CONFERENCES

SUMMITS - FORUMS

Jia Gay provides organizational strategy and development to MENA, especially as it accelerates its support in driving organizational capabilities and marketplace execution.
Jia is a seasoned HR executive who brings over 20 years of Human Resources experience, having previously worked as Group HR Director for the North and West Africa Division of The Coca-Cola Company based in Casablanca, Morocco. Jia joined The Coca-Cola Company in 1993 and has held various positions of increasing responsibility in Coca-Cola North America, Coca-Cola Africa and the Middle East supporting various businesses and functions. Most recently, Jia was the Group Director, Human Resources, Coca-Cola North America where she was responsible for the Sparkling Category Business Unit, Strategic Marketing, and Research and Development function. Prior to joining the Company, Jia worked with Electronic Data Systems (EDS), The Lucas Group and Federated Department Stores.
Jia has a B.S. degree in retail management from the University of Alabama and a Master’s in business administration from Walden University.

Dr. Sujaya Banerjee has been a Human Resources professional for over 22 years and has transformed the HR functions in several leading organizations during her career. She is an OD professional par- excellence having set up world class PMS and Talent Management programs and helped build Learning Organizations through her assignments at ADNOC, Lowe Lintas and Partners, British Gas and the Essar Group. Sujaya has been listed among the Top 40 HR professionals in Asia ,has won the Youth Icon Award for 2009 and the Contribution to the HR Community Award in 2012, besides bringing several international accolades to India- the Learning Elite Award – CLO USA, Learning in Practice Award – CLO USA, Best Project Implementation in Asia- SuccessFactors and Best Business Adoption Award- SuccessFactors.
She has presented White Papers at leading conferences at GE’s John F. Welch Leadership Center (Crotonville), at the CLO Summit-Harvard Business School, ASTD, SkillSoft Perspectives and recently at SuccessConnect Sydney. She is a sought after speaker and thought leader and is a regular contributor to the Human Capital Magazine.
Sujaya is a TEDx speaker and leads the Learning & OD Roundtable- a forum for practitioners which has a worldwide membership of over 1600 Learning & OD professionals. The L&OD Roundtable enables capability building of Learning professionals and helps member organizations become Learning Organizations.

lmran partners with CEOs and Business heads to help them, build human capital as a business differentiator, lead Change management and create Customer Centricity in the group.
Over the last 24 years, lmran has worked with MNCs and Large Local groups in Retail , Manufacturing and Consumer Distribution sectors across GCC, successfully shaping each of the organizations into people centric, high growth , high success organisations.
He has unique a insight of the region’s complexities, demands and has a valuable commercial focus .
Change Management , Digital Transformation and Disruption driven Behavioural dynamics are lmran’s core areas of Focus. In addition he is passionate about Helping people develop their sense of purpose and potential . Being a certified coach , he has trained and Coached Business Leaders in change Management and Engagement as well as Helped teams achieve Performance Optimization and Process maturity. lmran’s strength also lies in a deep understanding cultural diversity & behavior through extensive travels and people interactions.
lmran is a sought after thought Leader and an International speaker. He frequently speaks at various Regional & International conferences and Summits .
He won the Mark Of Excellence for II Best Learning & Development Strategies II in 2018 at HR Summit 2018 Dubai, was cited as 11 100 most influential Global HR professional” in 2016 and was a recipient of II HR Leadership Award 11 2014 awarded by the World HRD congress .

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.

Jerome is focusing on the Governance at Group, regional and local levels and on operational performance improvement for 10 Etisalat’s international telecom operators in the Middle-East and Africa. He is involved in all initiatives related to developing HR and business capabilities, evolving management models through re-organization, change programs, shared services or outsourcing plans, and M&A activities.
Prior to joining Etisalat, Jerome de Mallmann worked for 10 years in Management Consulting at Oliver Wyman and at Accenture in Europe and the Middle-East, where he managed consulting projects spanning from strategic planning, processes and organization, business performance and commercial turn-arounds to launching new businesses.

Richard Mosley is widely recognised as one of the leading world authorities on employer brand development and management. This has involved a significant focus on core values, employee engagement and culture change as well as the more externally focused dimensions of external reputation and talent attraction. His first book, ‘The Employer Brand’, has become a global best-seller, and the sequel: ‘Employer Brand Management: Practical Lessons from the World’s Best Employers’ was published last year.

His thinking draws on over 25 years experience in both brand management and HR consulting. Richard has led major employer brand development projects for Bacardi, BP, Coca-Cola, DSM, Ferrero, GSK, HSBC, Lafarge, LEGO, L’Oreal, JTI, Met Life, Nokia-Siemens, PepsiCo, RBS, Santander and Unilever. Richard is a regular key note speaker and chairman at employer brand events around the world, and was recently the first to publish an article on employer branding in the Harvard Business Review – https://hbr.org/2015/05/ceos-need-to-pay-attention-to-employer-branding

Globally experienced marketing communications, corporate brand/ branding professional with strong technical & leadership skills. Strategist with ability to develop internal & external networks, achieve buy-in from senior stakeholders, gain C-suite support and deliver-with-excellence. Well- honed decision-making skills. Collaborative. Keep-it-simple approach.

Andrew is a content strategist and producer with in-house experience from the likes of Microsoft, Nokia, Ericsson and nASDAQ OMX. In the past few years Andrew has mainly been focused on producing online videos and TV advertisements for smartphones, yet his broad career also spans financial communication, consumer PR and B2B copywriting.

James helped businesses create, transform and grow their digital presence, products and teams using strategy, marketing, product and technology. Working for global brands, offering a range of digital services from e-commerce, to online brand protection, digital business strategies and online marketing, helping clients understand new busi- ness practices, new consumer behaviour, and new digital technologies available.

His Clients include: Guardian News and Media, Selfridges & Co, Bacardi, News Interna- tional, Bombay Sapphire Gin, Grey Goose Vodka Hilton Hotels.

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.

David has been in the retail, commercial, residential and mixed-use real estate industry for over thirty years. He has completed projects totalling in excess of USD $5.2 billion in Canada and the Middle East. For the past nine years that David has been in the Gulf region, he has held senior executive positions in leasing, mall design, creation and implementation of merchandise mix, as well as analysis of project viability. Iconic retail projects with direct input include Dubai Festival City with Al Futtaim, Dubai Mall and other international shopping malls with Emaar. As Regional Director with Jones Lang LaSalle the retail team has provided development advisory and leasing in thirty five major retail environments in the UAE, Lebanon, Saudi, Egypt and Qatar.

David is now CEO and Vice Chairman of the MECSC / ICSC for the MENA region.
As a Canadian, David holds a Bachelor degree from the University of Calgary and Executive Real Estate courses from the University of British Columbia. David is Chairman of the Canadian Business Council in 2011, 2012 and 2013. He is also a registered member of RERA in Dubai and the Vice President of the Middle East Council of Shopping Centres (MECSC) in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Prior to joining Dubai Duty Free, he was employed with Aer Rianta for 10 years (1990-2000) working in such locations as Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Moscow, Kuwait, Bahrain, Syria and Qatar.

Sean is responsible for a team of 5,000 staff who handled a $ 1.8 billion turnover in 2013 as well as 70,000 sales transactions daily.

Sean is President of the Middle East and Africa Duty Free Association (MEADFA) and Chairman of the Dubai Irish Society. He is also President of Dubai Celts Gaelic Athletic Club.

Richard became the General Manager Network Planning in August 2012 and is currently based at Shell’s London corporate office. After joining Shell in 1996 Richard has worked internationally in Shell’s Aviation, Business Development, Marketing, Biofuels and Gas-To-Liquids businesses. He has worked in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. While based in the UAE he was the local lead for all activity across the Downstream.

Richard was born in the UK and graduated from Bath University with a degree in Economics. He is married with two daughters, and outside of work his interests include sport and travel.

Richard is also a keen advocate of sustainable development. He and his wife reforested 15 hectares in Mexico with 18,000 trees to ensure their family is carbon neutral.

Head of Outsourcing Operations with 16 years post MBA experience in Senior Management roles; leading globally distributed teams in Retail and Information Technology Outsourcing, Strategy, Investment Consulting.

Leading Tesco’s Commercial (UK Food) & Marketing Services team, accountable to create and manage world class processes supporting the company’s ability to maximize its $51 billion revenue & margin potential.

Wide ranging experience with setting up and running efficient, intensely customer & innovation focused, large voice call centre, back office processing, planning, MIS and analytics operations.
Domain experience includes Retail, Supply Chain, Information Technology, Real Estate and Investments.

Yetunde Hofmann: BA (Hons), MBA, Chartered FCIPD, FRSA, PCC, Integral Coach
Founder and Director: Hofmann Leadership Consulting

Hofmann Leadership Consulting is a leadership and change consultancy that partners  individual leaders and leadership teams in the management of change, diversity and  inclusion and the alignment of their teams and organisations behind them. It coaches  leaders to be effective, leadership teams to be functional, and runs group wide leadership  programmes for companies looking to unlock the collective potential of their management  and leadership.

In addition, she established The Enjoyable Life Series – a community organisation designed  to have men and women at all levels in business, education and community identify practical  ways in which they can live more enjoyably in all of what they do. In so doing, it supports  their emotional, relational and mental wellbeing.

Yetunde has built a successful, fast-paced career in FTSE 100 Global companies. Her last incompany role was as Global HR Director for the commercial division of a FTSE 25 business driving growth across 165 countries.

A classically trained pianist, she is an internationally accredited executive leadership coach, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). She is also a Visiting Fellow at the University of Reading’s Henley Business School, a Non-Executive Director of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and a Board Trustee of the John Lewis/Waitrose Partnership’s Golden Jubilee Trust.

Willie is the GE Crotonville Leadership Regional Learning Leader for MENAT, based in Prestwick, Scotland. In his role Willie’s primary responsibility is to analyze the region learning needs and create overall learning strategy and operations to support region business goals.

From September 2010 until January 2013 he was the GE Crotonville EMEA leadership skills program manager with responsibility for IEL, FOL and AMC in the region. He was also a member of the UK HR council.
Between November 2006 and September 2010, he was GE Global Learning’s Commercial Program Manger EMEA. During this period Willie was responsible for integrating the sales and marketing training curricula and the introduction of CECOR to the region. He also delivered strategic customer training in the region, facilitated working with government initiatives, supported the Commercial Council’s, provided strategic facilitation and was a member of the European Services Council.

From 1985 to 2006 Willie was with GE Aircraft Engines in Prestwick, Scotland, where he most recently held the position of European Six Sigma MBB with responsibility for achieving strategic business goals and leveraging best practice across the European Aviation services portfolio. During this time he also held management positions in customer support (sales) where he oversaw an international portfolio of customers with the primary focus on growing the relationships. As Supply chain leader he led customer fulfilment and deflation initiatives.

He received his Executive MBA from the University of the West of Scotland where he also gained a diploma in Production and Inventory Management.

