Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Why organisations work with Will Young His book To Be a Gay Man provides a specific, argued analysis of how internalised shame develops and compounds; giving organisations something more useful than personal testimony: a framework for understanding why policy alone doesn’t change culture As the first Patron of Shout, the UK’s 24/7 crisis text service, he carries the kind of sustained, institutional commitment to mental health that distinguishes an advocate from a performer talking about their own story His JP Morgan Blue Monday Fireside Chat appearance demonstrates he operates credibly in formal corporate environments, not only in entertainment or charity contexts He is one of very few speakers who can hold the intersection of LGBTQ+ experience, clinical mental health literacy, and mass public recognition in a single conversation, without any of the three undermining the others The Sunday Times bestseller status on two consecutive books signals consistent public authority, not a single media moment Biography highlights Winner of the inaugural series of Pop Idol (2002); debut single the second best-selling UK single of the 21st century; four UK #1 albums; two Brit Awards Sunday Times bestselling author: To Be a Gay Man (Penguin/Ebury Press) and Be Yourself and Happier: The A–Z of Wellbeing Olivier Award-nominated actor; stage credits include Cabaret and Strictly Ballroom; screen credits include Mrs Henderson Presents First Patron of Shout, the UK’s 24/7 mental health text crisis support service Honorary degree, University of Exeter (2023); originally studied Politics at Exeter Corporate speaker engagements include JP Morgan Blue Monday Fireside Chats; Leeds International Festival of Ideas Biography Gay shame is not a niche subject. It describes a mechanism, internalised identity conflict producing low self-worth and destructive behaviour, that shapes the working lives of LGBTQ+ employees long after any formal discrimination has ended. Will Young’s To Be a Gay Man, published by Penguin in 2020 and a Sunday Times bestseller, is the most visible attempt by a British public figure to articulate that mechanism in terms that are both personal and intellectually serious. Young won the first series of Pop Idol in 2002 and built one of the most durable careers in British pop, with four UK number one albums, two Brit Awards, and a debut single that remains the second best-selling UK single of the 21st century. That public history matters to organisations not as decoration but as context: Young spent two decades navigating visibility, media scrutiny, and identity in an industry that rarely handled any of those things well. His second book, Be Yourself and Happier: The A–Z of Wellbeing, extended his work beyond LGBTQ+ experience into broader mental health and personal development. As the first Patron of Shout – the UK’s 24/7 text crisis support service – and a speaker at JP Morgan’s Blue Monday Fireside Chats, he has moved steadily from public profile to institutional engagement. The Olivier Award nomination for Cabaret and an honorary degree from the University of Exeter complete a picture of someone who has built genuine plural credibility – in entertainment, publishing, mental health, and now corporate settings – rather than recycling a single story across formats. Key speaking topics Gay shame and internalised identity Mental health and psychological safety at work LGBTQ+ inclusion beyond policy Authenticity and belonging in organisational culture Public visibility and personal resilience Wellbeing and self-acceptance Media, representation, and cultural change Ideal for CHROs and People Directors leading LGBTQ+ inclusion or mental health strategy DEI leads and LGBTQ+ employee network events seeking substance beyond lived-experience storytelling Leadership and culture conferences where psychological safety and authentic belonging are on the agenda Organisations marking awareness moments (Mental Health Awareness Week, Pride, Blue Monday) who want credibility over celebrity Audience outcomes A working understanding of how internalised shame operates, and why policy change without cultural work leaves the core problem intact Language for discussing gay shame and identity conflict that is grounded, specific, and usable in organisational contexts A more nuanced picture of what LGBTQ+ inclusion looks like in practice, beyond representation metrics Reflection on the relationship between personal authenticity and professional performance Awareness of the practical mental health resources and frameworks Young has developed through his books and Wellbeing Lab platform

Why organisations work with Nicky Abdinor Clinical credibility behind the message: trained in Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy at the Albert Ellis Institute and in Schema Therapy, with twenty years in practice, so the resilience content is therapy-grade rather than motivational. A live demonstration of inclusion that reframes how teams talk about disability: born without arms and with shortened legs, she founded Nicky’s Drive to fund vehicle adaptations across South Africa, and the lived case sharpens every claim she makes about ability and adjustment. Recognised authority on the speaking circuit: 2022 Speakers Hall of Fame recipient from PSASA and a TEDxTableMountain speaker whose “Driving Dreams” talk drew international engagements across Europe, the USA, the Middle East and Australia. Eight years lecturing psychology at Varsity College, which means the frameworks she teaches travel from keynote stage into workshop and masterclass formats without losing rigour. Biography highlights Registered Clinical Psychologist, HPCSA PS0087157, in independent practice for two decades. TEDxTableMountain speaker, “Driving Dreams,” November 2013. 2022 Speakers Hall of Fame Award, Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa. Founder and chairperson of Nicky’s Drive, a registered South African non-profit funding adapted vehicles for people with disabilities. Trained at the Albert Ellis Institute (REBT, Primary and Advanced Practicums) and the South African Institute of Schema Therapy. Eight years lecturing undergraduate and postgraduate psychology at Varsity College, Cape Town. Biography Resilience has become one of the most over-claimed words in corporate language. Most of what passes for resilience training is mood management dressed up as psychology. The clinical version is something else. It is a set of techniques, drawn from cognitive-behavioural therapy, rational emotive behaviour therapy and schema therapy, that change how a person interprets pressure and adversity. That is the territory Nicky Abdinor works in. Two decades of clinical practice, training accredited by the Albert Ellis Institute in New York, a Diploma in Schema Therapy, and eight years lecturing psychology at Varsity College in Cape Town give her the technical foundation. The keynote work translates that material for non-clinical