Tamanna Advani | Senior Associate | PwC
I completed my undergraduate degree in Commerce and Finance in Dubai, and moved to London in 2018 to pursue my Masters degree in Accounting, Accountability & Financial Management from King’s College London.
This fuelled my desire to learn more about London’s financial services industry and the booming insurance sector, and I therefore joined PwC in 2019 within the Insurance Risk practice. I am also currently pursuing my ACCA qualification which I will further leverage to provide my clients with effective solutions.
Over the past three and a half years, I have worked with a number of general insurance and life insurers, including Lloyd’s of London Syndicates, and have helped them navigate through change driven by regulatory, technological and operational factors. I have led multiple workstreams on complex financial and operational transformation programmes with a focus on high quality delivery and value creation. My agility and flexibility enables me to deliver over a vast number of demanding engagements including, process and control remediation programmes, UK SOx readiness assessments and cost savings identification and recommendations.
Having grown up in three countries and being influenced by a variety of cultures has helped me understand the importance of welcoming different perspectives of people from different walks of life. This, coupled with the encouragement I have received from strong female role models has led me to mentor female students from ethnic minorities and underprivileged socio-economic backgrounds. I am a certified Mental Health First Aider, and organise insightful events at PwC focused on inclusion, diversity and wellbeing.
Alice Graham | Senior Chartered Surveyor | Faithful+Gould
Alice is a diligent senior chartered surveyor, passionate about making a difference through her work in the built environment.
Since entering industry in 2018, Alice has worked on high profile flagship projects for public and private sector clients.
Alice graduated from Heriot-Watt University with a first-class degree in Quantity Surveying in 2018. After graduating, Alice joined Faithful+Gould as a graduate quantity surveyor. In her nearly 5 years at Faithful+Gould, Alice has had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects and programmes for public and private sector client. Alice became a Chartered Quantity Surveyor in 2021 and continues to deliver a range of cost management services.
Outside her technical role, Alice has been engaged in the following activities:
- Alice is a STEM ambassador and regularly undertakes activities to promote the uptake of construction careers by young people.
- Alice is a member of the Building the Future Young Persons' Advisory Panel. The panel of 14 people under the age of 35 will help the Building the Future Commission harness the knowledge of the next generation of leaders in the construction sector.
- Alice is a Trustee of the Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry. In this role, Alice works with other trustees to promote the construction industry in Cambridge.
Belen Jorda | Senior Manager | EY
I am a Senior Manager in EY’s People Consulting practice.
I have a proven ability and passion to shape and deliver complex technology-enabled change programmes, specialising in large scale infrastructure.
Being a part of major transformations in the infrastructure sector is what gives me purpose. Every day, I see my job as an opportunity to have a positive impact on society by solving complex issues – involving people and technology – while helping colleagues to thrive and reach their goals. When people ask me about my dream job, I respond that this is my dream job. I bring this passion to my teams and clients.
I grew up in Spain and studied Law, Economics and Journalism at the University of Valencia. My vision for my education was to build a well-grounded foundation in these fields in order to tackle complex issues in society, including the ability to articulate and communicate them in an effective way.
Motivated by the societal impact of improving railway safety, my focus client for the last 4 years has been Network Rail. Over this period, I have led diverse/high performing teams to deliver safety-critical technology-enabled change, including Network Rail’s largest and most complex transformation to date to help save lives on the railway.
As a woman in a male-orientated industry, I have focused on acting as a role model for women in rail by leading from the front, mentoring colleagues and inspiring by example to empower women to make their way in an industry that I love.
Hayley Magorian | Service Delivery Manager | Transport for London
As Chair of TfL’s Women’s Colleague Network Group, Hayley is an inspirational and transformative leader actively promoting gender equity and inclusion across the UK Transport Sector.
Appointed Chair in 2021, Hayley has spearheaded an ambitious agenda and worked closely with Senior Sponsors and colleagues across the business to drive progressive change and promote greater diversity and inclusion. She has contributed towards policy changes, advocated for menopause in the workplace training, contributed to guidance for line managers on approaching conversations around menstrual health and menopause, and worked with colleagues to set up support groups including a menstrual health group and monthly menopause hub accessible to all 28,500 colleagues. Hayley has led the network group to organise over 100 events reaching 2,000+ colleagues on important gender related topics including: domestic abuse, zero tolerance to sexual harassment, White Ribbon, designing inclusive transport, closing the gender pay gap, infertility and menstrual health, among other topics.
