In a long career both as a consultant and in house senior exec, Tom Crawford has gained diverse and rich experience, in HR and specifically Internal Comms and Engagement. He also has a strong passion for the subject of brand and its relationship with employees. He has spent many years helping employees believe in their organisation and do their best for its brand. He was worked all over the world with leading brands including Deloitte, British Airways, Eon, GSK, Nokia and others.

Tom set up The Brain Miner as he believes that everyone has fantastic ideas buried within them – they just need some help finding them, extracting them and then polishing them into shiny diamonds. He is working with a number of well known global brands, helping them drive employee engagement with their brand.

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.

Liz came late to the formal profession of communications, but she has been bringing communications strategy to her career since her very first role as a scientific editor, helping researchers prepare their papers for publication. Through business development and project roles, she wove strategic communication into every facet of her work and developed a passion for employee engagement. In her current role, Liz and her team help 7000 global employees connect, care and collaborate, through global news and video channels and a growing internal business partnership model that puts them in the thick of strategic planning. Liz is originally from St Louis, Missouri, USA, but after 22 years and endless cups of builders’ tea, she considers herself a Brit who just sounds American.

A graduate of the University of Glasgow, Drew started his career in brand communications before moving increasingly into employee communications and then engagement. He has worked for medium, large and very large organisations in sectors as diverse as defence, energy, retail and government. Assignments based in the Middle and Far East, USA and Europe have given Drew insights to modes and norms of communication in different cultures. He is currently Head of Internal Communications & Engagement for Virgin Trains, where he is responsible for leadership communication and communications-enabled organisational change.

Lucy Adams, MD of Communications and Engagement Agency Firehouse and the Founder of Disruptive HR, shares her experiences of having led HR and Internal Communications at the BBC and other major corporations – the good, the bad and the ugly! Since leaving the BBC Lucy has been working with major organisations to help them re-think their approach to leading change, employee engagement, HR and Internal Comms, and is a popular keynote speaker and blogger on these topics.

<em>She will be hosting the <strong>Best Practice Session: 'Managing Change &amp; Innovative Practices' </em></strong>

Howard has worked in the world of employee communications for over 25 years.
His career has seen him work in both senior ‘in house’ and consulting / agency roles. Today Howard leads communications and engagement for the Clean Air sector of Johnson Matthey, a role he moved into over three years ago, having more recently worked in senior communication roles at global giants GSK and EY.

Over the past 18 months Howard has provided communications and engagement support to a major transformation of the Clean Air business. This support included creating and executing AirTime, a conversation-based activity that gave employees across the business the opportunity to build their understanding of what the changes meant to them. AirTIme was recognised externally at the Internal Communication Excellence Awards in June 2021 as it was won first prize in the category “Best communication of change or business transformation”.

Howard has long been passionate about the critical importance of listening for communicators, and by definition for the organisation. Together with colleagues Mike Pounsford and Kevin Ruck, Howard has published three reports on Listening in Communications, with the most recent in May 2021 reporting on the completion of a global survey of communicators.
Howard served as President of the UK Chapter of IABC for two years (2018-20). He declared his term as the ‘Year(s) of Listening’. Howard was also Chairman of Wealdstone FC, a semi-professional football club who play at the 5th level of English football for nine years until 2016, and (pandemic allowing) enjoys watching sport, going to the cinema and travel.