Marina Pochinok has graduated from Moscow State University with honors, has Ph.D. in applied mathematics. She is a certified PHR from Thunderbird School of Global Management. Marina has more than 15 years of working experience in Human Resources management both at leading Russia-based and foreign companies, such as TNK-BP, Philips and more. In 2008 Marina joined Organizing Committee of the XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games of 2014 in Sochi. Her area of responsibility includes planning, sourcing, recruiting, training, motivation, integration and of 70 000 people (paid staff, volunteers, contractors and temporary staff) necessary for the successful Games delivery. Marina performs as a MBA Professor at Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. She is a member of advisory panel for People Investor and National Staff Council. Marina has been awarded a medal “For Russia Science, Culture and Education Development”.
Married. Has a son and two daughters. Hobbies – yoga, music and alpine skiing.

Stuart is a business-oriented Organisational Change professional with a multicultural perspective, having worked extensively in both developed and emerging markets.

He worked for both Fujitsu and Levi Strauss in the UK before moving to Levi’s Brussels headquarters as an OD consultant. In the 10 years he had his own consulting business, Stuart led numerous leadership and organisational change engagements with organisations such as Deutsche Bank, Nokia, and Vodafone, and a five-year transformation effort with the International Finance Corporation in Washington DC.

Stuart has a MSc in Organisational Consulting, a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and is now studying for a doctorate in Organisational Change.

Currently HR Director for Turkey, with key responsibility for delivering people initiatives & strategies that support’s the overall organization strategy. This ranges from supporting key market competitive compensation strategies to developing talent acquisitions, retention & development strategies that ensure that we remain attractive and relevant in an ever changing environment and also managing the relationship with the collective bargaining entity while focused on building a motivated, capable and enrich team. As well as project leader for the end to end roll-out of workday across MEA (9 main locations including Eastern Europe)

Adrian Gilpin is Chairman of the Institute of Human Development, author of bestselling book Unstoppable – The Pathway to Living an Inspired Life, and creator of Pathfinder – a subscription social learning web platform dedicated to the science behind creating a fearless enterprise culture.
Adrian’s primary focus is on harnessing the power of social media and video to tap into the most ancient and potent form of communication: storytelling. The stories circulating in an organisation are contagious, and they prophesy the future. Great leaders actively inspire a different type of storytelling, and thereby create a different type of culture. IBM has cascaded this approach – using Pathfinder – to 15,000 people (and counting) around the globe with an unprecedented impact on the collective mindset, leading to breathtaking financial returns.
Many organisations – including IBM, Zurich, Deutsche Bank, Prudential Property Investment Managers, Barclaycard and the Commercial Bank of Kuwait – have retained Adrian to facilitate their Managing Directors and senior executives. Entrepreneurs work with Adrian to maximise the value of their enterprises; Adrian coached the board of Bookham Technology through the largest ever public floatation of any UK technology business, and mentored the owner of IRG Ltd during the lead up to the sale of his business to Capita for £100 million. Adrian works regularly within the public sector too, including the MOD, and all three armed forces. He is a mentor to the founders of a number of social enterprises.

Geoff has had a great 23 years with Unilever. He  spent the first 8 years working in various HR roles in South Africa, then transferred to London and worked across Africa, Middle East and Turkey for five years, absolutely fascinating.  Thereafter He held the position of VP HR Unilever Australasia and spent two wonderful years in Sydney!  Geoff returned to the UK in 2005 as VP Leadership and Talent Development and in May 2007 was appointed Global VP HR HPC categories. In this role Geoff played  an active part in the transformation of Unilever’s Global Laundry business and in April of 2010 was appointed into the current role. This role provides a real opportunity to integrate marketing, communications and sustainability bringing this central to the business strategy vs being a reputation enhancing activity. “I too am pioneering the role HR plays in making this central to the business and embeddiing it in the organisation”- says Geoff.

Frances Mensah Williams is the CEO of Interims for Development Ltd., an HR, Training and Coaching consultancy with a focus on Africa.  She is an experienced HR and Talent professional with over 25 years experience of managing and developing people in the UK and Africa across a diverse range of sectors. Frances is the Editor of ReConnect Africa.com, a leading careers and business portal and online magazine for professionals of African origin. She writes and speaks extensively on the subject of skills development for Africa and is the author of ‘Everyday Heroes: Learning from the Careers of Successful Black Professionals’ and her most recent publication, ‘I Want to Work in Africa’.

Kate is Deputy Chairperson of the SA Board for People Practices (SABPP), the HR quality assurance and professional body of South Africa. She has a Teacher’s Diploma, Human Resources Management Diploma, Training Management Diploma, and a Certificate in Occupational Development, ETD Practice and Labour Relations with the University of Pretoria and currently a participant in the Goldman Sachs-GIBS 10,000 Women Certificate Programme for Women Entrepreneurs.
Kate is a businesswoman, trainer, facilitator, business partner and mentor. Kate is the chief facilitator of the new HR Service Delivery National Standard in South Africa, the first of its kind in the world.
Kate spent 12 years in the Education and Training environment, and has more than 20 years in the fields of HR and Education and Training. She has worked in the engineering, IT and Specialist Sales training sectors.

Her strength is in empowering people from all walks of life and engaging them in transformative activities. She is a sought after public speaker and trainer/facilitator. She is also a Mentor and member for Business Women’s Association (BWA) and holds membership with the Chartered Institute for the Management of Assessment Practices (CIMAP).
Kate says: “I am privileged to have worked with all levels of diverse groups of people. I believe in work-life effectiveness, ethical behavior at all time and giving excellent service”.

Sarah Fitzgerald is Managing Director at Executives in Africa, the largest Executive Search Team focused purely on Africa. She graduated from Oxford University then initially trained with Arthur Andersen before moving into Executive Recruitment in 1994 and specifically Emerging Markets Search in 2003.

Having travelled extensively throughout Africa, Sarah took the opportunity in 2008 to focus purely on the African markets, and has since delivered searches across a range of functional and technical roles in a wide range of sectors across the continent.

Sarah is passionate about delivering the very best talent, both African and expatriate where required, to contribute to the successful growth of businesses in Africa

Warren is a Partner with Birches Group LLC, based in New York, a firm specializing in compensation and benefits surveys covering 148 high-growth and developing countries. Warren leads the business development efforts for the firm, and manages the global collaboration between Birches Group and Aon Hewitt.

Prior to joining Birches in 2007, Warren had a long career at Colgate-Palmolive Company, with roles in US and international compensation and benefits. Warren began his HR career with Towers Perrin.

Warren is the editor of the International HR Forum Blog (http://www.internationalhrforum.com), which publishes articles of interest to the international human resources community.

Andy leads Deloitte’s Global Mobility Transformation (GMT) practice across EMEA where he assists companies in transforming global mobility by aligning their mobility programmes to their wider organizations business and talent objectives. With over 13 years of experience he has over the last 5 years worked extensively in assisting over 250 organizations on various global mobility transformation projects across the globe.

He has extensive experience in leading large mobility transformation projects which includes mobility strategy, global workforce planning, policy segmentation, process optimization, vendor rationalization, organization and role restructuring. He speaks regularly at seminars across the globe and has published a number of articles discussing global mobility transformation. He is the author of Deloitte’s annual ‘Strategic Moves’ research publication which explores talent mobility challenges in over 200 organizations across the globe.

Andy has been an expatriate himself in India, Japan and more recently in New York for five years

Tracy Figliola heads the Global Mobility Regional Hub for EMEA for HSBC Bank

Tracy has extensive experience and knowledge in the Global Mobility field. She has played an integral part in HSBC’s recent Global Mobility Transformation initiative which developed new global process, structure and systems. Before her career in Global Mobility and International Compensation Tracy was Compensations Manager for HSBC.

Karly is a commercially focused people and organisation development professional, with international experience in the public and private sectors, gained in the UK, US, Europe and Africa. Her approach is performance improvement through providing capacity building in effective leadership .

Specialties:Organisation Development and performance improvement – change management, culture change, talent management, coaching, project management, leadership and staff development. I hold an MA in Strategic HR, and am a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Managment (ILM), and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI)

Gyan is an award winning talent strategist and commentator, who is deeply invested in researching ongoing changes to the global talent pool. Over the last decade he has helped some of the worlds largest and most ambitious organisations build significant business franchises across the Asia Pacific Region. As CEO and Principal at PeopleLENS Global Associates, Gyan trains and coaches business leaders on talent management; and travels the world speaking on leadership and 21st century talent trends. In addition, Gyan is also a senior fellow- human capital at the Conference Board and a member of the NTL Institute. You can follow his work and research at www.PLGAonline.com

Alan is a strategy consultant for Recruitment Challenges, Talent Acquisition, Candidate Experience, Employment Brand and Social Media. He works with corporate recruitment and talent management teams as well as recruitment agencies and RPO businesses  to ensure that their technology and processes align to deliver the right candidates in a timely and cost-effective manner.

He is one of the thought leaders in developing the online recruitment industry for end users, recruiters and candidates across Europe and has recently been active in creating workshops and training programmes for line managers on the use of new recruitment processes and technology and the emerging trends of social media. He is passionate about ensuring the company brand is improved with a great employment and recruitment experience for all constituents;  the candidate, the hiring manager and the HR community.

Alan can be found as a frequent chairman and participant in European conference programmes, with over 200 appearances. He has been published in a number of on-line and off-line media covering technical and strategic HR and Recruitment issues, including the XPertHR Guide to Candidate Attraction

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.

Having held senior in-house communications roles with Network Rail, BBC Sport and BNFL, Sean moved into consultancy in 2007, initially working for WPP before founding uber engagement.

Passionate about shifting organisational culture by engaging employees in mission-critical issues like safety and customer focus, Sean has delivered successful projects for large blue-chip clients like Nissan, British Gas, Vodafone and Balfour Beatty.
This passion led to the creation of Safe Places To Work, an organisation with the simple purpose of creating safer workplaces by enabling, engaging and encouraging employees to improve the safety culture in their place of work.

Sean has a BEng (Hons) in Electronic Engineering and an MSc in Project Management. A former board member of CIPR and current Chair of the Special Interest Group on Communications as part of the Engage For success movement.

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.

Nicola Piggott is a communications manager at Riot Games, an online game developer and publisher headquartered in California. She advises on internal communications strategy amongst Riot’s international offices as well managing external communications and media relations for Riot who produce League Of Legends, a competitive online game with over 32 million monthly players.

Prior to joining Riot, Nicola has worked as a communications professional for over ten years, including management roles at Hilton, Nestle and international PR agencies Hill & Knowlton and Golin Harris.

Emma Berry is a strategic Internal Communications professional with 12 years in-house corporate Internal Communications experience across three major corporations –  Marks & Spencer Plc, The Body Shop Plc and Pfizer Plc.

She joined U.S. pharmaceutical Pfizer in 2009 as Head of UK Internal Communications and is now the Director of Internal Communications for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Emma is currently responsible for providing strategic counsel and guidance for Internal Communications across Europe, Africa and the Middle East working closely with Global and in-country communications colleagues as well as Regional Leaders. Her specialist skills include change management, channels management, presenter coaching, business writing and strategic communication planning.