All this has been achieved in addition to delivering her day job, demonstrating her dedication and passion to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion. An accredited Project Manager, Hayley has extensive project and portfolio management experience, as well as change management experience working in fast paced, operational environments. Hayley has led multi-disciplinary matrix teams and worked on complex transformative projects to drive performance improvements, benefiting millions of customers who travel TfL’s network every day. Since joining the Project Management Graduate scheme in 2015, Hayley has risen to join the London Underground Sub-Surface lines leadership team as a Service Delivery Manager.
Lauren Luck | Regional Engineer | John Sisk & Son Ltd
I am a proud Civil Engineer with over 10 years of experience working in the construction industry.
Born in Northern Ireland and raised by my single mother, I quickly learnt that women can do anything. I was delighted by big structures and inspired by the creation of largescale infrastructure. This led to a first class degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Ulster in 2012.
I initially worked as a Site Engineer with Graham Construction and was given the opportunity to work on a wide range of civil engineering projects including railways, highways, nuclear infrastructure and the beautiful Lagan Weir Bridge in Belfast. I quickly became involved in the technical management of projects and moved into Design Management and temporary works design which is where my passion still lies.
Having relocated to Manchester in 2017, I began working with John Sisk & Son and was promoted to Regional Engineer for the UK Civils Business on return from maternity leave in 2022. In my role, I have refreshed the Sisk approach to design management and have strengthened relationships through the upskilling of engineers at all levels. I take delight in empowering colleagues to improve in fields of technical innovation, safety through design and I am involved with coaching colleagues with responsibility for temporary works on site. Despite my involvement in the more technical side of contracting – I still get the opportunity to get my boots muddy and to be part of the physical transformation of our landscape as our projects progress.
Louise Nolan | Assistant Civil Engineer | Mott MacDonald
In 2015, I began reading Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, Wadham College.
This is where my passion for sustainability started. I specialised in environmental and civil engineering and my thesis focused on contaminated ground remediation to unlock unused freshwater resources for human use. Alongside my degree, I spent my time playing football and raising the profile for women’s sport; I played football for Oxford’s Blues and captained Wadham Women to their first promotion in 7 years. These years were transformative for women’s football (and my own confidence as a female football-playing-engineer!). Women’s football in the UK turned professional in 2017, and I lead the Oxford-Cambridge varsity match at the 6500 capacity Hive stadium in London as president of the University Football Club in 2017/18.
In 2019 I graduated with a Master of Engineering and joined an engineering consultancy as a Graduate Engineer. My career to date has involved a range of projects, from infrastructure design to decarbonisation studies. I have been responsible for analysis models for complex transport infrastructure projects, (building a technical background), as well as working on-site project managing refurbishment schemes for existing railway assets. I’ve progressed rapidly and I’m on course for chartership in 2024. Alongside this, my drive for embedding sustainability internally (I’m my division’s sustainability lead) has led to a variety of opportunities such as delivering the literature review for technical deep dive on the decarbonisation of bridges, or co-authoring the Decarbonising Transport, Let’s get moving Interchange Report for the London Transport Museum.
Annabelle Coffin | Event Manager | Ashton Gate Stadium
As an outgoing and confident teenager, I was an active member of several social groups from Girlguiding to swimming teams and wanted a career path that would give me regular interaction with diverse groups of people.
Studying International Hospitality Management at Bournemouth University helped to influence my passion and desire to develop within the food and beverage industry.
For my university placement, I achieved a position within the Dorchester Collection’s country house hotel, Coworth Park. My internship gave me the opportunity to learn fine dining etiquette, work within a Michelin Star Restaurant and even serve The Royal Family. Coworth Park was an invaluable learning experience that I remain incredibly grateful for as it opened my eyes to aspects of hospitality that I had yet to discover.
