I. Stephanie Boyce

Why organisations work with I. Stephanie Boyce

• She led a 200-year-old national professional body through regulatory change, constitutional debate, and sector-wide reform. Her argument for accountable governance is drawn from operational experience, not advisory distance.
• Her AI ethics position is governance-first: as Law Society President, she led the development of a published set of principles for the ethical use of AI in legal practice, connecting AI adoption directly to legal accountability, bias mitigation, and public trust, among the earliest profession-led frameworks to do so.
• On inclusion, she does not argue from the outside. She held the most senior elected role in a major regulated institution as its first Black president and first person of colour, which gives her a precise read on the structural distance between a diversity commitment and a genuinely diverse institution.
• She connects topics most organisations treat separately, AI accountability, DEI governance, reputational integrity, crisis leadership, through the single governance question boards most often defer: when an institutional decision causes harm, who is responsible?
• The PUSH framework (Persevere Until Something Happens) gives leadership teams a named, teachable approach to resilience grounded in her own documented professional journey through institutional exclusion and resistance at every level of a major profession.

Biography highlights

• 177th President of the Law Society of England and Wales (2021-2022); sixth woman, first Black office-holder and first person of colour to hold the role in the institution’s 200-year history
• LLM in Public Law and Global Governance, King’s College London; King’s Alumna of the Year 2022
• CBE (2026 New Year Honours) for services to the Legal Profession, Diversity, and Access to Justice
• Commissioner, National Preparedness Commission; Commissioner, Shinkwin Commission; member, HM Treasury and BEIS independent taskforce on socio-economic diversity in UK financial and professional services
• Named in the Power List 100 Most Influential Black People in the UK in 2021, 2022, and 2023; Governance Hot 100 Board Influencer (2020)
• Paris Bar Medal from the Ordre des avocats de Paris (2024), awarded for contributions to human rights and the rule of law
• Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute; Fellow of King’s College London; Fellow of the RSA

Biography

It took the Law Society of England and Wales two centuries to elect its first Black president. I. Stephanie Boyce became the 177th in March 2021, with 20 years of practising solicitor experience and an LLM in Public Law and Global Governance from King’s College London, qualifications that gave her both the legal standing and the governance framework for what the role required.

Her presidency ran through the pandemic, sharp parliamentary attacks on the legal profession, and the most significant solicitor qualification reform in 30 years. During that time, she led the development of the Law Society’s published lawtech principles, a governance framework for the ethical use of AI in legal practice. The framework connected AI adoption to legal accountability and bias governance at a time when most profession-led work in this area had not advanced beyond aspiration.

Boyce’s governance argument rests on an experience most governance advisers do not hold. As the first Black president of a 200-year-old institution, she has encountered the structural gap between stated values and leadership composition from inside the institution itself. That shapes her work on DEI accountability: framing inclusion not as a moral commitment but as a governance question: who decides, and who is responsible when structural inequality persists?

She holds a CBE and the Paris Bar Medal from the Ordre des avocats de Paris, awarded for contributions to human rights and the rule of law. She is a commissioner of the National Preparedness Commission and was named in the Power List 100 Most Influential Black People in the UK in 2021, 2022, and 2023. She now works with boards and executive teams across regulated industries through Stephanie Boyce Consulting.

Key speaking topics

• Governance and institutional accountability
• Ethical AI and responsible technology adoption
• Inclusion, representation, and belonging at leadership level
• Rule of law and public trust in regulated environments
• Social mobility and access to professional careers
• Resilience and leadership under scrutiny
• Crisis leadership and institutional change

Ideal for

• Boards, governance committees, and general counsel in regulated industries
• Executive teams in financial services, legal, and public sector organisations
• CHROs and DEI leadership navigating the gap between policy and structural change
• Professional services firms managing reputational risk and stakeholder accountability

Audience outcomes

• A clearer framework for assessing whether governance structures are built for ethical accountability rather than regulatory compliance alone
• Board-level questions to test whether AI adoption decisions have genuine accountability assigned, not just policy language
• A more precise read of the structural distance between a DEI commitment and a measurably inclusive institution
• Practical thinking on what institutional trust requires from those at the top, particularly during crisis and reputational pressure
• The PUSH framework as a named, teachable approach to institutional resilience for leaders navigating complex or high-scrutiny environments