audiences without softening it. Her own story sharpens the case. Born without arms and with shortened legs, she has built a private practice, founded the non-profit Nicky’s Drive to fund adapted vehicles for people with disabilities across South Africa, and become one of the most decorated speakers in the region, recognised with the 2022 Speakers Hall of Fame Award by PSASA. Her TEDxTableMountain talk “Driving Dreams” carried that perspective onto international stages. For organisations, the value is direct. Wellbeing programmes that lean on generic motivation tend to wear off. Abdinor brings the clinical mechanics, the language of cognitive reframe, schema work, and self-compassion, alongside a lived case that makes inclusion feel less like compliance and more like capability. The room leaves with vocabulary it can use the next day. Key speaking topics Resilience and adversity Cognitive-behavioural therapy in everyday life Optimism and mindset Disability inclusion and the abilities of people with disabilities Self-compassion and emotional wellbeing Mental health in the workplace Tolerating uncertainty Ideal for CHROs and wellbeing leads building substantive mental health programmes DEI and inclusion teams looking for a credible voice on disability Leadership audiences facing prolonged pressure or change fatigue Conference programmes seeking a closing keynote that combines clinical content with personal narrative Audience outcomes Plain-language tools from CBT and schema therapy that audiences can apply to their own thinking A reframed view of disability and ability that reaches beyond compliance language Specific cognitive techniques for tolerating uncertainty and recovering from setback Vocabulary for self-compassion that managers can carry into team conversations A more demanding standard for what wellbeing content should deliver

Why organisations work with Leee John He carries the weight of a verifiable cultural archive. The Flashback documentary alone represents over a decade of original interviews with figures including Labi Siffre, Billy Ocean and Pauline Black, giving inclusion conversations a body of named, recorded testimony rather than slogans. His authority on Black British contribution is built on lived participation. He fronted one of the defining British soul acts of the 1980s, which lets him talk about representation, visibility and creative gatekeeping from inside the room rather than the academy. He moves an audience emotionally. A career built on falsetto vocal performance and stage presence translates into keynote energy that DEI sessions, gala dinners and cultural-anniversary moments often lack. His humanitarian work is concrete, not decorative. As an ambassador for SOS Children’s Villages he has campaigned annually for World Orphan Week and was recognised with a Humanitarian award in France, which gives credibility on purpose-led brand and CSR programmes. He brings a reinvention story senior audiences recognise. Singer to producer to documentary director to charity ambassador is a useful proof point for any room thinking about second-act careers, creative longevity or staying commercially relevant across generational shifts in taste. Biography highlights Founding member and lead singer of Imagination, the British soul/funk trio with three UK top 10 singles, including “Just an Illusion” (UK No. 2, 1982). Imagination earned four platinum discs, nine gold discs and over a dozen silver discs between 1981 and 1983. Director of Flashback: The History of UK Black Music, an independent documentary featuring 80+ interviews across jazz, soul, funk, reggae, ska and 2-tone. Ambassador for SOS Children’s Villages and recipient of a Humanitarian award in France for charity work; also holds a UK Lifetime Achievement award. Released the jazz album Feel My Soul on Candid Records in 2005; later solo album Retropia reached No. 1 on UK Soul and UK Reggae charts. Trained at the Anna Scher Theatre School; appeared in the 1983 Doctor Who serial Enlightenment, and went on to host and produce television including ITV’s Night Network strand Leee’s Place. Biography The history of British Black music is mostly told in fragments. Leee John has spent more than a decade pulling those fragments into a single record, with over 80 filmed interviews across jazz, soul, funk, reggae, ska and 2-tone now sitting inside Flashback: The History of UK Black Music. Subjects include Labi Siffre, Billy Ocean, Jaki Graham, Pauline Black and Neville Staple. Before that work, he was the front of Imagination, the British soul/funk trio whose 1982 single “Just an Illusion” reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 1 in Spain. Imagination earned four platinum discs and nine gold discs in a two-year run between 1981 and 1983, which places him inside the small group of Black British artists who broke into mainstream European pop charts in that era. That career is the substance behind his keynote work on inclusion, identity and creative reinvention. He talks about gatekeeping, visibility and longevity from someone who has been on both sides of them, and he extends the same argument into philanthropy as an ambassador for SOS Children’s Villages, where his campaigning was recognised with a Humanitarian award in France. The reinvention thread runs through everything: lead singer, jazz recording artist on Candid Records, film and television producer, documentary director, charity ambassador. Flashback is the current centre of gravity, and it is the body of work that gives a contemporary inclusion conversation a name, a face and a primary source. Key speaking topics Diversity, equity and inclusion Cultural identity and Black British heritage Creative resilience and career reinvention Storytelling and oral history Music, media and representation Purpose, philanthropy and brand Motivation and inspiration Ideal for DEI and ERG leadership programmes seeking a culturally substantive keynote presence rather than a policy-led speaker. CSR, purpose and brand teams marking heritage moments such as Black History Month, World Orphan Week or cultural-anniversary launches. Senior audiences in media, music, entertainment and creative industries debating representation, longevity and the economics of Black British creative output. Conference organisers wanting a closing keynote that combines testimony, performance presence and emotional lift. Audience outcomes A clearer mental map of British Black music history and why it underwrites contemporary conversations about representation. A worked example of creative reinvention across four decades, useful for anyone thinking about second-act careers and staying relevant. A felt understanding of why inclusion is a question of belonging and visibility, not compliance language. Direct exposure to a cultural archive most rooms have never heard, drawn from the Flashback documentary interviews. An emotional close, often involving live vocal performance, that lifts the room rather than ending on a slide.

Why organisations work with Kudzi Chikumbu He built TikTok’s creator marketing, education, and community functions from a small U.S. team into a global operation, so he speaks from inside the engine room rather than from the outside as a commentator. He teaches the operating logic of authenticity as a brand strategy, not as a values statement, with a specific framework brands can apply to product launches, executive presence, and creator partnerships. He carries dual credibility: a senior platform operator who has also built a personal creator brand (Sir Candle Man) at meaningful scale, with coverage in The Hollywood Reporter, WWD and The Economist. His perspective on diversity and representation is grounded in what actually moves engagement and trust on platform, which makes it usable for CMOs who need substance rather than signalling. He now teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business, which gives a structured curriculum behind what could otherwise be presented as anecdote. Biography highlights Former Global Head of Creator Marketing at TikTok; longest-serving member of TikTok’s U.S. team. MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business; current faculty at Stanford GSB. Began career as an accountant and management consultant at Deloitte. Author, Let It Burn: Illuminate Your Life with Candles & Fragrance (Chronicle Books). Creator of Sir Candle Man, featured in The Hollywood Reporter, WWD, NY Mag, The Economist, and on The Rachael Ray Show. Fortune 40 Under 40, The Hollywood Reporter Next Gen 35 Under 35, Variety’s Hollywood’s New Leaders, AdWeek Experiential Executive of the Year, ADCOLOR Innovator Award. Biography The shift in marketing power from media buyers to creators happened faster than most brand teams adjusted. The companies that responded well treated creators as an operating channel with its own logic. The ones that didn’t treated TikTok like a new ad placement and underperformed on both reach and reputation. Kudzi Chikumbu spent the years that defined that transition inside TikTok, where he built the creator marketing, education, partnerships and community functions as the platform scaled from new entrant to global infrastructure. He was the longest-serving member of TikTok’s U.S. team and rose to Global Head of Creator Marketing, working at the point where brand strategy, platform mechanics, and creator economics meet. His operating thesis is that authenticity functions as a commercial system, not a value statement. Audiences pay attention when a brand or executive shows up with a specific point of view, a clear identity, and a willingness to be legible as a person or a culture. He has tested that thesis on himself: as Sir Candle Man, he built a luxury fragrance creator brand recognised by The Hollywood Reporter, WWD, The Economist, and Chronicle Books, which published his book Let It Burn. He now teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business, the same institution where he earned his MBA after starting his career at Deloitte. The combination of platform operator, working creator, and faculty member is unusual, and gives him a vocabulary that translates between marketing teams, executive sponsors, and the creator partners they are trying to work with. Key speaking topics Creator marketing and partnerships Brand authenticity as a commercial discipline Niche communities and audience strategy The future of social platforms and digital content Diversity and representation in consumer brands Personal brand and executive presence online Career pivots and reputation strategy Ideal for CMOs, brand directors and marketing leadership teams rebuilding their creator and platform strategy Communications and corporate affairs leaders preparing executives for visible digital presence Consumer brand, retail and lifestyle businesses where culture and creator influence drive purchase DEI, talent and culture leaders working on representation as a commercial, not symbolic, lever Audience outcomes A clearer model of how creator partnerships actually create commercial value, beyond reach metrics Specific tests for whether a brand’s content is platform-native or simply repurposed advertising A practical view of what authenticity means in marketing decisions, from product to executive voice Sharper understanding of how niche communities convert into durable audience relationships Renewed perspective on personal brand and online presence for senior leaders and emerging executives

Why organisations work with Keely Cat-Wells She has built and sold the category. C Talent, the agency she founded in 2018, was acquired by Whalar in 2022 and remains the largest exit of a Disabled-led talent business in the sector. Her current company, Making Space, gives leaders an operating model rather than a manifesto: an employer-backed training and acquisition platform with reported lifetime earnings gains of more than $1.1M per learner. She speaks from inside the boardroom conversation, not next to it. As a Presidential Leadership Scholar, Obama Leader USA, and Forbes contributor, she carries credibility with executive audiences who are tired of generic DEI framing. She connects representation in media to talent strategy in the workforce, drawing on a roster that has placed Disabled creators in projects including The Last of Us, Avatar, and The Hunger Games. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Making Space, a venture-backed talent acquisition and learning platform for Disabled professionals. Founder of C Talent, acquired by Whalar in 2022. Co-founder, Making Space Media, with a first-look deal at Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. 2025 Presidential Leadership Scholar, 2025 Obama Leader USA, inaugural Gloria Steinem Fellow. L’Oreal Paris 2025 Women of Worth, Forbes 30 Under 30, Diana Award, One Young World Entrepreneur of the Year 2022. Forbes contributor on disability, entrepreneurship, and inclusive workforce strategy. Biography The Disabled talent pool is one of the largest underused labour markets in the global economy. Most companies do not have a working strategy for reaching it. Keely Cat-Wells builds the infrastructure that closes that gap. She founded C Talent in 2018 after disability discrimination ended an early career in performing arts. The agency grew into the most prominent home for Deaf and Disabled creators in entertainment, placing talent in The Last of Us, Avatar, and The Hunger Games before being acquired by Whalar in 2022. It remains the largest exit of a Disabled-led talent business in the industry. Making Space, founded in 2023, is the operator-led answer to a different question: how do enterprise employers actually hire and retain Disabled professionals at scale. The platform pairs employer-backed training with talent acquisition, and closed a $2M pre-seed round led by Beta Boom in 2024. Its Ascend program reports projected lifetime earnings gains of more than $1.1M per participant. Cat-Wells writes for Forbes, sits on disability-focused boards, and was named the youngest Presidential Leadership Scholar in the program’s history. Her recognitions include the Diana Award, Forbes 30 Under 30, L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth, and Gloria Steinem Fellow. The credentials matter, but the harder evidence is the line item her work creates on a hiring scorecard. Key speaking topics Disability and workforce strategy Hiring and retaining Disabled professionals Inclusive talent acquisition platforms Representation in media and entertainment Building and scaling mission-led ventures Hidden disabilities in the workplace Founder experience in inclusive entrepreneurship Ideal for CHROs and heads of talent acquisition rebuilding disability hiring strategy Chief diversity and inclusion officers moving from awareness work to operational outcomes Boards and ELTs reviewing workforce, ESG, and human capital reporting Media, entertainment, and creative leaders accountable for on-screen and off-screen representation Audience outcomes A clearer view of where disability inclusion programmes break in practice and what to fix first. Specific tactics for sourcing, onboarding, and retaining Disabled professionals at enterprise scale. A founder’s view of how to translate inclusion strategy into measurable economic outcomes. Language and evidence senior leaders can use with their own boards on disability as a workforce issue.

Why organisations work with Baroness Ruth Hunt She ran the organisation that most large UK employers used as their inclusion benchmark, which means her advice to a C-suite team carries direct operational memory, not theory. She has spent the years since Stonewall inside the House of Lords as a Crossbench peer, watching how legislation, regulation and public mood shape the room a CEO walks into. Her consultancy Deeds and Words is built around collective leadership and humble inquiry as practical methods, giving executive teams a way to make inclusion an operating discipline rather than a statement. She edited The Book of Queer Prophets for William Collins, which gives her a public intellectual register useful when boards want a serious conversation, not a training module. She is comfortable on contested ground. Boards facing trans policy, religious freedom or campaign-group pressure get an adviser who has lived inside the argument from the inside of a national institution. Biography highlights Chief Executive, Stonewall, 2014 to 2019; led campaigns including Rainbow Laces with the Premier League and the No Bystanders schools programme. Crossbench peer, House of Lords, since October 2019, as Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green. Member, UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, focusing on democracy and youth participation. Co-founder and Director, Deeds and Words, advising C-suite teams on collective and inclusive leadership. Visiting Fellow, Jesus College, Cambridge, elected 2023. Editor, The Book of Queer Prophets: 24 Writers on Sexuality and Religion, William Collins, 2020. Named No. 1 on the Independent Pride Power List, 2019; speaker platforms include the Oxford Union, the NHS and Talks At Google. Biography Stonewall under Ruth Hunt’s leadership became the standard against which large UK employers measured their own inclusion work. The Workplace Equality Index moved inclusion from charity advocacy into employer practice, which is why her audience for serious leadership conversations is now the C-suite, not the diversity function. Since leaving Stonewall in 2019 she has taken a Crossbench seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green, the youngest Crossbench peer at the time of her appointment. She also sits on the UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. That work keeps her read on the operating environment current, particularly on the contested edges of equality policy. Through Deeds and Words, the consultancy she co-founded with Caroline Ellis, she works with senior teams on collective leadership and humble inquiry as practical methods. The argument is that inclusive leadership is a way of running an organisation, not an HR position, and that the leaders who treat it as the latter tend to lose ground when the politics gets harder. Her published work runs alongside the advisory practice. She edited The Book of Queer Prophets for William Collins in 2020, a collection of 24 essays on sexuality and religion that signalled an interest in difficult ground rather than safe ground. In 2023 she was elected a Visiting Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, where she has spoken on faith, identity and public leadership. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership in a contested political environment Collective leadership and humble inquiry as executive practice Building credible culture change in large organisations LGBTQ+ rights, politics and the new culture wars Allyship as a workplace discipline Faith, identity and public life Ideal for CEOs and executive committees who need to take a credible position on inclusion under public and political pressure Chief People Officers and Chief Diversity Officers moving from advocacy framing to operating discipline Board directors handling reputational risk on equality, faith or values-based policy Public sector and uniformed service leaders managing inclusion in hierarchical, mission-led organisations Audience outcomes A sharper read on why the inclusion consensus of the 2010s has fractured and what that means for leadership decisions A working definition of collective and inclusive leadership that a senior team can actually use the following week A clearer view of where allyship adds operating value and where it becomes performance A more confident position on how to hold contested ground without retreating into corporate neutrality

Why organisations work with Griselda Togobo She brings an engineer’s and chartered accountant’s bias for measurement to inclusion work, which is unusually rare in the field and lands credibly with operational and finance audiences. She has run a 20,000-member women’s professional network (Forward Ladies, now Novi) for over a decade, so her view of where female and minority talent gets stuck is grounded in pipeline data, not anecdote. Her client list, Boeing, Shell, HSBC, NatWest, Sage, Cambridge University, Oxford University, indicates senior buyers in technically demanding, male-dominated environments hire her back. Her style is direct and based in psychology rather than moral pressure, which is the only register that survives in rooms where DEI is now politically contested. Biography highlights MPhil, Industrial Systems, Manufacture and Management, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. Chartered Accountant (ACA); former management consultant at Deloitte LLP. CEO of Forward Ladies (now Novi), a 20,000-member women’s professional network since 2014. Author, Unstoppable Women: Female Entrepreneurs’ Stories to Inspire and Motivate. Founder of Advancing Futures, a non-profit on education and economic empowerment in Ghana. Board member, Northern School of Contemporary Dance; Fellow of the Girls’ Schools Association. Biography The hard part of inclusion inside large organisations is not policy. It is what senior leaders do in the small moments: who they sponsor, who they interrupt, whose ideas they credit, and how they decide who is “ready” for the next role. Togobo’s work sits exactly there. She came to that work through an unusual route. She trained as an electrical and electronic engineer in Ghana, took an MPhil at Cambridge in Industrial Systems, Manufacture and Management, then qualified as a chartered accountant at Deloitte LLP. That technical and financial grounding shapes how she briefs executives. She uses data and behavioural psychology rather than moral argument, which travels better in operations, finance and engineering audiences than the standard DEI register does. Since 2014 she has led Forward Ladies, now relaunched as Novi, growing it into a 20,000-member professional development network for women across the UK. That platform gives her a continuous read on where mid-career women actually stall, which feeds the diagnostic work she does inside client organisations including Boeing, Shell, HSBC, NatWest, Sage, ASDA and Yorkshire Water. Her own writing extends the same theme. Unstoppable Women, published in 2022, profiles female entrepreneurs as case studies in commercial decision-making rather than personal struggle. Outside her commercial practice she founded Advancing Futures to support girls’ education in Ghana and sits on the board of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership inside FTSE-100 organisations Women in STEM and the senior pipeline Behavioural psychology of bias in promotion and sponsorship Building and sustaining women’s professional networks Female entrepreneurship and scale-up leadership Cross-cultural leadership and the global workforce Ideal for CEOs and executive committees who have run DEI programmes and are not seeing pipeline movement. CHROs and heads of talent designing succession and sponsorship into senior leadership. Engineering, energy, financial services and industrial businesses with gender-imbalanced senior cohorts. Boards reviewing inclusion strategy in markets where DEI language is now politically contested. Audience outcomes A clearer view of which leadership behaviours actually move representation, and which are theatre. A working diagnostic for where female and minority talent stalls inside their own organisation. Language for inclusion that holds up in finance, engineering and commercial audiences. A more honest read on the gap between stated DEI commitments and how senior leaders behave in week-to-week decisions.

Why organisations work with Anne-Marie Imafidon She has run the experiment at scale. Stemettes has engaged more than 60,000 young women and non-binary young people across the UK, Ireland and Europe since 2013, giving her a live evidence base on what moves technical participation and what does not. Her technical credibility is not borrowed. Master’s in Mathematics and Computer Science from Oxford at 20, Honorary Fellow of Keble College, and guest arithmetician on Channel 4’s Countdown for 60 episodes, so technical audiences engage her as a peer rather than an advocate. She sits inside the UK policy conversation on digital skills. Co-Chair of the Institute for the Future of Work, 2022-2023 President of the British Science Association, and DSIT Women in Tech Envoy, which gives leaders a direct line to how regulation and industrial strategy are likely to land. She has a published thesis. She’s In CTRL (Transworld, 2022) argues that women need to take back tech as users, builders and decision-makers; that frame is portable into strategy conversations about product, customer and workforce. She is comfortable in front of non-technical boards. Her broadcast work and Chancellorship of Glasgow Caledonian University mean she translates between technical reality and senior decision-maker vocabulary without losing either. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO of Stemettes, social enterprise founded in 2013 that has reached 60,000+ young women and non-binary young people across the UK, Ireland and Europe. Master’s in Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Oxford, aged 20; Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. Appointed MBE in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to young women and STEM. Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University; 2022-2023 President of the British Science Association; Co-Chair of the Institute for the Future of Work. Author of She’s In CTRL: How Women Can Take Back Tech (Transworld, 2022). Guest arithmetician on Channel 4’s Countdown across 60 episodes (2021-2022), first Black woman to take the Countdown board; voted Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Woman in UK Tech (2020); Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech. DSIT Women in Tech Envoy, co-chairing a UK government Taskforce with the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (2025). Biography Stemettes was set up in 2013 after its co-founder returned from the Grace Hopper Celebration in 2012 and decided the UK needed its own infrastructure for girls in STEM. More than 60,000 young women and non-binary young people have passed through its programmes since, across the UK, Ireland and Europe. That operating record is the spine of Anne-Marie Imafidon’s authority on technology talent. The technical credentials are unusual. Imafidon took her Master’s in Mathematics and Computer Science at Oxford at 20, is an Honorary Fellow of Keble College, and was the guest arithmetician on Channel 4’s Countdown for 60 episodes in 2021 and 2022, the first Black woman to run the Countdown board. She was appointed MBE in 2017 for services to young women and STEM. Her public roles put her inside the UK conversation on digital skills and industrial strategy. She is Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University, Co-Chair of the Institute for the Future of Work, served as President of the British Science Association in 2022-2023, and in 2025 was appointed the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s Women in Tech Envoy, co-chairing a Taskforce with the Secretary of State. Her book She’s In CTRL, published by Transworld in 2022, argues that women should treat technology as something to take control of, not just consume or be represented within. For senior leaders it reframes the DEI-in-tech conversation as a product and capability question: who builds the tools, who governs them, and whose problems they get designed to solve. Key speaking topics Women and underrepresented groups in STEM Technology talent pipelines and digital skills Future of work and AI Inclusive product and technology design Social entrepreneurship at scale UK digital policy and industrial strategy Responsible and inclusive AI Ideal for CHROs, CPOs and heads of talent building technology hiring pipelines beyond the usual funnel. CTOs, CDIOs and engineering leaders under pressure to improve retention and representation in technical teams. Boards and ExCos setting policy on AI, digital skills and workforce strategy, particularly in regulated sectors. Corporate foundations, ESG leads and public-sector partners designing STEM and social mobility interventions. Audience outcomes A sharper read on why conventional diversity-in-tech programmes under-deliver and where the real intervention points sit. A working vocabulary for discussing inclusive AI and technology design at board level without defaulting to platitudes. Concrete examples, drawn from Stemettes and UK policy work, of what moves technical participation and retention. A reframe of women-in-tech as a product, governance and capability issue, not only a hiring issue. A sense of how UK digital skills policy and regulation are likely to shape talent strategy over the next cycle.

Why organisations work with Gloria Garcia She has made high-stakes decisions for a living, protecting ultra-high-net-worth families across Chicago, Mexico City, New York, London and Paris. The lessons she brings on presence and judgement come from work where the cost of error is not a missed quarter. Her background is operator-grade, not adjacent: Cook County Sheriff’s Department, Special Operations Response Team training, corrections leadership in the RTU Men’s Division, SIA-licensed close protection. Buyers get someone who has done the job, not someone who has studied it. She is one of a very small number of senior female close protection specialists on the international circuit, which gives her a credible platform for audiences working on women’s progression in operational, security and male-dominated environments. Her acting practice, including a role cast personally by J.J. Abrams in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, gives her a second language for presence, performance and audience reading that translates directly into executive communication. She speaks from a personal story, a survived kidnapping attempt at age 11, without making the story the product. The story sets up the work; the work is what she teaches. Biography highlights Cook County Sheriff’s Department officer, trained under the Special Operations Response Team (S.O.R.T.) and posted to Cook County Prison’s RTU Men’s Division. SIA-licensed close protection operative with over twenty years of experience protecting ultra-high-net-worth clients internationally. Known professionally as “La Mirla” (“The Blackbird”) within the private protection circuit. Actress cast personally by J.J. Abrams as the “Jakku Defender” in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Recent screen credits include Dr. Sofia Guijarro in Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue (2025) and Agent Niki Delgado in Malice (2025-26). Represented for speaking by Kruger Cowne; life rights reported in development as a feature film with producer Lucas Foster. Biography Most executives will never work a live protection detail. The people who do will tell you the job is not physical force. It is attention: who is in the room, what has changed in the last thirty seconds, which person is a threat and which is a distraction. Gloria Garcia has spent two decades doing that job at the top of the market, for ultra-high-net-worth principals across Chicago, Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles, London and Paris. Her training is operator-grade. She came through the Cook County Sheriff’s Department under the Special Operations Response Team, ran a post in Cook County Prison’s RTU Men’s Division, then moved into international close protection as an SIA-licensed specialist. Inside the circuit she is known as “La Mirla”, “The Blackbird”. It is not a nickname she uses on stage. It is the one her peers use for her. She is also a working actress. J.J. Abrams cast her personally as the “Jakku Defender” in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. More recent roles include Dr. Sofia Guijarro in Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue and Agent Niki Delgado in the series Malice. The overlap matters: acting and protection both turn on reading people, holding presence, and adapting in real time. When she talks to leadership audiences about composure and communication, both practices are visible in the room. The personal starting point is a survived kidnapping attempt at age 11, in Cicero, Illinois. She tells that story because it explains the choice of career, not because it is the lesson. The lesson is what she built afterwards: a discipline of attention, trust and communication that senior leaders recognise the moment they hear it. Key speaking topics Decision-making under physical and reputational threat Situational awareness and presence in high-stakes rooms Communication tactics in protective and adversarial settings Women in operational and male-dominated roles Trauma, recovery and the choice to protect others Trust and composure in executive teams Ideal for Senior leaders and boards wanting a visceral perspective on judgement under pressure Security, risk and resilience functions looking beyond technical content Women’s leadership programmes in operational, industrial or security-heavy sectors Culture and communication events where presence and credibility are the brief Audience outcomes A sharper mental model for what composure actually looks like, from someone who uses it professionally Practical ways to read a room faster, including who to listen to and who to watch A clearer sense of how to communicate authority without raising volume A human account of turning a formative threat into a working discipline Renewed appetite for putting trusted operators, not only specialists, in front of senior teams

Why organisations work with Joss Stone A first-hand global perspective from a singer who performed in all 193 UN member states and partnered with local charities in each, a frame of reference very few keynote speakers can claim. A Grammy winner and double BRIT Award winner whose presence brings cultural weight and warmth to a corporate, charity, or values-led event. A founder’s account of running the Joss Stone Foundation, which supports more than 200 charities, told without corporate distance. A speaker who draws on Live 8, One Young World, and two decades inside the music industry to talk about purpose, resilience, and creative independence in plain language. Biography highlights Grammy Award winner for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals (2007), with John Legend and Van Hunt. Two BRIT Awards (2005): British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act; Guinness World Records as youngest BRIT solo winner at age 17. Debut album The Soul Sessions shortlisted for the 2004 Mercury Prize; approximately 14 million records sold worldwide. Performed at Live 8 (2005) and the One Young World Summit (2012). Completed The Total World Tour (2014 to 