Having been promoted through several roles at Ashton Gate Stadium and my current role as Event Manager has grown and evolved with me as my own knowledge and skills have developed. I’m now in charge of managing the entire process from planning through to evaluation for events including matchdays, concerts, exhibitions, private parties and banquets. I am responsible for leading, coaching and mentoring a diverse team of both permanent and casual staff to improve their skills and increase work quality whilst demonstrating patience and empathy. Maintaining close relationships with venue sales, health & safety, security, kitchens and IT, communicating with all departments to ensure the highest standards and attention to detail is maintained whilst maximising revenue and reducing costs where relevant.
Farkhanda Abbas Rind | Procurement capabilities Manager | IHG Group Plc
I started my hospitality industry career as an operations manager, rapidly moving to the general manager ranks.
As a tenacious manager and decisive leader, I turned unprofitable properties into consistently outperforming units by streamlining operations and eliminating duplicate functions to reduce costs and increase productivity while maintaining team engagement and value-added guest experience. I also enjoyed the project management of 3 brand-new hotels in central London during the Olympics.
Following 14 years of general management experience, my strong interest in expanding proficiency in managing multi-phase/multi-dimensional/multi-resource projects to successful completion whilst maintaining high stakeholder satisfaction lead me to take on a challenging role at IHG corporate head office.
As a Manager, Quality Programmes, Brand Standards and Audits for Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, I was trusted to transform and roll out the guest experience and operational performance improvement programme ( Quality 360) across EMEAA.
After the successful roll-out of the programme in diverse markets with various cultural nuances, I moved on to take the responsibility of Manager, EMEAA Operations Support. I was responsible for developing and rolling out new programs in the EMEAA hotel estate. Supporting EMEAA hotel estate to achieve their operational KPIs each year is part of my remit.
Recently, my perseverance and hard work have earned me the Sr Manager Procurement capabilities position.
Gemma Evans-Hurley | Culinary Lead - Projects | Compass Group UK & Ireland
Gemma Evans-Hurley is a passionate chef with over 20 years of experience supporting Compass in key sectors such as business and industry (Eurest and 14forty).
Her responsibilities include food concept creation, supplier and partnership management and staff mentoring.
Gemma always dreamed of being a chef and graduated from the prestigious Westminster Kingsway College with a professional diploma.
Joining Compass in 2010 as a sous chef, Gemma has enjoyed a meteoric rise through the company. A born leader, she was promoted to head chef for Eurest aged just 21, then national executive chef a year later.
Her leadership skills in the kitchen, combined with her ability to motivate and inspire colleagues, helped earn Gemma promotion to Culinary Lead of Projects in 2021, her most senior role yet.
However, it is Gemma’s D&I work in a heavily male-dominated industry that really stands her out as a leader in her field. Since 2018, she has chaired Compass’ longstanding Women in Food initiative, which forms a key part of the group’s overarching D&I strategy.
Its aim is to tackle the shortage of female chefs by encouraging more women into the industry and support the development of existing female chefs. Through her drive, passion and inspirational leadership, Gemma has built this into a community of nearly 300 Compass employees, up from just six in 2021.
Jo-Anna Reid | Global Internal Communications Manager | IHG
Jo-Anna Reid is a versatile and dedicated communications professional with extensive experience in team engagement.
Currently working as the Global Internal Communication & Engagement Manager for IHG Hotels and Resorts, Jo-Anna is responsible for driving a variety of corporate and hotel engagement programs. Her role includes communicating IHG's strategy, priorities, and financial results to over 9000 colleagues worldwide.
Prior to joining IHG, Jo-Anna was the Communications, Events and Engagement Manager for Premier Inn at Whitbread, where she was responsible for generating communication strategies and overseeing their implementation for Premier Inn's operational teams. Jo-Anna introduced and supported the senior leadership team to use MS 0365 functionality for crucial company messages and lead new ways of communicating and engaging with over 17,000 team members using Microsoft O365. She planned and managed national events, conferences and meetings, sometimes over multiple days and locations. Jo-Anna also managed a team to drive the company communications manifesto and support the Premier Inn operational team.
Earlier in her career, Jo-Anna worked as a Customer Experience Manager for Premier Inn, creating new and engaging ways to hook in team members to the purpose in their roles and developed new content to connect every team member to personally identify with the guest. Jo-Anna ran focus groups with teams to plan new promotions and talk lines, and worked effectively with all business areas to deliver a successful customer insight programme.