Meet The 2023 Speakers

Rev Paul Cowley MBE is the Director of Rehabilitation for Iceland foods, one of the leading food retailers in the UK, where his role is help get those coming out of prison employment and restoration. In 2005, he founded the charity ‘Caring for Ex-Offenders’ (CFEO), which has helped over 2000 men and women reintegrate back into society. After which, in 2009, he pioneered the Alpha course within the Armed Forces - he also went on to found the Willian WIlberforce Trust in 2012. In 2014, Paul received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lord Longford Trust for his work in prisons. In 2016, Paul was awarded the MBE from Her Majesty the Queen for ‘Services to ExOffenders’.

Alyson Fadil is the Chief People Officer at N Brown Group and is also a Non-Exec Director & Chair of Remuneration for Marks Electrical Group. She previously held Executive People Director roles for Missguided and Sofology. Aly has been fundamental in the transformation of N Brown from a catalogue business to a top 10 UK digital retailer. Her leadership has revolutionised the culture into an employee empowered organisation - Aly has reshaped the organisational design, implemented new capabilities, orchestrated new ways of working for the group and implemented new reward and recognition programmes. Centering the colleague values and behaviours around the customer and inclusion, has enabled an integrated financial services, retail and logistics business that is prepared for scale and growth.

Miguel Premoli has over 30 years of human resources, talent management and transformation experience across the Americas, Europe and Asia in FMCG, retail and digital companies. He was most recently the CHRO of the No7 Beauty Company, a division of Walgreens Boots Alliance. Prior to joining No7 Beauty Company, Miguel spent 16 years at PepsiCo, his last four years as Vice President Talent Management Europe Africa (EMEA), prior to that he held senior roles in Walmart, Neoris Technology Partners, and Colgate-Palmolive.

As Chief People Officer at Tom Ford, Abigail Wilmore defines and implements the people strategy, bringing the ethical, sustainable and responsible elements of what the brand stands for into our people and culture agenda. As a breaker of tired outdated HR ‘rules’, Abigail operates with the values of trust, respect, integrity and compassion to create a heart centred global community.

Donna Price was until recently the Head of Employee Experience at Eurostar International, while simultaneously operating as an internal consultant for the people aspects of the large-scale merger of Eurostar and Thalys. Over the past year, she has been a key driving force behind the definition of an organisational structure that will result in a joined-up customer offer, a unified workplace culture and optimised working practices. Donna is an HR leader with specialist expertise in employee experience and talent management underpinned by a strong generalist HR background. She has demonstrated her creative and strategic focus during roles for big-name, customer-focused businesses. She previously held resourcing and talent roles at Harrods. While with the business, she was awarded several internal and external awards for her role in Harrods’ first employer branding strategy. She positioned Harrods as an industry thought leader on resourcing with multiple engagements as a speaker for LinkedIn events.

Lucy Clough sits on the Board as People Director at ScS, where she’s responsible for leading and driving the people strategy and cultural change across the business, she also leads on the ESG strategy. Lucy is a leadership and people expert with a passion for driving a high performance culture. She began her career at McDonalds, where she specialised in learning and development, before moving on to lead the HR team in the UK and Ireland as Director of HR. She then moved on to lead the global people agenda at Boohoo Group for 5000 employees, where she supported the rapid expansion of the group internationally. From Boohoo, Lucy went on to Hays Travel where she was Group People Director and was involved in the merger and acquisition of Thomas Cook into Hays. She was recently awarded the CIPD Inspirational Practitioner Award 2022.

Anne-Marie Lister is a creative and solutions focused organisation development, organisation design, L&D and employee engagement practitioner. As Chief People Officer at Atom bank, over the seven years she has been there, she has had to understand the dynamics of the organisation quickly - designing, delivering and evaluating OD interventions in Europe and Americas, MENASA, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia Pacific regions. Her HR practice is based on driving business improvement, employee productivity and profit through high levels of employee engagement.

Milet Lukey is Vice President of People and Culture with the Dorchester Collection. In her current role, she is responsible for strengthening the culture through the We Care philosophy of the organisation. In line with the company's vison of Treasured by Guests, Cherished by Employees and Celebrated Worldwide, the strategies provide employees with extraordinary places to work where they feel safe and respected and can thrive. Dorchester Collection is committed to fostering a sense of belonging, offer continuous development, and providing a confident future to its employees. An experienced people and culture professional with over 30 years luxury hospitality experience in North, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Europe, Milet spent her formative years in hospitality at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. A two-time recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige award, she held the position of Senior Regional Director for the Western Region, prior to joining Dorchester Collection as Area Director of People & Culture for their two LA hotels.

Fabiola Williams has been the Chief People Officer at McArthurGlen since 2019. She has consistently developed and led new people strategies implementing systems change, business and culture transformation, Leadership development, Inclusion, equity and diversity, engagement and performance management. With over 30 years’ experience working in multilingual and multicultural contexts, Fabiola has gained a broad experience in human resources and business transformation in private and public sector, including McKinsey & Company, L’Oréal Group and the Department of Work and Pensions. Fabiola holds an MSc in organisational change from Ashridge Business School and a BA in French and Italian Double Honours from the University of Manchester. In her work, she has sought to bring out the human aspects of business and leadership in the 'whole system', especially in development and culture, to enable people to collaborate for positive change

Andrea Wareham is a NED and people advisor to support CEOs and aspiring senior leaders, to be the best they can be through individual support and mentoring. Until March 2023, she was Chief People Officer for Pret A Manger, where she worked for 23 years. During her time at Pret she played a significant role in the successful growth of the business to 600 shops in 13 countries across Europe, Asia and America with 11,500 employees.
She previously worked for Arthur Andersen and Harrods. Andrea is also on a number of Advisory Boards of companies operating in the People space whose products and offer can contribute significantly to individual and organisation growth.

Phil Vickers has been the HR Director for the UK & USA for Charles Tyrwhitt since 2018, where his responsibilities cover all areas of HR across all business units and all territories, with a particular focus on talent management, recruitment, reward & benefits, payroll and administration. During his time at CT, Phil has overseen a complete restructure of the HR team, created a separate and dedicated payroll team and established ‘business partnering’, where previously it was lacking. As a member of the CT operating board, he is also responsible for ensuring that HR responds and reacts to both business needs and to those of colleagues. Phil is a passionate believer in the power of employee engagement and see’s his role, and that of HR, as being there to create the conditions where people can be, and want to be, at their best. In his previous role, he was HR Business Partner at John Lewis.

Heather Lee is a strategic leader and human resources professional, working as Chief People Officer and a member of the Executive Team reporting to the CEO, for Lincolnshire Co-operative, where they are recognised for their employment practices with Investors in People Platinum, Disability Confident Leading and a long term, committed Mindful Employer. She has sector experience in retail, defence, and utilities Blue Chip FTSE 100’s and the Co-operative sector. member of the Business in the Community East Midlands Leadership Team. An Economics graduate from the University of York, she is also a Fellow of the CIPD and holds an MBA. Heather is Vice-Chair of Governors at a Boston College, a General FE College and Chair of the Greater Lincolnshire Cornerstone Employer Group, promoting best practice in business support to careers education.

Una O’Reilly is Group Chief People, Culture & Sustainability Officer with Caprice Holdings, which includes the restaurants The Ivy Collection, Bill’s, and The Birley Clubs. She was previously with Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield from 2013-2022, as their Group Director of Engagement and Director of HR UK/Italy. Prior to joining URW, she has held a variety of human resources roles in both retail and property development, and has had responsibility for UK, Europe and Asia. Una holds a BSC Hons Technology Management, Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resources and Organisational Development and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personal Development.

Cat Gault is Head of People, Resourcing and Administration at Sue Ryder, where she has worked since March 2019 initially in the post of Head of Recruitment before assuming the additional responsibility of first line HR support in June 2022. Prior to working at Sue Ryder, Cat held a number of recruitment posts in global financial services organisations including Willis Towers Watson and Morgan Stanley. She started her career in recruitment consultancy which, if nothing else was character building, particularly during the 2008 recession.

A veteran of 20+ years in the technology industry, as Senior Manager - HR Innovation at UKG, Neil Pickering is an evangelist for driving business and people experience transformation, using technology and culture. Through close collaboration with customers, research teams and partners across retail and the wider supply chain - Neil and his team at UKG, develop and deliver content that brings stories of success to life - sowing the seeds for positive people and organisational growth.

As COOK’s People Director, Alison Payne is passionate about inclusive policies and structures that facilitate the needs of a fast-paced growing business, with happier people and customers year on year. Wellbeing (physical, mental and financial) has always been high on the COOK agenda. Alison leads her team to look after everyone in their role and ensure leadership development is a central enabler to everyone’s growth, as COOK continues to grow. Prior to COOK, she held many operational roles at Tesco Stores Ltd before becoming a Group Personnel Manager for the Tesco Metro format in London. Alison is also a Trustee for The Island Learning Trust, local to The COOK Kitchens in Sittingbourne, Kent.

Jo Causon joined The Institute of Customer Services as its CEO in 2009, where she has driven membership growth by 150 percent and established the UK Customer Satisfaction Index as the country premier indicator of consumer satisfaction, providing organisations with an indicator of the return on their service strategy investment. Jo focuses on demonstrating a clear link between employee engagement, customer service strategies and organisational performance. Working across the public, private and voluntary sectors she provides strategic advice to Boardrooms to raise the standards of service provided by UK organisations and to provide evidence of the connection between customer satisfaction and operational efficiency and profitability.

Yemi Akisanya is Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and People Experience at Axon. Prior to joining Axon, he served as a Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Groupon, where he was responsible for building their DEI global strategy - focused on creating short and long-term plans to help build a more diverse, equitable and inclusive culture for Groupon’s merchants, customers and team mates. Yemi consulted on critical communication strategies, organizational change processes and the future of work that aligns with the organization’s objectives and values. He has 15 years expertise as an effective global business leader and board member who has achieved significant success in changing corporate culture.

Charlotte Rees-John is the Head of of Consumer Goods and Services sector. at Irwin Mitchell, as well as being an Employment Partner with over 20 years’ experience. She acts for a number of key clients including Costa Coffee, PureGym and McArthurGlen, and has worked for many other well-known brands in the consumer sector including Mothercare, McDonald’s, Arcadia Limited, Whitbread, Top Shop and Pets at Home, to name just a few. Charlotte advises on all areas of employment law but is particularly recognised for her commercial advisory work, advising on large scale restructures involving collective consultation, multi-jurisdictional project work, TUPE and matters involving potential brand damage/media interest. She also takes a keen interest in diversity and inclusion, (D&I) and has worked with a number of clients to create and implement clear D&I Strategies as part of their overall ESG commitments. Charlotte is passionate about the consumer sector and leads the full-service consumer team, overseeing the client relationships - helping to develop and win new opportunities for her colleagues, as well as for clients through referrals and networking opportunities. She has considerable experience in franchising, having advised both franchisees and franchisors in relation to brand protection through establishing clear, value driven, people practices. She has also advised and supported brands looking to continue their success in the UK from overseas. Charlotte is recognised as a ranked lawyer by Chambers and Partners and by her clients as being a commercial, straight talking and as a trusted legal advisor.

Dr Carl Bescoby is a psychologist with 10 years of experience working at the intersection of well-being, performance, and rehabilitation. As a freelancer psychologist at OpenUp for the past 10 months, Carl has provided personalised care, empowering individuals to achieve optimal mental wellbeing. His evidence-based strategies and empathetic approach have earned him recognition as a trusted professional, dedicated to helping others overcome personal obstacles, unlock their true potential, and thrive in their respective domains. Carl holds a Ph.D. in psychosocial support for chronically ill populations. This academic achievement reflects his commitment to understanding the complex psychosocial dynamics that arise when individuals face chronic illness and providing them with effective wellbeing support systems.

Kirsty Rogers is Group Head of ESG and has oversight of the delivery of DWF's global ESG strategy, ensuring the governance and operations are in place to deliver on targets and key metrics. She is also the Chair of DWF's ESG Leadership Group and sits on the Groups Executive Board. Kirsty advises the plc Board on their progress as well as being a member of DWF's Risk and Sanctions Committees. She is an employment lawyer and has been a Partner at DWF since 2007. Kirsty is also DWF's Office Managing Partner of the Manchester office. As an employment lawyer, Kirsty is recognised in the Legal Directories including in the Legal 500 Hall of Fame and in Chambers. She has created the Responsible Business programme for leaders focussing on social and governance requirements in relation to people and is known for her work on discrimination, whistleblowing and culture. She is recognised as an ambassador for her work on Neurodiversity by the ADHD Foundation, and she is a Board member of the North West Academies Trust, a trustee of a children's charity 'Vision4children' based at Alder Hey, and a board member of 'We Mind the Gap', a charity supporting young people into good work. She is also on the Boards of Business in the Community in the North West, and a member of the North West Business Leadership Team.

Liz Jewitt-Cross is an interim board level chief people and transformation officer, HR and organisation change adviser, with a global career spanning multiple industry sectors including retail and fashion with many of our best known and loved business brands. Most recently, Liz assisted New Look, the UK’s largest value fashion retailer for 18-45 year old women and Drapers retailer of the year 2022, as their Interim Chief for People and Transformation, leading the reset of the company’s people strategy to a new omnichannel operating model. Prior to this, Liz worked for two years as Interim Chief HR Officer for McArthurGlen,the UK and Europe’s largest designer shopping outlet centre group who host over 1000 luxury and retail brands and 30,000 retail employees, supporting their digital transformation, market growth and the transition to a new HR operating model with new Workday systems. Liz has enjoyed a successful career specialising in roles and projects helping to lead or advise upon rapid growth, acquisitions and turnarounds as well as major change including one of the largest IT outsourcing ventures of its time for Sainsbury’s; the creation through acquisition of the Mosaic fashions group; American Express’ industry-first multi-lingual global Corporate Travel Centre in France; the successful relicensing and restructuring bid for National Lottery, and the successful past rescue of Jaeger.

As a Partner in the Employment Team at DWF, Kate Meadowcroft provides clear, robust advice to private and public multi-site organisations on a wide range of employment law matters. Her approach is to partner with clients, providing sound commercial advice to resolve HR issues whether contentious or non-contentious. She works within a variety of sectors, and has considerable expertise in large scale restructuring projects and whole scale changes to terms and conditions, providing support throughout the project to both HR and senior management. Kate has worked with healthcare organisations, both within the NHS and those providing services to the NHS, and has built up a niche specialism and expertise in advising those commissioning for outsourced healthcare services. She also works in the construction and infrastructure sector, advising on a variety of HR issues.

Headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, Darren Williams is the Global Head of Leasing for Impress, leading site selection, negotiation and legals to lease in all seven markets, with more to follow as they continue their rollout. He is the Founder of Williams Harding Consulting working with start-ups, expanding and distressed businesses, primarily in retail and hospitality but also outside of these sectors. Darren is also a Non Executive Chairman of a men's skincare company Scrubd and a Trustee at Action 4 Youth. Darren has formally held senior roles in several businesses in retail and hospitality, including Hotel Chocolat and Unilever. He currently holds two ambassadorial roles, being a Schools Role Model for Stonewall, and fundraising and awareness for Target Ovarian Cancer, Williams Harding also partners with a Bulgarian dog rescue centre.

Pete Fullard is the CEO of Upskill People, innovators in the global online learning market. He helps people get the most from their careers, and businesses get the most from their teams. Pete knows that L&D is at its most powerful when outcomes are measured, analysed, and built into actionable plans. His ultimate goal is to inspire any organisation he works with to operate at its absolute best.