Angela Dunn is an award-winning writer and editor with an international background in public relations, journalism, and corporate communications. For the past ten years she has held various communications roles at SAP AG. During her tenure as editor-in-chief of SAP’s employee magazine, she drove the relaunch of the publication which went on to win numerous international prizes for editorial excellence and layout. Canadian by birth, European by choice, Angela is based in Walldorf, Germany at SAP headquarters. Follow her on Twitter @angeladunn

Nada Enan, an Egyptian currently living in Dubai, UAE, who is heading the Internal Communications function in Ericsson Region Middle East and North East Africa since 2010. For the past 10 years been working in the Communications field in different regions & countries including; North Africa, Middle East, and Sweden.

Emma Stephen is an Associate Customer Success Manager in Yammer Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) and is responsible for helping organisations to get the most out of the opportunities that Yammer provides for improving internal communications and business effectiveness. Customers can then realise the benefits of Enterprise Social Networking, encompassing elements of community collaboration, open and transparent culture and social learning.

Before joining Yammer, Emma graduated in Psychology before working in a communications and sales role that took her to Spain, Mexico, Israel and Angola. On return to the UK she joined MedTRACK, a leading online business intelligence service for the pharma industry. In a consultative sales role she supported companies in understanding how they could derive value from the information to achieve business objectives.

Di Burton is the managing director of Cicada Communications Limited. She advises at board level on leadership issues, staff engagement and reputation management.

For 16 years she directed the MA in Public Communication programme for the Government Communication Network (GCN) at Leeds Trinity University College. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Di is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

As an industry expert, Di has worked at 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office, and is a regular speaker at national conferences.

Di is a member of London’s Reform Club and Yorkshire’s Two Percent Club, and is listed in PR Week’s Power List of the most influential people in public relations.

She has attended Harvard Business School, is a Yorkshire Patron, and a trustee of Harrogate Theatre.

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.

James is a former journalist and editor who moved into internal communications at BAA over 10 years ago. Within four years he had gained wide-ranging communications experience in organisations with operational, highly unionised workforces during times of intense criticism from external press, industrial action, politically driven upheaval, takeover and even terrorist attack. After some quieter contract work in internal comms, James moved back into a high-profile environment by joining the UK Border Agency. Recently, he has focused on measuring internal communications at the Home Office. He is an accomplished presenter on TV and radio, and a regular speaker at conferences.

Having trained as a regulatory consultant at  Deloitte, Joanna has worked at HSBC for the last ten years in a variety of business and functional roles, including four years working in wealth management roles in Jersey.

Joanna was appointed Chief Operating Officer for the newly created Global Communications function at HSBC in 2011. Working directly for the Global Co-Heads, Joanna has been instrumental in building the new function, with accountability for the people strategy, planning, budgets, operations and risk management for the 440-strong team.

Joe leads our Corporate Brand and Communications team. He brings clear-sight, smart thinking and inexhaustible energy to complex projects and helps clients focus on the most effective route to achieve their goals. His passion lies in seeing great ideas take root at the heart of company culture. He has 15 years experience in brand strategy development and internal engagement for clients such as Rio Tinto, M&S, InterContinental Hotels, The Department for Work and Pensions, ebay, Sony and B&Q.

Philip has been a mobile technology influencer for over 8 years. Prior to co-founding Beem he worked with many of the worlds largest companies to leverage the potential of mobile. Responsible for 3 App Store number ones, and numerous critically acclaimed app developments his passion is the creation of mobile experiences that users love, and publishers derive maximum value from.

Tony Coll is one of the UK’s most experienced media and presentation coaches and trainers. A former BBC TV and BBC Radio reporter and producer, he has worked for many years with senior figures from companies and organisations of all sizes; politicians; national and local government officers; health service and utility managers; pressure group spokespeople; charity workers; chief police and fire officers. He worked at cabinet level with the late Veronica Crichton, former director of communications at the Labour Party, in media training several UK government ministers.
Tony’s training can be delivered in the form of personal coaching or consultancy, in groups or as part of wider emergency response training. It covers effective emergency communication with newspapers, radio, TV and social media as well as addressing live audiences.

Tony Coll is an Oxford law graduate who began his career as a newspaper reporter in North East London and Sheffield.  He moved on to the BBC World Service, BBC Radio One ‘Newsbeat’, BBC and commercial local radio and BBC regional TV in Manchester and London.  He has interviewed cabinet ministers and other public figures; researched, produced, reported and presented news and current affairs programmes, from hard news, sequence programmes and “built” documentaries, through live political discussions and phone-ins, to lighter features, celebrity profiles and vox pops.

International public relations expert and a digital guru with more than 20 years of experience.
– Deputy Managing Director of Edelman EMEA, European Technology – Digital evangelist (2011-2012), fouunder and Managing Director Rumeur Publique (1988, 2011).
– President of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) for 2013.
– Founder of NGO ‘Internet sans Frontières’ (Internet without Borders) in 2007 then WebDiversity in 2011.
– Published author of Allons, enfants de l’Internet! (Publisher: Diateino, 2010).
– Creator of the “ReputationWar” international conference (2013).
– Professor of Lobbying & Influence at INSEEC (since 2010).

Izy BEHAR, 63, is President of the European Association for People Management (EAPM), which is the federation of the 30 national HR associations in Europe.

He has been Senior VP HR for Eutelsat Communications from 1999 to 2012, a telecommunication by satellite operator.

Before that, Izy BEHAR has been, for more than 10 years, HR Director of Crédit Commercial de France (now HSBC France) and before HR Manager for Japan Airlines in France.

Izy BEHAR is board member of ANDRH (French national HR association) and Chief Editor of the monthly magazine “PERSONNEL”.

He is also currently the president of the technical committee working on the elaboration of the ISO international standard on Human Governance

Mrs. Derya Tekin Yusuf, after having completed faculty of business management in Marmara University, she continued her masters in business economy in Istanbul University.

Derya Tekin Yusuf has worked in the aviation sector for many years in companies such as Turkish Airlines and Trans World Airlines.  In 1993, she set up a training department with in Human Resources Departmant and became Training Director in Celebi Aviation Holding. From 1999 until 2005 she was the director of human resources in Celebi Ground Handling and from 2005 until 2010 became director of human resources for Celebi Aviation Holding.

Now she takes a role as the President of Human resources for Celebi Aviation Holding in Global. She is responsible for the management of all human resources for Celebi Group. Derya is also the President of the Airport Services Association’s HR Committee.

Guy has 30 years’ experience in international BBC TV news, corporate communications and media consultancy. Now based in the UAE since 2006, he founded and ran for 10 years a successful media training and consultancy firm in London, Greenwich Village PR, working with blue chip clients such as KPMG, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), L’Oreal (Paris) and the Crown Estate.
In 2006, as adviser to the spokesman of the Asian Games Doha, he led the official response to the media onslaught following the death of a competitor.
Guy has worked for many international news organisations such as BBC TV, BBC World Service Radio, International Television News (ITN), Reuters, EuroNews and Channel 4 News.

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 co-founded True, a business set up to help organisations build winning cultures through maximising the potential of their people in early 2023.

Before True, Howard spent much of his career in senior in house communications and engagement roles at businesses such as Ernst &amp; Young, GSK and latterly Johnson Matthey.

Over the past five and a half years, together with colleague Mike Pounsford and Kevin Ruck, Howard has led work focused on how organisations listen. Following four ground-breaking reports, a book, entitled “Leading the Listening Organisation” was published by Routledge in December 2023.

Howard was President of the UK chapter of International Association of Business Communicators for two years (2019-21), and Chairman of Wealdstone Football Club (2007-16).

Ben is Head of Strategic Communications for eBay, leading campaigns and change communications for teams across Europe. His current focus is how businesses can better understand and shape their culture. Prior to eBay, he’s worked for BT, Telefonica and he was responsible for global internal communications at Cable&Wireless. Ben is passionate about the use of data to help communications speak the language of the business and he is a member of UK Government’s Cabinet Office Communications Evaluation Council.

Matanat Babayeva (1977) is since 1st July 2012 appointed as Senior Director Human Resources at Nar Mobile, Multiplay Telecom Services provider in Azerbaijan. She directs and leads all aspects of Human Resources, implements strategic initiatives to increase efficiency of Talent Management and Succession Planning, Organizational Development, Compensation &Benefits, Competence/Leadership Development, Performance Management, Executive Recruitment, Expat Management and Strategic Workforce Planning

Tony Cooke was appointed as HR Director, adidas UK in 2001. He has played a key role in the integration with Holland and Belgium, the acquisition of the Reebok business and more latterly the integration of the Nordics to create adidas North Europe.
Prior to adidas UK, Tony spent over 10 years in senior HR roles with William Baird Plc, the clothing manufacturer, including 6 years as Divisional HR Director providing a HR service to businesses in Holland, Ireland and Sweden.
Tony has an Advanced Post Graduate Diploma in Management Application and has attended a Director’s Development Programme at Insead.

Josep Alcover is founder and chief vitaminizer in Clementina, a communications agency specializing in internal communications based in Barcelona. From Clementina he has vitaminized teams and projects in Ricoh, CaixaBank, Andbank and Hewlett Packard, among others. Josep is the son of a teacher and a journalist and he has studied business administration and management at the ESADE MBA.

As PR &amp;amp;amp;amp; Communications manager for HP Barcelona site, Eva is responsible for the Site Communication and PR Plan for the site. Eva is also the Internal Communications manager for HP’s Large Format &amp;amp;amp;amp; 3D Printing acting as Executive Communicator for the two VP &amp;amp;amp;amp; GMs of the businesses.
Eva implemented the first Internal Communications Plan of the HP Barcelona site in 1993. Within her current role, Eva manages several employee engagement activities such as the HP Barcelona Social Innovation Committee. She is also a core member of the Barcelona Women Network.
Eva is a native of Barcelona and holds a Tourism and Information degree and studies of Communications in the Enterprise by University of Barcelona.

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.

In a company of 81,000 employees spread over 5 continents and 70 business units, Holly is responsible for the content, messaging and functionality of all global internal communication channels. At the heart of the Internal Communication strategy is employee advocacy (transforming employees into your greatest ambassadors) and in the last 3 years Holly has redesigned and created, global channels to facilitate this. Before her role in Internal Communication, Holly worked in various Corporate Relations functions at HEINEKEN in 3 different countries and holds a Masters degree in History of Art &amp;amp; Spanish.

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 &amp;amp; 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.

Jonathan joined MetLife as communications lead for EMEA in November 2012 and is a member of the regional executive.

Jonathan provides strategic advice and counsel on all aspects of internal and external communications across MetLife's 26 EMEA markets. This includes media relations, employee &amp;amp;amp;amp; executive communications, CSR, social, product promotion, reputation management, crisis communications, M&amp;amp;amp;amp;A and communications related to the company’s public affairs activities.
Previously, Jonathan led UK-insurer Aviva's European corporate affairs team across 13 markets building a highly-effective community of international communicators. Jonathan was a key strategic adviser to senior management, dealing with internal and external stakeholders across all key corporate communications disciplines including leading Aviva's award-winning retirement savings thought-leadership campaign “Mind the Gap”. He also oversaw the launch of a single intranet across Aviva’s 13 European markets and delivered communications for Aviva Europe’s strategy refresh.
Jonathan, a former award-winning business journalist, has extensive cross-cultural, crisis and reputation management experience, particularly in Asia, the US and UK, having previously worked as PR Director for Prudential plc where a main focus was on building Prudential’s credentials as a player in Asia and as Director of Media Relations at the professional services firm PwC.

