer, Alshaya Retail Co. One of his IC campaigns at Alshaya won an Institute of InternalCommunications award.

Chief Marketing Officer – BULK POWDERS®

Former Marketing Director – N Brown Group and Boohoo.com

Alexa is head of PR at Vitality leading the company’s external media strategy and activities across the business including health and life insurance and investments. Prior to joining Vitality, Alexa worked at the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) as Director of Communications, devising a compelling and creative communications strategy to share the learnings of this important government organisation, and headed up global communications for leading social network for health, HealthUnlocked.

Prior to these roles, Alexa held the position of Head of Media for the Cabinet and Prime Minister’s Office and Press Secretary to the Minister of the Cabinet office, and additionally has significant experience of NHS communications, including supporting a number of NHS trusts with some very high profile crisis.

Laura is a strategic and results-driven communications leader, with extensive in-house and agency experience across an array of sectors focused on: strategy development, media outreach, crisis management, investor relations, public affairs, change management, employee engagement, digital activations, and event management. Experienced in creating teams responsible for developing and delivering both external and internal communications programmes. As a senior business leader, mentor and coach she is passionate about building high-performing and diverse teams, whilst supporting individuals to achieve their professional and personal growth ambitions.

Alex Clough is Creative Strategy Director at Splendid Communications, an award-winning communications agency with a ‘People-First’ approach to creativity. He leads the development of communications strategies for the agency’s wide variety of clients to deliver genuinely talkable ideas that connect with real people in their real lives. During his career Alex has delivered landmark campaigns for some of the world’s most iconic brands, including Jack Daniel’s, Hendrick’s Gin, Smirnoff, Greggs, MoneySupermarket.com, Tesco and The AA.

With a succesful track record of high performance results during hercareer with local and multinational companies, Pınar Akkaya has been involved in almost every aspect of HR, in many different cultures and industries such as banking, investment and securities, media, textiles and retail. Her experience includesmany prestigious positions in highly reputable companies such as Nike, Leroy Merlin, Li&Fung and Digiturk.

In 2011, Pinar launched Signature Communication, her own training company. Signature specializes in communication training programs, personal brand and image consulting, intercultural training.

Pinar’s second brand, Collaï, is a brand that specializes in action-oriented strategic facilitation for meetings, facilitator training and assessment. Signature and Collaï’s references include several reputable multinational companies like Bosch, British American Tobacco, Shell, Deloitte, KPMG, Pernod Ricard, Cargill and BNP Paribas Cardif.

Pinar is the founder of Apm ClubIstanbul, the permanent facilitator of ApmClub London Trigger, a member of the Strategic Committee of Excelia, Ecole Supérieure de Commerce La Rochellein France since 2013and a lecturer in European School of Economics in London.

Adrian Moorhouse was an Olympic swimmer who won Gold in the 100m breaststroke at the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988 and was world number one in his event for six consecutive years. In 1992 he retired from swimming after twelve years as an elite performer. In 1995 Adrian made the jump into business, co-founding his own performance consultancy – Lane4, which uses a unique blend of insight from business, psychology and elite sport to help businesses develop the people skills necessary to become winning organisations. Lane4 has ranked in The Sunday Times Top 100 ‘Best Small Companies to Work every year since 2006.

Chidinma Lawanson consults for the International Finance Corporation (IFC), covering sub-Saharan Africa, in the areas of agri finance & MSME. She also consulted on a USAID project on digital payments for solar energy; on an Access Bank Plc MSME project and on a MasterCard Foundation MSME project. She was the CEO of Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access (EFInA), which is funded by the DFID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and strives to improve financial inclusion indices in Nigeria. Chidinma has 21 years’ experience at Diamond Bank Plc. where she headed the MSME unit, rolling out disruptive retail banking products. She headed f Human Capital Management, formulating far-reaching changes in digitization and performance management, with responsibilities across Nigeria, West Africa & UK. Chidinma is a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow, she holds a PGD in Entrepreneurial Management (Boston University, Massachusetts); a B.Sc. in Chemistry (University of Calabar, Nigeria) and a PGD in Computer Science (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria).