Meet The 2025 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’.

Sophie Melrose is Global Talent Acquisition Lead at Astrid & Miyu, an omnichannel D2C jewellery brand founded in London in 2012. Previously she was a Consultant with Wiser Graduates, leading the Professional Financial Services team, working with clients in the Investment, Consultancy, Corporate Finance and Expert Network industries. This included full 360 management, working directly with clients and bringing in new business whilst sourcing and managing candidates.

Kate Horne has been Head of Learning and Organisational Development at Sue Ryder for nearly five years, where she is leading their ‘Culture Change Programme’. This is a long term nationwide cultural change in workstreams, looking at collaborated, designed and embedded new values and behaviours, collaboration and engagement, employee performance and progression, wellbeing and ED&I. It has been a hugely successful programme has embedded a measurable and tangible change to culture of Sue Ryder. Kate is a senior leader specialising in culture change, with extensive experience of leading strategy, developing policy and delivering organisational change programmes in the third and public sectors in national roles.

With over 25 years’ experience in the HR industry, Sue Yell is HR Director for Warburtons since 2011, where she has worked with the executive team to define and deliver the business’s growth plans. She is responsible for the development and delivery of the people management strategy and the people agenda, which is now seen as absolutely essential to the organisation’s success. The ‘Lead for Growth’ plan has focused on the development of talent and capability to enable the business vision to be achieved. Sue is particularly passionate about engagement and has been instrumental in achieving ‘Best Company to Work for’ status for both Warburtons and previously Iceland Foods. She has previously worked for Marks & Spencer and News International; and has extensive experience of managing business transformation, change programmes and improving leadership capability within both the retail and manufacturing sectors.

Rowan Eden is Head of People at Ribble, responsible for innovating and augmenting the dynamic new HR vision and cultural turnaround of one of the oldest bicycle brands in the world. Passionate about transformational culture, enhancing the workplace environment and driving exceptional employee experience – Rowan was head hunted to redefine HR aligned to an award winning digital first business and establishing a leading people function with focus on culture and engagement. With vast experience gained from over 16 years working in the retail sector for global brands such as Habitat, Heals, Primark and going on to head up HR at Mamas and Papas prior to taking up the people lead and transformation at Ribble. Rowan’s zeal is to successfully recruit, retain, engage and empower a diverse workforce that enhances the Ribble brand and futureproofs the success of the business.

Holly Grubb is a CIPD qualified HR Business Partner and has been with Charles Tyrwhitt since February 2023 as their Senior People Partner. She has considerable experience of working collaboratively with Board Directors and senior management, within corporate and SME businesses across diverse industry sectors including retail; manufacturing; distribution; oil & gas; professional services and brewery industries. Prior to Charles Tyrwhitt, Holly was People Partner People at Paperchase and before that she was with Specsavers as HR Business Partner for nearly four years.

Luiza Gomes manages the HR community and leads the D&I Charter work at the BRC, which supports over 80 retailers with their inclusion strategies. She oversees the production of the Diversity and Inclusion in UK Retail Report, an annual publication about the state of D&I in retail. She has also worked with the Social Mobility Commission on its toolkit for retailers and with the Department for Work and Pension as the retail sector’s Menopause Advocate. Luiza has represented retail in a number of podcasts and business panels, showcasing the good work being done by BRC members in the D&I space in the UK. She has over six years of experience working in other trade bodies. Luiza is an overseas qualified lawyer and worked as a civil litigator in Brazil before relocating to the UK.

Sara Barrett has worked at Lincolnshire Co-op since 2004 as the Learning & Development Manager, where she has led training and development for nearly 3000 colleagues, throughout a range of diverse business areas such as retail, funerals, post office and travel. Prior to her role at Lincolnshire Co-op, she has had a long career in Learning & Development in various business sectors including retail, insurance and the motor industry. Sara is passionate about developing and encouraging colleagues to be the best they can be.

Annette Andrews is a qualified life and executive coach, with expertise as an executive and NED, as well as being an experienced Chief Human Resources Officer with global expertise. Her HR expertise encompasses all strands of the HR function having worked for the market leaders in their sector, including Lloyds of London, Lloyds Banking Group and Ford Motor Company.