Jonathan holds a B.A in Politics from Durham University, UK.

Eric is a senior Consultant and Coach with an extensive international experience in developing HR into a modern function, facilitating complex transformations and coaching executive teams 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, Retail, Airline, 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 co-founded Pachamama Foods in Nigeria that helps get out of malnutrition more than 250000 children.

Akua leads HR strategy and implementation for LeapFrog Investments value-creation group. LeapFrog Investments is the world’s largest dedicated private equity investor in emerging markets financial services, and its value-creation group is focused on driving value in investee companies.
Akua’s role sees her respond to the people needs of diverse companies at different stages of growth, and move flexibly between strategic plans and operational execution. Before LeapFrog, Akua gained experience across diverse industries including facilities management, I.T. and telecoms. She held various senior roles for Vodafone PLC, including Head of Diversity &amp; Inclusion for Vodafone Ghana and Senior HR Business Partner for Group Commercial and Group Enterprise. Akua successfully led business critical transformational programmes and diversity &amp; Inclusion agenda resulting in Vodafone’s Diversity and Inclusion award. Akua is also a graduate of Vodafone’s Global HR Excellence Programme. Akua holds a Bachelors of Science in Social Policy and Administration with Theology from Surrey University, a Masters in Human Resources Management from Middlesex University and is chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (MCIPD).

Edna has developed and delivered top-quality integrated communications strategies in large global companies and public organizations. She has held various global communications roles at Nissan, STMicroelectronics, Philip Morris International and UNESCO and was a consultant for the OECD. She has also taught communications and history at the University of California Los Angeles, University of Arkansas, University of Paris, and Washington State University.

Kasha Dougall is a global communications professional. A British citizen, she is based in Paris where she has spent the last 20 years deploying global communication strategies in local markets around the world. Kasha has specialised in the industrial and engineering sectors during which she has learnt how to bridge the gap between cultures to ensure the success of international campaigns and events. Her skill set includes digital campaigns, thought leadership, external communications, media relations and event management.
She started her career working for the advertising agency, TBWA, as a project manager for the Nissan Europe account in Paris. She has always worked in multicultural teams on both agency and client side. She took on the role of Corporate Communications Director at Faiveley Transport, an equipment supplier for the railway industry before managing Business Communication at Bureau Veritas, an industrial services provider.
She holds a BA (Hons) in European Business from Oxford Brookes University and the ESC de la Rochelle and an MA in Internet Marketing & Communications from the Léonard de Vinci University, Paris. When she is not fussing about messaging, you can find her at the opera and the ballet or networking with like minded internationals.

Currently working as an internal Communications Manager at Amazon, Tom X. Scott is a professional with over 20 years of experience in strategic corporate communications in an international environment. His scope includes public relations, employee and marketing communications.
His main competencies are in planning and executing strategic communication initiatives; creating and executing media relations and B2B marketing communications plans; integrating employees new to an organization through acquisitions, restructuring or hiring; using communication to ensure change management programs are successful; and running effective employee communication programs as tools for employee motivation and engagement.
Tom’s global and broad experience has given him the capacity not only to create and develop integrated and strategic communication plans but also to ensure the execution of the plans. In addition, his personal core skills of empathy, authentic listening and building relationships have allowed him to hone the corporate communication competencies necessary to effectively inform, influence and inspire stakeholders.

Marit Imeland-Gjesme, a Norwegian by origin and with work bases alternating from Oslo, Copenhagen and Zurich, is an experienced leadership trainer and coach. Having trained people from over 100 cultures, she supports companies, teams and executives to improve their cultural agility, cross-cultural cooperation and international success. Educated in psychology and cultures, and with a 25 years long career in both academia and business, she now provides cross-cultural training services, team building and advice across industries and business areas, for global companies or companies aspiring to become more international. A key area is supporting mergers and acquisitions in bridging people and cultural gaps both regarding national and organizational cultures, and optimize preparations, processes and outcomes.

Michael Silverman is Managing Director of Silverman Research. He is a psychologist and opinion research specialist, with a focus on social collective intelligence. He has worked in academia and commercial research as well as working in-house at Unilever as Head of Employee Insight before setting up the company in 2010.

Michael will be facilitating the session on 'A different proposition: Collective intelligence in organisations', he will cover challenges to overcome in designing and using collective intelligence tools in an organisational context.

<em>Michael will be speaking on <strong>'A Different Proposition: Collective Intelligence in Organisations'</em></strong>

David is currently the Head of the Culture &amp;amp;amp; Engagement Centre of Expertise, where he works closely with the Group’s Senior Executive team to identify and develop strategic interventions which support the Group’s vision and strategy and drive organisational performance.

David has 15 years’ experience as an innovative and highly effective leader with a strong track record of delivering results in a multi-branded, multi-channel organisation. He has led the Group’s transformational approach to Engagement since the merger between Lloyds TSB and HBOS in 2009. During this time, he designed and implemented a new engagement strategy for the Group, enabling leaders and line managers to build engagement and drive performance in the workplace.

David is a passionate and energetic leader, who enjoys working with senior leaders and line managers on all matters of culture and engagement and has experience of working with teams in the UK, Europe and US.

His session will be covering ‘Driving Behavioural Transformation & Success with an Effective Engagement Strategy

Sumeet Verma is Global HR Director at Unilever. He currently works in the HR expertise space focusing on Performance Management and Employee Insights. Over the 10+ years in HR, Sumeet has worked on various business partnering and expertise roles covering rewards, talent management, engagement and restructuring.

Sumeet will be speaking about ‘A Different Proposition: Collective Intelligence in Organisations’

In an eclectic career Tom has been a classical actor, an opera singer, and an entrepreneur and developing, running and then selling his own brand experience marketing agency. He is as much at home on the stages of London’s West End he is in the boardrooms or conference rooms of some of the worlds most respected brands and businesses.

He is a leading thinker in the field of personal and professional development. He is also a sought-after coach and trainer, having worked with brands such as British Airways, O2, Microsoft, Google, Green Flag and Peugeot as well as individuals in politics, the arts, entertainment, finance and the media. As a guest lecturer on marketing at the ‘Cass London Business School’ Tom also shared his experiences with future leaders and creatives.

Out of this diverse stimulus, Tom created a boutique practice called Extraordinary People, that consults on, designs and delivers people and organisational development, helping businesses realise the full extent of the extraordinary potential that exist in the individuals that make it up, and in all of them together as a focused and inspirational whole.

Laura is Group Head of Internal Communications at SABMiller the world’s second largest brewer that owns and nurtures brands including Peroni, Grolsch, Meantime and Pilsner Urquell.

Laura has over 14 years’ experience of leading and delivering successful communications, cultural change and functional development programmes in complex global organisations.

Prior to her current role she consulted to a wide range of organisations including
Marks and Spencer, RBS and American Express and headed Internal Communications at Grant Thornton.

Laura began her career at Barclays as a graduate trainee working across the retail, wealth and international businesses focused on operating model design and engagement programmes.

Laura areas of specialism include: communications strategy, M&amp;amp;A communications, digital, functional development, global and cultural engagement programmes.

Her session will cover ‘Influential Communications: Increasing Your Ability to Influence and Have Impact at the Highest Level’

Gatehouse co-founder Lee Smith has spent more than half his life in the communication business – a career that has spanned both internal and external communication disciplines and in-house and agency roles.

Prior to establishing Gatehouse a decade ago, Lee held senior positions with some of the UK’s leading financial and professional services organisations. Today he runs the go-to internal communication agency, helping world class organisations, leaders and managers inform, inspire and engage their people.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (FCIPR), a former chair of CIPR Inside, a visiting lecturer at Wolverhampton University and Trinity &amp;amp; All Saints, and a regular judge on number of the major industry awards programmes. He holds an MSc in Corporate Communication &amp;amp; Reputation Management.

Lee has been active in promoting the development of internal communication skills and practice through the CIPR and IoIC and, as part of a small team, developed the definitive competency model for the profession. He also created the IoIC Accelerate masterclass programme and remains actively involved in learning delivery.

Meet Simona, a dynamic communications professional with 15 years of experience in the energy management and automation industry at Schneider Electric. She’s navigated the global and local realms of the €36 billion giant, honing her expertise in Internal and External Communications, People Development, and Change Management. Together with a dedicated team of leaders, she drives the employee and managerial communications strategy and channels while overseeing global functions’ internal and external communications. Outside of work, Simona’s passions include traveling and the arts.

Mossy is Newsweaver’s chief product strategist, and manages the company’s product direction and roadmap. He has worked for over ten years helping organizations use technology to better engage with their audiences, and now spends most of his time wondering how technology can be used to better communicate, engage and empower employees. He is passionate about the power of technology to transform and enrich our lives, which is another way of saying he’s a bit of a geek!

Mossy will be covering the session on 'Data-Driven Internal Communications – Using Data &amp; Insights to Drive Change, Better Outcomes and Prove Value'

A recent survey by Sequel Group indicated that 78% of internal communicators believe their role is of a strategic importance that benefits the company’s employees, improves morale and generates greater trust between managers and workers. We believe that better internal communications leads to improved employee engagement and ultimately better company performance. The problem is, in an increasingly data-driven world, how do we prove this?

Measurement. Better measurement would provide insight to improve results, drive change and prove the impact of internal comms. Better data enables communicators to influence senior management, and gain the credibility to secure greater resources. If better measurement can do all of this, why isn’t everyone doing it? Because the path is strewn with obstacles. In his session, Mossy highlights how Communicators can tackle these problems, and change the impact and perception of the value of internal communications.

Jean-Paul Chapon is the Director of the Digital Communications &amp;amp; e-Reputation department at Société Générale, in charge of the Group’s e-Reputation and social media and web strategy. He also leads the deployment of the Group’s internal social network and intranets. Previously he worked for different companies in the telecommunications sector, where he has been responsible for the reorganisation of internal online tools, designed to take advantage of all Web 2.0 resources. Jean-Paul Chapon started his career in media relations, in charge of Alcatel press office for several years. He is also the author of „Paris est sa Banlieue“, a popular blog on the complex relationship between city and suburbs.

Jean-Paul’s afternoon session will be covering 'The Role of Communication as an Enabler or Driver of Change

How do you increase engagement with your organisational purpose and strategy?
In December 2012 EY launched their new purpose and Vision 2020 strategy. Just over three years later there is an impressive story to tell. The EY UK and Ireland Communications &amp; Engagement team play a lead role in advising and supporting the UK Chairman and his team to bring the purpose and strategy to life. In recognition of the effectiveness of the successful use of innovative and creative new approaches to supporting leaders to engage with their stakeholders, the team were awarded EY’s prestigious ‘Better begins with you’ overall winner award for innovation in 2015.

Julia is Head of Communications &amp;amp; Engagement for EY UK and Ireland; EY are a global professional services organisation, the fastest growing of the ‘Big Four’ Accountancy firms in the UK and the leading professional services organisation in the Sunday Times Best Big Companies listing.

Julia has over 15 years’ experience leading and delivering successful communication, engagement, brand, marketing, culture and behavioural change programmes in complex private and public sector organisations. Julia is an experienced trainer and facilitator and regularly leads sessions for EY Partners and people across their EMEIA area.

EY recently won a special award for Innovation in engagement practice at the Sunday Times Best Companies awards.

Sean will be presenting his Case Study: Building and Embedding an Astellas approach to Change Management at the EMEA HR Summit in November 2016.

Tim will be speaking at the EMEA HR Summit 2016.

Join this event to hear his session, ‘Driving continuous evolution in EMEA through Integrated Talent Management and Leadership Development’

He is a council member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. He is co-author of two best-selling PR books, Share This and Share This Too and a visiting lecturer at Leeds Beckett University.
His recent client experience includes Tourism Ireland, the Office of the President of the European Parliament, Office of HRH Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein (FIFA Vice President for Asia) and Bayer CropScience. Stuart has also worked in politics serving as director of communications and strategy for two senior cabinet ministers in the UK government.
Stuart is a frequent international conference speaker including acting as the moderator of the 2015 Davos World Communication Forum and delivering the keynote address on PR and social Stuart is an award-winning public relations adviser and trainer with an international reputation as a pioneering thinker and doer in modernised PR.media at the Global Crisis Communications Summit of the International Air Transport Association speaking to PR heads of more than 100 of the world’s largest airlines.
His regular media appearances include Al Jazeera, BBC, PRWeek and The Guardian amongst many others. He is a judge of the prestigious 2016 SABRE Awards.
Stuart was one of the world's first PR bloggers and started writing his top-ranked PR blog (www.stuartbruce.biz) in 2003. He is frequently listed in the PRWeek Power Book of the UK's most influential PR people.
He was previously the founder and CEO of one of the UK's first digital PR consultancies and in less than three years grew it to become a PRWeek Top 150 Consultancy with clients such as Sony Mobile, Unilever, PayPal, HSBC, First Direct, Carlsberg, GlaxoSmithKline, Discovery Channel, Philips, SunGard and the NHS.
He is a recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Social Media award.

Stuart will be speaking at the Cutting Edge Marketing &amp; PR Conference with his topic: 'Essential skills of the world-class PR practitioner in 2017 and beyond'.
In an ever changing industry, Stuart Bruce will delve into what skills PR practitioners will need to thrive in a modern world, and how these skills can be developed and improved.

Caroline S. Henne – Google &amp;amp;amp; YouTube's Lead for the Luxury Sector – has over a decade of digital marketing experience. She started her career in the television industry at Germany's biggest private broadcaster RTL, but soon discovered her passion for the digital space. Kickstarting her own digital transformation at Lycos Europe in London, she soon executed those digital transformations for large corporations across the globe as a consultant on marketing mix optimisation from Luxury to CPG and Technology clients at market research giant GfK, before arriving at her current destination, Google UK, two years ago.

Caroline Henne holds a Bachelor of International Management for Media and is a regular speaker at events across the globe, be it IAB Conferences or other digital, marketing, market research or related events.

Caroline will be speaking at the Cutting Edge Marketing and PR Conference, with her topic: “Creating a digital video strategy – YouTube Best Practices”

Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine, with more searches than Bing, Yahoo!, and AOL combined? Despite YouTube’s precedence as a content discovery engine, many marketers fail to leverage the platform. Caroline S. Henne, Sector Lead Luxury at Google UK, will share some best practices to help you make the most of this most viable video channel!

Alex Shebar is a former reporter turned community manager and legendary rock star, but without any of the money, fame or musical talent. He is Yelp’s London first Community Director. This job often includes eating and drinking around London, which is tough, but someone’s got to do it. He thinks he’s the man for the job.

Alex will be speaking at the Cutting Edge Marketing & PR conference, covering the topic: How To Make Someone Feel Like The Coolest Kid At The Party

I will talk about marketing “around a group of people” rather than “towards a group of people.” And what I mean by that is first figuring out who this target audience is and what they want. Too many marketing campaigns start and end with the product: We are this. We do this. You should buy us. But it doesn’t relate at all to the person who might be buying it and give them any reason to care. Today’s world is no longer just about the function or convenience of a product, but how does it fit into a person’s daily life. If you can give them a reason to want to buy, to want to talk about it on social media, to feel like their life is enhanced by buying the product or joining in, then they will. And that’s personalised marketing. I’ll explain this using real work examples and real world takeaways that can be implemented into anyone’s strategies. Plus, a slew of pop-culture references to keep things interesting.

Pete Durant is a dedicated brand and engagement marketer with extensive social media experience and has spoken at many events around the world. Passionate about narrative brand planning and audience first approaches, he has gained in-depth knowledge over the last ten years thanks to numerous award-winning social media campaigns and working with the UK’s best home-grown companies including Specsavers, Waitrose, Virgin Media and Comic Relief.

Pete currently leads the digital partnership, innovation and social media functions at Comic Relief, driving forward new thinking, marketing approaches and communications platforms working towards making Red Nose Day and Sport Relief fundraising campaigns a success.

Richard is a seasoned HR Professional with extensive international HR expertise  experience in the Aviation and Software Industries .He has held a number of senior roles including VP HR International Trade for ICL (Fujitsu) ,International Programme Director for there Management Program and VP HR EMEA for Fujitsu Software .He ran his own business as a Headhunter specialising in International Recruitment before joining CommVault Systems to build there EMEA and Asia Pac business.He is currently with B2M Solutions which is a start up software company .Richard is also on the Board of EFMD the International Business Schools standards Board and has taught HR and Marketing in the UK, Russia, Romania and Ethiopia on the Open University MBA Programme

Well-seasoned, strategic, proactive, international HR professional who will be a catalyst for inspiring a collaboratively driven performance culture that engages all members of the workplace community in implementing new age, innovative, integrated people management solutions that will drive business success,

An HR generalist, with strengths in people-driven growth, leadership, and organisational transformation and development that are aligned to strategic business objectives. Highly achievement driven, through commitment, teamwork, entrepreneurship, ethics and integrity, aspiring to perform and deliver at the highest level of quality and global standards, and world-class professionalism and Mobile.

Mohamed Mesbah is brings more than sixteen years of experience in HR, training, coaching, and consulting, leader in HR in the area of empowerment, organisational structure and development, his reputation as an expert on work and organisations is based on his successful academic and professional career.

Regional Responsibilities included different countries, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Libya, Sudan, UAE, Turkey and Singapore, Responsible for the transformation program in Saudi Arabia/Bahrain and the overall country HR strategy and achieving the Saudization program, Leads and executes regional development and training projects and programs in Turkey, Libya and Sudan, Engaged in the Global HR system and the productivity matrix projects with The Global HR team in Singapore

Phil Askham has over 20 years’ experience helping global corporates and public bodies become more productive, purposeful and fulfilling workplaces. He is expert in employee engagement, culture development and organisational change. As a former Global Head of Employee Communications at HSBC, Phil played a major part in strengthening the firm’s risk culture. He also helped propel O2 to become to the UK’s number one mobile provider by modernising its employee and customer experience. He is now Head of Organisational Change &amp; Employee Experience at Montfort Communications, a specialist communications and reputation management consultancy.

MIKE KLEIN is an internal communication consultant based in Delft in the Netherlands. Mike is Principal of Changing The Terms, a blog and consulting practice focusing on strategic content, selective engagement and sense-making.

Mike has been active in the profession as a writer, consultant and strategist since discovering internal communications as an MBA student at London Business School in the 1990's. A dual US and British citizen, Mike has managed more than 20 political campaigns across the US and has focused much of his extensive writing on the application of political communication principles in a corporate context. He serves as regional treasurer for IABC in Europe, Middle East and North Africa.

Tony works hard to provide a consultative, human approach to nurturing a business’s most important asset – its people. Believing that at its core workplace happiness is based on an open and honest approach, Tony loves nothing more than helping organisations utilise technology to increase their client and staff retention rates.

With 13 years’ experience of growing companies (including IPC Media and AXA), working in new business acquisition and managing teams, Tony learnt early about the importance of listening to and acting upon the feedback from his team/clients in order to effectively increase productivity and ultimately revenue.

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 &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; Wakefield London business, Elizabeth’s remit is to plan and execute marketing strategies to promote and differentiate the business through creative innovative solutions.

David is an award-winning crisis and corporate communications consultant with over 15 years’ international experience in a variety of sectors, both in-house and agency.

Having devised and executed a number of high profile global brand and PR strategies across Europe, the Gulf and Asia Pacific, David’s clients and employers have included market-leading corporate, consumer, technology, and professional services organisations.

David currently leads Grayling’s UK corporate team, which acts as the global hub for a number of clients including Hilton Worldwide, The Economist Intelligence Unit and World Energy Congress.

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.

Wendy Williams, MS is a Senior Project Manager on the Jive Professional Services team successfully launching new Jive communities and delivering customizations for clients globally. Wendy has over 20 years of IT experience with industries ranging from manufacturing, retail and finance to software development, telecommunications and lumber trading.  Her vast IT experience coupled with her education in positive psychology enables her to understand a client’s needs, spoken and unspoken, with a keen insight on how to translate those needs into practical and workable technical solutions.  Wendy has worked with the following Jive customers:  Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Group M, SAP, Discover Financial, Banco Itau, Alcatel-Lucent, eBay-PayPal, GE Healthcare, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, World Bank and many others. 

Prior to joining Jive Software, Wendy worked for a number of corporations including Nike, Columbia Sportswear, Jacada, Weyerhaeuser and ADC Telecommunications. She earned a Master of Science degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS.

Laura Storey likes good communication. She’s quite good at it herself. Bad communication makes Laura sad, just like it does to other people – a misread text message, a comment taken out of context, an unopened email, its destiny unrealised. Leading IBM UK’s Workforce Enablement team, Laura looks at how corporate communications can work better across a range of platforms for the communicator and their audience alike – how comms can engage employees, drive knowledge and social business, and help people have fun. Because, after all, communication is all about people. And having fun is, well, fun.
When she’s not being good at communicating, she’s juggling her three kids (not literally) and the Chair of Governors role at her local infant school. She also sings. But she’s not as good at that just yet.

Den looks after the internal communications and responsible business teams at Virgin Trains, and is the communications director of SicKids, a children's health charity operating projects in the UK and Cambodia. His background is with dispersed teams in transport companies and charities, having worked in the UK, Canada, France and Africa. He specialises in creating compelling communications interventions and guiding leaders and professionals in the most effective way to land messages in a clear, to-the-point way. When not focusing on his communications roles, you're most likely to find him obsessively travelling the globe, on his yoga mat, or both!

Richard Donovan leads the Internal Communications and Corporate Responsibility agenda for Experian in the UK&amp;I. Prior to joining Experian Richard led IC teams at Capital One and Citi and held a range of communication and brand roles during an eight-year stint at Egg. In the last five years at Experian, his IC team has won a range of awards, including the IOIC in-house team of the year at their national ceremony in 2014.

Graduated in Communication Sciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), master in International Relations at CIDOB and business administration at EADA. Before founding aPortada in 2000, she worked in media and held the position of Communications Director at the José Carreras Foundation. Over 20 years work experience in the field of corporate communications, communications training, public relations, social responsibility and cultural management.

Leading the new culture values and corporate purpose process, change management and crisis strategist, ‘asking-why-and-what-for’ specialist. Truly social media lover, techie by adoption, X generation’s apathy hater, trying hard to understand millennials mindset.

Having obtained a Degree in Communication Sciences, a Master’s Degree in Corporate Communications and postgraduate studies in Managing Development, she joined “la Caixa” in 2001 as a Channels Manager, a role she combined with Events Manager, until 2013, when she was appointed Internal Communications Manager.

Later, in 2016, she gained promotion to Director of the Department of Internal Communications, located in the Human Resources General Directorate, where CaixaBank’s Internal Communications corporate policy is managed, in a bank with nearly 30,000 professionals, 14 Territorial Divisions and a branch network of 5,000 offices all over Spain.

Simon is passionate about the role of brands, business and being purposeful. He founded Pulse Brands in 2002 to support change and business performance. Simon believes that it is behaviour that fundamentally drives reputation and therefore includes all leaders and not just the HR, communications or marketing departments.

His expertise is in developing and supporting teams in using the corporate brand to deliver change internally and externally. Simon has led corporate branding initiatives for major organisations including Alibaba, Arup, BP, Tata Steel, Jaguar and the Rumaila oilfield. He has also advised a wide number of firms in the financial sector such as Permira, Aureos, Moneyline and Digital+.

He is a founder and trustee of the Social Business Trust which was set up to help scale social enterprises and is backed by Bain & Company, British Gas, Clifford Chance, Credit Suisse, Ernst & Young, IBM, Permira, and Thomson Reuters.

&amp;lt;p class=&quot;ox-262b467c0a-ox-c5fe4aeb9a-msonormal&quot; style=&quot;text-align: justify;background: white;margin: 0cm 0cm 12.0pt 0cm&quot;&amp;gt;&amp;lt;span style=&quot;color: #555555&quot;&amp;gt;Ebru Pilav joined Batelco Bahrain in January 2017 as General Manager of Human Resources and Corporate Services.  She is responsible for the talent and organization strategy &amp;lt;/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;span style=&quot;color: black&quot;&amp;gt;and change management &amp;lt;/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;span style=&quot;color: #555555&quot;&amp;gt;that is a significant enabler in helping the business to deliver its vision. As a member of the Senior Leadership Team, Ebru will play an important role in providing a strategic direction to continue to build the employment brand and professional services for Batelco Bahrain.&amp;lt;/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;
&amp;lt;p class=&quot;ox-262b467c0a-ox-c5fe4aeb9a-msonormal&quot; style=&quot;text-align: justify;background: white;margin: 0cm 0cm 12.0pt 0cm&quot;&amp;gt;&amp;lt;span style=&quot;color: #555555&quot;&amp;gt;In a distinguished career that spans over 20 years, Ebru has gained extensive experience working for leading multinationals. Prior to joining Batelco, she held a number of senior management roles serving several of the world’s leading companies including VW Financial Services AG and Deloitte and led some global HR projects in Germany and Italy with the primary focus being on leadership development and performance excellence programmes.  Such opportunities have given Ebru a wealth of experience in key areas of the HR industry such as inclusion &amp;amp;amp; diversity, change management and succession planning. Ebru received a Bachelor &amp;lt;/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;span style=&quot;color: black&quot;&amp;gt;degree&amp;lt;/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;span style=&quot;color: #555555&quot;&amp;gt; from Istanbul Technical University and holds a Post Graduate certificate.&amp;lt;/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;

Shereen is the Head of HR for Caffè Nero, responsible for UK store and head office operations for just under 5,000 employees.

Used to occupying both generalist and specialist roles, she has a range of HR knowledge gained from working in a variety of industries – international risk management, publishing, retail and hospitality and has a BA (Hons) Business with Psychology degree and MSc in International HR tucked away nicely in her back pocket.

Whilst she is not a coffee drinker (Caffè Nero have embraced her anyway), her key interests are continuing to explore how passion and purpose can be melded seamlessly into the world of work so there is less distinction between work and life.

She is also the Founder of Achibé – a collective that supports people to realise their potential through confidence coaching and providing them with colourful coaching cards to support their journey.

Marc has a B.S from the American University of Beirut and an M.Sc. from the University of Geneva. After a career between private and public sectors in Switzerland, he pursued professional development at the INSEAD in Paris, Harvard University, University of Cambridge and University of Oxford. His professional experience in Management goes back to 1998 in Lausanne, Switzerland and extends to his current role at the National Health Service.

Marc has moved through various roles with ownership and responsibilities of various sorts of IT projects of significant budgets. He has led on Change Management, Risk Management, and various other important projects using PMI, Prince2 and Agile Scrum methodologies. In 2013, Marc joined the United Nations in Geneva and moved to the private sector in London in 2015 before settling recently in the role of Product Manager – Development at the NHS Improvement London. In this role, Marc provides cross-team leadership with a balanced mix of technical, leadership and project and product management skills.

Susanne is a captivating International Speaker who has inspired and educated audiences throughout Europe, USA, Asia and the Middle East. With a solid background in Internal Communications and PR, Susanne has over 15 years experience working with corporate companies, public sector organisations and PR agencies (including Balfour Beatty, Network Rail, BBC Radio London and Kazoo Communications, to name a few).

Her expertise has afforded her the opportunity to provide Senior Executive Support and Campaign Management to Blue Chip companies throughout the years. She has been instrumental in developing and implementing internal campaigns and communications channels that are effective and measurable.

Susanne has taken her years of experience in the field along with her own innovation and creativity to craft a unique message to business leaders, managers and CEOs that is centred on engaging and effectively communicating with employees so as to increase their productivity and commitment.

Kim Atherton is Chief People Officer at OVO Energy. She started her career as an Occupational Psychologist consulting globally on projects including board composition, senior leader assessment/development and change management. She joined OVO in 2012 when the company were 100 people strong and has overseen growth to 1,600 employees, taking the company from 172nd to 20th in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work.

Jemima oversees delivering Sector Culture &amp;amp; Engagement agenda plus HR communications framework, including infrastructure builds e.g. building film and design resource for Business Units.

She is a creative developer of multi-region strategic communications programs with twelve years' experience working both agency side and in-house for global consumer and digital brands, plus FMCG (prior to PepsiCo: Starbucks, Colgate-Palmolive, eHarmony.co.uk, Zoolpa.co.uk), alongside 2 years in national media at Daily Mail Group Trust.

<p style=”font-weight: 400″>Annabel Dunstan is an accomplished entrepreneur and Founder &amp; CEO of Question &amp; Retain, a leading insights consultancy specialising in employee experience, client, and membership satisfaction measurement tools. Annabel began her career as a lumberjack’s assistant, a ski guide, and then a sailing instructor before entering the world of marketing. She later joined Le Fevre Communications, where she worked on consumer and corporate PR campaigns for clients like NatWest and BT. In 2003, Annabel joined 3 Monkeys Communications, where she was appointed MD three years later, overseeing the growth of the award-winning top 50 PR consultancy to £7.5m revenues with 75 consultants.</p>
<p style=”font-weight: 400″>Annabel is the published author of The People Business: How Ten Leaders Drive Engagement Through Internal Communications (Kogan Page), and a host for the PRCA’s Employee Engagement on-line guest show: Chat and Connect.. In her free time, Annabel enjoys playing alto sax, swimming in the sea, playing tennis, and cycling.</p>

Chloe Combi is a writer, speaker, consultant and sought out expert on youth issues.

She started her own education charity – ‘Write Club’ in 2011, which aimed to raise the aspirations of young people and attracted such luminaries as Derren Brown, Will Self and Benjamin Zephaniah.

Shortly after she began to write a column for the TES about life as a teacher and what young people were up to when parents weren’t around. This developed into feature writing on youth issues and her pieces quickly gained national and international attention. She was asked extensively to comment on radio and television, was invited to No. 10, quoted in the House of Commons, and worked with the Special Advisor to the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

She has subsequently written for the Times, Guardian, Daily Mail, Huffington Post, Vice, Refinery29, Independent, and Spiked.

In 2015, she had her first book, Generation Z: Their Voices, Their Lives published by Penguin, Random House. It garnered wide critical claim and was optioned by Maker Studios, Disney to develop into a drama.

Chloe is also working with Disney Studios on another original concept called the A-Z of Modern Girls.

Press, PZ Cussons, Boots, Sainsbury’s, Fullers, Capita, Google, Sainsbury’s Trust, Heineken, Lynx, Johnson&Johnson, Red Bull, and Lynx.

<strong>Preeti Khattri </strong> has 20 years of expertise in the communication industry, working with various Fortune 500 companies. She has been an international judge for IABC, Brandon Hall Awards and the Media Communication Association International. Preeti has helped her organizations win 68 international awards for excellence in communication and learning from Brandon Hall, USDLA, MCAI, Omni Intermedia and IABC. Khattri is currently the Global Nextgen Communications Lead in Accenture Capability Network.

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.

Gihan is an award winner Corporate Communication Consultant with 19 years spanning through numerous multinational organisations within different sectors. Gihan specialises in designing and delivering effective employee and stakeholder communication strategies and plans during a time of change across several sectors. She has a flair for building strong, credible relationships at all levels ensuring the right messages and strategies are implemented correctly.

Gihan currently leads the Talent and Learning department in BP. Prior to BP Gihan worked in several organisations as the Interim Head of Communications including Department for Int. Trade Saudi Arabia, HSBC Asset Management UK, Barclays Internal Audit UK, M&amp;amp;S HR UK, the Riyadh Metro Project Saudi Arabia and The World Health Organization ethics and health dept., Genève.

Highlights of Gihan’s Career included
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;First female to work in the Saudi construction sector&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Winning the UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) &lt;em&gt;&lt;u&gt;Best Employee Engagement Award&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/em&gt;in 2016.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Creating and developing the Consumer and Retail Sector for the Department for International Trade (DIT) in Saudi Arabia.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Designing and delivering bespoke media messages and public speaking training sessions for more than 100 Executives and senior executives representing FTSE 100 organisations.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Leading the Employee &amp;amp; Stakeholder Engagement Department for Barclays UK Internal Audit to ensure the bank’s new strategy, corporate culture and values were communicated effectively to staff and external stakeholders.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Transforming HSBC’s complex anti-money laundering key messages into simple language communicated to 3,000 employees across 26 countries&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

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).

Lacea Loader is Director: Communication and Marketing at the University of the Free State (UFS), South Africa. Her academic qualifications include a BA honours degree in Communication, a BA honours degree in Language Studies, and a master’s degree in Higher Education Studies. Reporting to the Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS, she is responsible for institutional communication and marketing and provides high-level strategic support to the executive management of the university. She is an international award-winning communication specialist and member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

She was national Chairperson of the South African Association for Marketing, Advancement and Communication in Education (MACE) from 2016-2017 and served as MACE Regional Chairperson from 2014-2015. She is an evaluator for the IABC Africa Blue Ribbon and IABC Gold Quill Panels since 2012. She serves on the MACE Excellence Awards evaluation panel since 2012.

Nicki Allitt is the Global Head of Communications at Syngenta International, headquartered in Switzerland, and is responsible for Corporate Functions and the Internal Communications digital strategy. Previously, she worked in senior communication roles at Shell International in the Netherlands. Nicki has lived and worked in 5 different countries for a number of large multi-national corporations in the life science, agricultural, oil and gas, tourism, and media broadcast sectors. She has a passion for employee engagement and leveraging digital technologies to enhance the employee experience.

The first large-scale change initiative I worked on was an upgrade of a financial system with 4,000 users across the University of Oxford, a devolved and complex organizational structure. In 2015, took on a Head of Engagement Communications at Newton Europe, a management consultancy focused on operational improvements, working across retail, healthcare, defence and social care. I set up a new change communication team there to support Newton’s multimillion pound change programmes. With 90,000 staff across the UK in supermarkets and offices, I then came to understand what “big” really meant, as change initiatives go! After my experience of consulting for a couple of years, I then joined Oxfam and learnt of the complications of working globally across a remote and diverse organizational culture. In 2017 I joined Oxford University Press – which despite what the name suggests – is a global academic and educational publisher, with 7,500 staff across 52 countries. I set up a new change comms team and then – after about 18 months – took on the global Internal Communications role, with continuing responsibility for our change communications team

Chad has a broad communication background, having worked in marketing, public relations and internal communication roles over the last 16 years. He’s currently Head of Communication Strategy, Consumer and Employee Campaigns at Nationwide, leading on developing and executing external and internal campaigns and accountable for shaping how communication drives the organisational strategy.

Having worked at Nationwide for eight years, he has led teams such as Internal Communication Business Partnering, Vulnerable Customers and Social Investment. Prior to Nationwide, Chad worked for the agency Chime Communications, specialising in devising communication campaigns linked to social purpose and sustainability. His early career saw him work for Credit Suisse and ABN AMRO.

Nadya is Head of Internal Communications in SIBUR in Russia.She brings over 15 years of experience in corporate communications in leading global companies ranked among 100 most successful companies in the world: FMCG, Automotive, PR and Marketing, Advertising, Government organisations in Russia, as well as Europe and Middle East. Nadya has recently joined SIBUR – the largest integrated chemical company in Russia to realize challenging and ambitious goal of driving Internal Communication strategy for the company with over 27000 employees in Russia and beyond.

Jennifer is responsible for the leadership of IoIC, the only independent professional body solely dedicated to internal communication. IoIC is the voice of internal communication, setting standards for more than 70 years through qualifications, career development, thought leadership and best practice.

Prior to joining IoIC, Jennifer has worked for over 15 years in professional associations, most recently as Strategic Marketing &amp;amp; Sales Director at the Market Research Society, developing and leading on activities across marketing communications (both internal &amp;amp; external), careers, membership, professional development and publishing. ­­­

Max is currently Director of Employee and Change Communications at Sodexo – a multi-award winning managed services company, operating in 72 countries around the world. Max leads the team responsible for reaching, engaging and inspiring 36,000 employees working across 2,300 client sites in the UK and Ireland. Previous roles include Account Director at healthcare communications agency, Pegasus, and Chief Communications Officer at the Ministry of Defence. In his spare time, Max is also a Non-Executive Director on the Board of the Salvation Army in the UK and Ireland, advising on strategic communications, fundraising and marketing issues.

Georgia is the Founder and Director of Halston Marketing an agency that specialises in business to business marketing and corporate communications.

Working out of their Leeds office in the UK, Halston Marketing have launched projects
with clients of varying sizes from start-ups to Fortune 500s.
The clientele work within vastly differing industries from pharmaceuticals and industrial coatings to IoT and ecommerce. Georgia also sits on the UK board for the International Association of Business Communicators, runs a technology initiative, RegTech Talks and is the co-founder of the NHS Sustainability Partnerships.

Twitter Handle: @GeorgiaHalston @HalstonMarketin

Jean-Luc Marcelin works for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as a Partnerships and Talent Outreach Specialist with the UNDP Office of Human Resources (Talent Acquisition and People Programmes unit based in Copenhagen, Denmark).

Jean-Luc is in charge of an array of activities and initiatives related to talent outreach and communication, EVP activation and social media presence; resource mobilization, partnerships and reporting; as well as programme development in a talent acquisition context. He is also involved in recruitment and selection activities to identify young talent for UNDP.

Jean-Luc graduated for the Institute of Political Sciences (SciencePo) in Paris. He has 25 years of work experience in cooperation and programme development activities, including 20 years with the UN. He is fluent in French, English, Spanish, and Danish.

Neil Griffiths, ABC, Chart.PR, IABC Fellow is Global Head of Diversity, Equality & Inclusion at ERM, the world’s largest sustainability consultancy, where he is responsible for the global DE&I strategy and engagement plan. Neil’s background is varied, having spent the better part of 20 years in a series of external, brand, strategy and internal communication roles, before moving into DE&I. Neil has held leadership roles in a number of public, private and non-profit organisations.

In the volunteer space, Neil has held multiple leadership positions within the IABC and the Company of Communicators (CoC), which is one of the City of London’s modern Livery Companies. Volunteer highlights include being a member of the inaugural Global Communications Certification Council, Career Roadmap Committee member, Chair of the 2018 IABC World Conference (Montreal), Past Chair of IABC’s EMENA region and, as at November 2020, Junior Warden of the CoC.

Neil is a recipient of the IABC Regional Leader of the Year, Rae Hamlin and IABC Chair’s Awards. In 2019, Neil was named IABC Fellow, the highest honour bestowed on an IABC member.

Together with co-author Deborah Hinton, Neil has published two studies on the current and future state of the communication profession and advocates for channeling your best communication self regardless of where and how you work.

ebecca is responsible for designing communication channels to reach all 70,000 Co-op colleagues. In her 6 years with the largest co-operative in the UK, she was instrumental in launching Yammer to 17k Co-op colleagues, with an 80% uptake in year one. A Microsoft Office 365 evangelist, she works tirelessly to help the Co-op realise the benefits of the platform.

Previously, Rebecca spent 10 years at first direct (HSBC), managing their internal communications team, liaising with the press, and developing their Twitter and online media newsroom channels, making them the first bank to have either.

I will be travelling from Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, so whilst I will endeavour to be there from 9am, I’d love it if my slot could be after lunch in case of any delays. Also, whilst I’ll no doubt have some slides, I’ll likely want to present a live version of Co-op’s Yammer feed, so I’ll need a strong Wi-Fi connection.

Over the past 20 years, Alex has gained extensive management experience in global, multinational, multilingual and start-up environments. He has managed and grow large global teams of sales-minded individuals and have acquired a strong knowledge about today’s most relevant online marketing platforms. Originally from Italy, he has been living in Ireland for over 20 years.

Throughout his career, he has worked for large organisations such as Linkedin, Quantcast, Facebook, IBM, Sony-Ericsson and Vodafone and also had the pleasure of creating my own business and dealing with some of the top global organisations from Fortune 500.

Peter Ryding is Founder and CEO of “VIC – Your Virtual Interactive Coach” – combining online learning with A.I. driven online coaching at a fraction of traditional costs. This system has won 4 global awards including the 2020 HR Brilliance in HR award.

He has been an awards judge for 15 years including HR and other sectors.
He is a serial private equity backed turnaround CEO including John Cleese’s Video Arts International and Europe’s biggest coach training business. He has won awards as a venture capitalist, as a trouble-shooter CEO, and as a Master Coach and Mentor to CEOs and HRDs.

He is passionate about promoting the role of HR and HR Directors in business and runs the HRD PathFinder Club to raise the skills, profile and contribution of HRDs in the boardroom.

He is a lifelong champion of learning and was Dean of Europe’s top corporate university and has established many more.

He is an author, a conference chairman and an international keynote speaker on leadership, learning and the secrets of success in business and in life.

Constantin Singureanu is the Founder and Managing Director of Pufferr, one of the most awarded digital growth agencies in 2019/21, with over 40 awards and nominations under their belt.

Constantin is the author of four books, he hold three Master degrees (MBA, MA in Marketing &amp; Innovation, MSc in Data Science), a Diploma in VR and Game Development and he completed the Disruptive Digital Marketing Program at the University of Oxford.

An advocate for anti-racism in business + Managing Director of anti-racism and racial equity advisory firm HR rewired, Shereen is a proactive champion for Black colleagues in the workplace and partners with organisations who are serious about transformational change.

On a global mission to unlock over one million conversations about race by 2025, her story has been featured in Forbes and with over 50,000 followers she’s recognised as one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices for 2020 and she was voted the winner of HR Most Influential Thinker 2021.

Shereen also hosts Advancing Racial Equity 4.0 (the podcast), is the Founder of Advancing Racial Equity: Moving Beyond The Conversations (the conference) and via HR rewired TV, is a vlogger to the tune of over 200+ videos and 30+ live broadcasts giving advice and insights about the Black experience and what leaders and individuals can do differently to affect change.

Links:

www.hr-rewired.com
www.hr-rewired.tv
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shereen-daniels/

Anna Hemmings is Britain’s most successful female marathon kayaker with a staggering eleven World and European Championship medals, 9 of them gold. She is now a leading inspirational speaker on resilience and high performance.
By the age of 24 Anna had been World Champion 3 times and competed at the Olympic Games. In 2010 she was awarded an MBE for her services to sport. She achieved this success against all the odds. At the peak of her career, Anna was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and was told by medical experts she might never race again. She battled her way to full recovery and went on to win a further 3 world titles and compete at her second Olympic Games in Beijing 2008.
Since retiring from sport Anna has become recognised as a specialist in the field of resilience and the psychology of high performance. She is an accredited Leadership Coach and founded Beyond the Barriers high performance training consultancy. Anna has worked with CEO’s and senior leaders through to middle management, designing and delivering resilience, leadership and high performing teams programmes. She works globally with leaders and teams helping them develop the skills, attitudes and behaviours to deliver exceptional performance.
Anna’s unique combination of experience in elite sport combined with 13 years leading a successful business and working alongside senior leaders, gives her a broad understanding of the challenges that leaders and teams face and how to overcome them to deliver outstanding results.

<b>Pete Johns, Director Customer Success and Growth (Europe)</b>

Pete Johns is the Director of Customer Success and Growth for Europe at SWOOP Analytics. A modern workplace / new-ways-of-working obsessive and evangelist, Pete is committed to helping people, teams and organisations become better at collaboration.

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Pete has over 15 years of international experience across internal comms, change and adoption, digital employee experience and organisational culture. He brings a tonne of energy and an innovative perspective to all he does. At SWOOP Analytics Pete helps organisations drive genuine and sustainable change by putting insightful data at the heart of communication, collaboration and transformation efforts.