2019), performing in over 200 countries including all 193 UN member states, collaborating with local artists and charities. Founder of the Joss Stone Foundation, supporting more than 200 charities globally. Biography Most artists at the peak of a recording career do not put it down to spend five years performing in every country on earth. Joss Stone did. The Total World Tour ran from 2014 to 2019, reached all 193 UN member states, and paired every show with a charity visit and a local-artist collaboration. The Joss Stone Foundation grew directly out of it. Stone arrived at this work with credentials already in place. Her debut record was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize when she was sixteen. By seventeen she held two BRIT Awards and a Guinness World Records entry as the youngest solo winner of the prize. A Grammy followed in 2007 for her collaboration with John Legend and Van Hunt. Roughly 14 million records sold worldwide put her among the best-selling British soul artists of her generation. What she now brings to a stage is the rarer asset. She has sat with charity workers, musicians, and communities in places most senior leaders only see in briefing notes. She has built and run an international foundation. She has done it while staying recognisably herself, with the directness that audiences at One Young World, Live 8, and corporate summits have responded to. For organisations talking about purpose, global responsibility, or the human side of a values agenda, Stone offers proof that the work is doable and worth doing. The argument lands because she has done it. Key speaking topics Purpose and humanitarian leadership Global perspective through music and travel Founding and running a charitable foundation Creative independence and career longevity Cultural collaboration across 193 countries Resilience inside the music industry Ideal for Charity galas, foundation events, and CSR or ESG conferences Corporate summits on purpose, values, and employee engagement Awards dinners and after-dinner keynote slots Women’s leadership, young leaders, and One Young World style platforms Audience outcomes A vivid first-hand account of building a global humanitarian project from the ground up A reset of what purpose looks like when it is lived rather than messaged Specific stories from 193 countries that translate abstract values into human terms A reminder, from someone who has done it, that creative independence and commercial success can coexist

Why organisations work with Linda Mabhena-Olagunju She has actually built and operates a 244MW utility-scale wind farm in the Northern Cape, not advised on one. Her authority on the energy transition comes from owning the asset, raising the capital, and running it. A legal foundation in oil and gas law from Aberdeen, applied to renewable energy operations in Africa. That sequence gives her a sharper view than most operators on how regulation, project finance, and offtake contracts actually shape what gets built. Direct line of sight on what local ownership looks like in practice. DLO acquired the engineering services and operations capability behind its plants, making it the rare African IPP with both equity and technical control. Sits at the table where African energy policy is shaped: advisor to South Africa’s Minister of Energy, University of Oxford International Advisory Board, founder of the DLO Africa Power Roundtable. Recognised by named bodies, not bureau hype: Choiseul 100 (multi-year), Forbes Woman Africa, CNBC All Africa Business Leaders Award, Veuve Clicquot. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, DLO Energy Resources Group, owner and operator of a 244MW wind farm in South Africa’s Northern Cape. LLB, University of Cape Town (Dean’s Merit List); LLM in International Commercial Law with oil and gas specialisation, University of Aberdeen (First Class). Admitted attorney of the High Court of South Africa. Member of the University of Oxford International Advisory Board since 2018. External contributor to Institut Montaigne on African energy and infrastructure. Recognition: Choiseul 100 Africa Economic Leaders for Tomorrow (multi-year); Forbes Woman Africa Best Emerging Entrepreneur; CNBC All Africa Business Leaders Award; Veuve Clicquot Businesswomen Award; Oprah Power List of 20 most powerful women in Africa. Biography Africa’s renewable energy build-out is shaped less by technology than by who can hold a project together long enough to reach financial close. DLO Energy Resources Group, founded by Linda Mabhena-Olagunju and now the operator of a 244MW wind farm in the Northern Cape, is one of the few independent power producers on the continent that owns both the equity and the engineering capability behind its assets. Her route into the sector is unusual. She read law at the University of Cape Town, then took an LLM in International Commercial Law at Aberdeen with a specialism in oil and gas. She is an admitted attorney of the High Court of South Africa. That legal grounding, in the contracts and regulation that govern energy projects, is what allowed DLO to acquire an EPC and O&M operation and bring operational control in-house, a step most African IPPs never take. The recognition has followed the work, not the other way round. The Choiseul 100 has listed her among Africa’s economic leaders of tomorrow across multiple years. Forbes Woman Africa named her Best Emerging Entrepreneur; CNBC named her Young Business Leader for Southern Africa. She sits on the University of Oxford International Advisory Board, contributes to Institut Montaigne on African energy policy, and advises the South African Minister of Energy. For audiences working on energy transition strategy, climate-related disclosures, or capital allocation to emerging markets, she is one of the very small group who can describe the path from policy ambition to a generating asset, with the receipts to back it up. Key speaking topics Africa’s energy transition Renewable energy project finance and ownership Independent power producers in emerging markets Local content and black ownership in energy Women in energy and infrastructure Climate policy and capital allocation in Africa Ideal for Boards and investment committees with African or emerging-market energy exposure CFOs, treasury, and capital allocators reviewing climate transition strategy Energy, utilities, and infrastructure executives planning African projects DEI sponsors and women-in-leadership programmes in capital-intensive sectors Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what it takes for an African renewable project to reach financial close, told by someone who has done it. A working understanding of where policy ambition on energy transition diverges from project finance reality on the continent. Concrete answers on how local ownership, EPC control, and offtake structures change the economics of a generation asset. A sharper view of where African renewable capacity is actually being built, by whom, and at what cost of capital.