Liz Ponting has been working at the Open University for seven years, and for the last two years within the transport and logistics sector. Her expertise and experience comes from working with organisations to support them in their strategic goals where learning and development is often the key. A lot of organisations find themselves ‘reacting’ and going around in a circle, often trying to solve the same problems they thought they had already fixed. Liz sees her role as supporting these organisations to unravel what these actual problems are. At the crux of most of these problems are employee skills, and then keeping the talent within the business. Working with organisations, such as Amazon, Liz believes that investment in people is the key – through career pathways all the way to encouraging new learning even outside of their job role. To address the challenge retail has for attracting and retaining staff, using benefits, such as education, could be a way to not only attract new and younger workers into the sector but also retain existing ones.

Asiye Yuzer is Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Manager at global skincare brand and retailer Aesop. She joined the brand in 2019 as HR Business Partner for Northern Europe, following six years working in various HR roles focused on supporting retail teams in the UK and Europe after an earlier career background in asylum, immigration and family law. Before stepping into the DE&I Manager role, she supported the global and regional HR teams at Aesop as HR Project Manager, primarily working together with the teams across all markets to support Aesop employees and HR teams through the pandemic, and coordinating Aesop’s initial activities across the diversity, equity and inclusion priorities.

Liz Jewitt-Cross was until recently interim Chief People Officer with Pepco, she is also an 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.

Catriona Gault is the current Head of People, Resourcing and Administration at Sue Ryder, after starting in March 2019 as their Head of Resourcing. Sue Ryder supports people through the most difficult times of their lives. Whether that’s a terminal illness, the loss of a loved one or a neurological condition – we’re there when it matters.

Sarah Mcloughlin is Head of Academy at TUCO – The University Caterers Organisation – they touch on retail and hospitality and have over 150 members with collectively over 30,000 employees. Sarah not only designs and delivers courses but has also been involved in a number of management development programmes with several university catering and retail teams recently.

Rob Peacock has been the Head of Talent Development, Leadership and Performance at The Very Group since January 2021. Prior to Very, he was Head of Learning and Development, UK and Europe with Samsung Electronics for nearly three years and before that he was with Virgin Media, leading the L&D Academy with accountability for personal and professional capability. Rob started his career at Tesco’s in 2012 as their HR Business Partner for Global Food Sourcing, Global Business Units and Brands.

With more than 20 years’ experience in the technology sector, Neil Pickering has a deep understanding of the strategic levers organisations can operate to improve business performance. He does this by delving deep into organisational processes, identifying the opportunity for business transformation and presenting compelling cases for business improvement are my key attributes. Neil has worked with some of the most innovative retailers in the last decade and is delighted to share his learnings at the inaugural TRB Retail HR North event in Manchester.

Simon Tindall has worked at The Open University since April 2014. Having spent a career in various marketing, sales and business development roles, initially in the high tech sector before moving increasingly into an education space, he more recently has been focusing on generating new business and opportunities for the OU, both commercial and fulfilling their social remit.

Charlotte Rees-John is the Head of Retail, Leisure & Hospitality Sector at Irwin Mitchell. She is also 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 and has worked with a number of clients to create and implement clear D&I Strategies as part of their overall ESG commitments.

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.

Elizabeth Cowper is the Founder of Ludo, a business providing a digital solution to drive wellbeing and inclusion in the workplace. Before Ludo, she was wtih Tapestry, a global house of brands comprised of Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman in in October 2016 – following the work she accomlished in Europe in the wellbeing space, Elizabeth became the global HR lead for Tapestry. Prior to Tapestry, Elizabeth held the role of HRD at Harvey Nichols, she joined Harvey Nichols from luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, where she was HR Director of Perfumes & Cosmetics and was responsible for delivering a strategic, commercial and entrepreneurial HR service across six brands. Prior to LVMH, she held senior HR positions at food retailer Planet Organic and clothing outlet Fenn Wright Manson. Elizabeth is the founder of website for working mothers WoMo Network.