A Practical-academic, seasoned and accomplished HR senior executive with almost 40 years with local, regional and global companies.

He was nominated in 1998 for Professional Excellence Award in Human Resources from the Society of Human Resources Management “SHRM”, and in 2006 for Sheikh Rashid Bin Maktoum Award in the United Arab Emirates as the Best Arab Manager.

Prof. Sadik, is The Stevies Award laureate in 2007 as first Egyptian/Arab winner, and who was ranked among the top 20 HR Most International Influential Thinkers in 2014 from UK, and a winner of 17 international HR Awards.

As writer, he is a regular international contributor at HR-Future magazine in South Africa and was published more than 20 articles. His first HR book “Human Resource Management for Practitioners” was published in India, 2nd and 3^rd books”Making of the Objectives; A tribute to Peter F. Drucker” and “The People Game” were published in Germany.

He frequently called in HR conferences and summits to opine in current practices and provide his insights.

As Practical-Academic, he teaches at various business and management schools at post-graduate studies. He is associated with RB College-UK, IPE Management School, Paris-France as adjunct professor, Victoria University, Switzerland for Middle East Programs, and Frankfort School of Finance and Management, International Advisory Services, in Germany as HR and Training expert and consultant.

Collegiate Council Member & Professor of HR Management, Global University of Science & Technology, Latvia, Executive Member, Ajeenkya D Y Patil University, International Academic Council (IAC), India, and Professor of Management, The George Washington University of Peace, USA.

In late 2021, he was selected A member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council, an opt-in research community of business professionals, and in 2022 he became a fellow member at the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, and othm qualification in UK.

Founder and CEO Report App B.V.
Report App B.V. is an organization that provides a platform with a smartphone application Report
App. This app has two main functions: 1) providing information and instruction about unwanted
behavior (discrimination, sexual harassment, bullying, violence and aggression). 2) providing a
secured digital hotline to report unwanted behavior to the (internal) support team, either as a
victim or a bystander. Next to that providers of our platform make sure that all topics that
influences our behavior is negotiable anytime. Today we also help with vitality, financial concerns,
domestic violence, addiction etc.

Background Karin Bosman
More than twenty years of experience in the advertisement business, at several international
advertising agencies.
After this period Karin started an international study about the topic (unwanted) behavior and labor law. She’s is an international speaker/ trainer and researcher about workplace safety, mental
wellness, and psychosocial workload. Karin has traveled to Pakistan, the Caribbean, Canada, US,
Canada, and throughout Europe to create awareness about the shared responsibility we have in
creating a safe and healthy environment where everyone feels welcome. Beside speaking and
training Karin also advices organizations on their harassment policy. Karin has a special interest in
how our personal boundaries have an impact on the grey area of workplace safety.
With the Report App, Karin has connected the theory with the practice. This unique platform with
smartphone app is to help deescalate situations of unwanted behavior in the workplace and to
make the work environment healthier and safer.

Karin is a very optimistic person and she understands that despite the seriousness of this topic we
always need to laugh, because this will motivate us to see workplace harassment as a shared
responsibility.

Elena, a seasoned Customer Experience Professional, with over 18 years of experience in Operations,Customer Service and Customer Experience domain.

Experienced of working across different industries, a wide range of projects with different objectives, and engaging with different people and working cultures and building operations.

Currently, the Head of Customer Care of Fortuna Entertainment Group Elena has Implemented different projects using a wide array of approaches such as Lean process improvement, RPA, and Digital Transformation; all aimed to improve customer experience in different cultural contexts.

While Customer Experience is indeed her passion, her professional inclination extends to leadership; with excellent talent management, identifying, developing, and growing Talent within the organization.

Advisor to the Steering Committee of the BRICS Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Member – Federation of World Academics

Vikas is a leading voice in the HR community in India having spent over 18 years in the domain holding leadership positions across industry sectors. Currently, he is heading the Human Resources function in India for IPG DXTRA, part of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG), the world’s leading marketing communications company.

He is also the author of a best-selling book, ‘HR in my HeaRt: Leadership Lessons Like Never Before’ and has delivered a TEDx Talk besides mentoring and advising various HR tech startups including HuddleUp, a platform that facilitates building happier and healthier workplaces.

As an Advisor to the BRICS Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Member of the Industry Council at Federation of World Academics (FWA), Vikas is also working towards supporting the student and young professionals’ community in their learning and entrepreneurship objectives.

Vikas is also a Vlogger and Blogger on HR practices, sharing his learnings under his self-designed ‘HR in my HeaRt’ brand umbrella. His articles are regularly featured in leading magazines in the HR and Management domain and he has the distinction of being one of the first Asian voices on the U.S. headquartered and globally recognized ‘Talent Culture – World of Work’ blog, a leading global community of thought leaders in the world of business.

Most recently, Vikas has earned the distinction of being one of the 200 creators selected by LinkedIn as part of it’s first every Creator Accelerator Program in India.

Nicole Bearne has spent the last 25 years in the fast-paced world of Formula One motor racing.
Along the way, she has contributed to winning nine Constructors’ and eight Drivers’ World Championships. Her F1 experience spans executive and technical operations, internal communications and employee engagement. She holds a CIPR Diploma in Internal Communications and a Master’s degree in Organisational Behaviour. Nicole brings a blend of robust academic theory
and extensive real-world experience to building high-performing, people-centric organisations.
Nicole also speaks fluent Russian and spent several years living in the former Soviet Union.

Marianne Proudfoot is the Employee Communications & Engagement Consultant for the Siemens EA GB&I business who are driving the transition to sustainable energy with innovative technologies in electrification, automation and services.

Marianne Proudfoot has over 15 years’ experience leading strategic internal communications and engagement initiatives for some of the world’s leading companies in the media and technology space such as BBC, DAZN and Mulberry.

Her main passion lies in supporting businesses to engage their employees through times of transformation and change and is proud to have her APMG Change Management Foundation accreditation.

Mark has an impressive 27 years’ experience in hospitality. Simply put, his role is anything to do with people and ensuring they have what they need to perform at their best. At Fuller’s, he’s responsible for behavioural change management initiatives, learning and development, employee experience, leadership and exec-level development.

Trudy Lewis is a communication consultant, executive coach, and international speaker. She has a passion to help leaders, professionals, and their teams to develop influence and create impact as they master effective communication.

Trudy has over 20 years’ experience focusing on strategic internal communications, employee engagement and change communications, supporting leading organisations from retail, hospitality, rail, construction, and professional services industries.

Throughout her career, Trudy has championed communications and its management and as such has an MA in Communications Management, is a Chartered PR Practitioner, Fellow, and former Director of the Board of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR). She is also co-chair of the Institute of Director’s (IoD) Marketing Communications group, member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), and co-hosts an award-winning podcast – Calm Edged Rebels.

Marghaid spent 12 years in marketing before making the switch to internal comms in 2018. She now leads both functions at Scott Logic, a UK technology consultancy, where her responsibilities include devising and implementing the company’s first internal communications strategy.

Discussion thread: External marketing teams are blessed with a suite of tools and technologies that help them achieve their objectives – why can’t internal comms teams leverage some of these? By segmenting our internal audiences and delivering more relevant, targeted internal comms, we can improve the quality and perception of internal comms, becoming a more strategic business partner instead of the sender of ‘All Staff’ email broadcasts.

Kate started her career at 16, joining an in-store HR team at Sainsbury’s. By 25, she had responsibility for the entire HR function at Cambria Automobiles, before moving to Premex Services as an HR Advisor for three years. Kate progressed to Regional HR Manager at Ford Retail (TrustFord) and four years later, joined eStar as Head of HR.

Kate was instrumental in the growth of this new business, which took over from a previous failed company, and was invited to join the eStar Board as HR Director at 35. Kate lives in Chorley with her husband and two step-children.

Daniel Valentine is Head of Communications at the Chartered Governance Institute, leading on all media relations, internal communications, branding, reputation and engagement activity.

Over the last 25 years Daniel has worked for some of the world’s leading organisations, as both an inhouse manager and as a consultant. Daniel studied at the Universities of Oxford, St. Andrews, and King’s College London. Daniel is also Executive Chair of the Lovey Foundation, an international charity, a Member of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, has authored two books on financial communications and industrial economics, and has raised more than £5million for good causes.

In December 2019, Daniel won first prize at the Association Success Awards for “Best Social Media Campaign” for designing and launching “This is Engineering” campaign, the first ever nation-wide advertising campaign to promotes engineering careers to young people.

Begum is Global Talent and Organisational Development Lead at pladis, the home to loved consumer brands including McVitie’s, GODIVA, Carr’s, and Flipz.

Having pursued her career in different geographies, Begum brings more than 16 years of experience with a demonstrated history in the FMCG industry, at companies such as Henkel, Danone, and pladis with a solid track record of successful HR implementations in her local, regional, and global leadership roles. She is also an ICF Accredited Coach (ACC) and is an Associate Board Member at the ICF UK Board. Begum hires, engages, and develops the best talents, builds high-performing agile teams, and transforms cultures to build a strategic vision for the future of organisations.

<p style=”font-weight: 400″>Robyn is Director of Global Corporate Communications at pladis – the home to loved consumer brands including McVitie’s, GODIVA, Carr’s and Flipz.</p>
<p style=”font-weight: 400″>Robyn trained and worked as a solicitor in her native South Africa before relocating to the UK almost twenty years ago to pursue a career in communications. She has worked for companies including SABMiller, Diageo and L’Oréal across both internal and external communications.</p>
<p style=”font-weight: 400″>At pladis, Robyn is responsible for the management of the corporate brand – and works closely with colleagues across the company to build and enhance ‘brand pladis’. This includes close collaboration with HR on all elements of the employee experience and the development of the EVP and employer brand.</p>

Shrenik Gandhi is a entrepreneur and leader in the digital marketing and creative industries.
He is a co-founder and CEO of the India-based White Rivers Media (WRM) group, a creative, media, and technology transformation company.

As one of the most quoted voices in digital and social media marketing, he regularly serves on numerous global award juries and celebrated panels.

Under his leadership, WRM won more than 200 awards in 2023 alone.

WRM recently launched Capital Z, their Gen-Z research and think tank arm, which deeply understands young audiences and their evolving relationship with social media and the internet.

Eugene Mischenko is the President of the E-Commerce &amp; Digital Marketing Association. He has extensive experience in the e-commerce industry, having held leadership positions at globally recognised companies such as METRO, Sanofi, and L’Occitane.

Eugene’s collaborative nature and deep understanding of innovation make him an ideal contributor to any judging panel, ensuring well-rounded and fair evaluations of submissions.

Originally from Germany, Jan has over 15 years of experience in Asia, working in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Bangkok. A seasoned expert in communication and marketing, he has held key roles at Huawei, OPPO, and foodpanda. Jan specializes in driving measurable business results through data-driven campaigns and effective leadership for leading brands across various industries in China, Asia Pacific, and Western Europe. Fluent in English and German, with conversational Mandarin skills, Jan holds an MBA from Manchester Business School. Since 2023, he has led Virtus Asia Consulting as CEO, aiming to be the partner he always wanted.