Why organisations work with Helen Richardson-Walsh A first-hand account of the cultural reset that took GB women’s hockey from Olympic underachievers to Rio 2016 gold, told by a senior player who was inside the leadership group for 11 years. A working performance psychologist’s view of how psychological safety, belonging and honest feedback are engineered in a daily training environment, drawn from her current role with Tottenham Hotspur Women. A credible voice on mental health at the top of high-pressure environments, grounded in her own documented recovery from clinical depression and career-threatening back surgery between London 2012 and Rio 2016. A practical perspective on inclusion as a performance variable, informed by being part of the first same-sex married couple to win Olympic gold on the same team and the cultural work that made that possible inside the squad. Co-author of “Winning Together” (Hachette, 2020), a book leaders cite as a tactical, behaviour-level account of building a winning team, not a memoir. Biography highlights Olympic gold medallist, Rio 2016, with Team GB women’s hockey; one of only two players to score in the shootout that beat the Netherlands in the final. Youngest woman ever to represent GB hockey at an Olympic Games, on debut at Sydney 2000, aged 18. Olympic bronze, London 2012; European champion, 2015; 293 caps for England and Great Britain across four Olympic Games. MBE for services to hockey, 2017 New Year Honours. Co-author of “Winning Together: An Olympic-Winning Approach to Building Better Teams” (Hachette, 2020), with Kate Richardson-Walsh. Performance Psychologist with Tottenham Hotspur Women since 2021; holds a Master’s in Organisational Psychology from City, University of London, and trains as a sport psychologist with elite teams. Biography GB women’s hockey arrived at London 2012 with a bronze medal and an open question about whether the squad could ever win at the level its talent suggested. The four years that followed were not a story of more training. They were a story of a deliberate cultural rebuild: explicit team values, leadership shared across the senior players, hard conversations about behaviour, and a willingness to treat psychology as a daily performance system. Rio 2016 produced the first Olympic gold for British women’s hockey. Helen Richardson-Walsh made her Olympic debut at Sydney 2000 as the youngest woman ever to represent GB hockey, and sat inside that leadership group for 11 of her 18 years in the squad. Her experience is unusually specific. Between the two Olympics she also went through two ruptured discs, multiple back and ankle surgeries, and a period of clinical depression severe enough to require professional treatment. The Rio gold was won by a player who had been told she might not play again, who had used therapy and mindfulness to come back, and who was one of only two players to score in the shootout that won the final against the Netherlands. That combination of operating inside an elite team culture and rebuilding her own performance from the inside is the content she now works with. She is co-author, with Kate Richardson-Walsh, of “Winning Together” (Hachette, 2020), a working manual on team building drawn directly from the Rio cycle. She is a Performance Psychologist with Tottenham Hotspur Women, where her brief includes individual mindset work and squad culture, and she holds a Master’s in Organisational Psychology from City, University of London. For senior teams the value is in the precision of her examples. How psychological safety actually shows up in a meeting. What belonging looks like when a married couple are competing for the same shirt. How a high performer talks about depression without losing their place in the team. What inclusion does to performance when the pressure is on. The credibility is the medal; the substance is what she did to get there and what she does now. Key speaking topics High-performance team culture Psychological safety and belonging Inclusion in elite performance environments Resilience after injury, setback and depression Mental health and wellbeing at senior level Leadership inside high-pressure teams Performance mindset Ideal for CHROs, heads of talent and culture leads building team norms in pressured commercial environments. Executive teams and senior leadership groups going through performance reset or post-restructure rebuild. Wellbeing, DEI and people leaders working on inclusion and psychological safety as performance issues, not compliance. Sales, trading floor and operating leadership groups where sustained pressure is the working environment. Audience outcomes A concrete account of how an elite team rebuilt its culture in four years, with the specific behaviours that changed. A working definition of psychological safety drawn from a team where the cost of getting it wrong was visible in performance. Language for talking about mental health and recovery at senior level without softening or sensationalising it. A view of inclusion as a performance variable, not a values statement. Practical mental tools used by elite athletes that translate to commercial high-pressure roles.