Ann Hodson | PwC
I think I was always destined for a career as a personal assistant.
When I took my options at school (way back in 1989), the “art” subject I chose was keyboarding applications and, as one of the top five in my class, I was one of the first to be allowed to use the electronic typewriters (the ones with the little window that printed a line of text that you typed in) and yes, I did learn to type on a manual typewriter! I stayed on at school to do my A Levels but decided it was not for me and left after a few months. I got a job as an office junior at a construction company and went to night school to study typing and shorthand. I loved both and knew this was the career path for me.
After a couple of years I moved into professional services and that is where I have spent most of my career - mainly solicitors, corporate real estate and accountancy firms. I gradually worked my way up from an office junior to secretary and then to senior secretary/PA.
I met my husband in 2003 but I lived in Birmingham and he lived in Lancashire. After months of weekend travels on the M6, we decided to move in together so I moved “up North”. I worked locally as a secretary for a year before I secured a job as Office Manager at JLL in Manchester where I had worked previously in Birmingham.
After the birth of my first son in 2009 I wanted to work closer to home and was lucky to secure a job at a local housing association which included a role in governance looking after the Board. It was whilst I was advertising a PA role for my team that I noticed an offsite PA role advertised at PwC which looked perfect for me as I was then a mum of two children under 8. I previously worked for PwC in Birmingham and only left to move to Lancashire so it felt like it was meant to be. I was lucky to succeed in the interview and I re-joined PwC in 2016.
I have been very fortunate in my career to work at some amazing companies, with some brilliantly talented people and been exposed to a wide variety of opportunities to challenge myself, learn new skills and share my experience and knowledge with others.
Hilary Lambert | J.P. Morgan
Hilary Lambert, Senior Administrative Coordinator & Assistant Strategy Lead, develops and drives strategy for the JP Morgan Asset Management UK Administrative population.
An employee since 2017, Hilary was previously based in Dubai where she set up a new office for Macquarie specialising in Sovereign Wealth Funds. Prior to this, Hilary was Executive Assistant to the UK CEO of Deutsche Bank in London. Before this, Hilary was based in Bermuda where she worked with Group Management for the offshore law firm, Appleby. Hilary was educated at Solent University where she studied Law and Business and has over 20 years of experience of supporting Senior Executives, while leading and managing teams ensuring first class support is a priority.
Hilary has been recognized with a number of Honors and Awards during her career including Executive Assistant of the Year awarded by Executive PA magazine in 2006 and Employee of the Year awarded by Appleby in 2010.
Hilary sits on the JP Morgan UK Employee Forum and is Secretary to the JP Morgan Asset Management UK Philanthropy & Volunteering Committee.
Lea Armstrong | Barclays
Lea’s passion for equality, inclusion and accessibility are at the core of everything she does.
Lea began her career at Barclays six years ago and has worked in various roles within the Risk function. She is currently a vice president in the Capital Projects team, leading strategic programmes to deliver enhanced system infrastructure to the Corporate and Investment Bank.
Lea joined Reach (the Barclays’ network for disability, mental health and neurodiversity) in 2017 as Events Lead, organising events promoting disability and mental health confidence. Whilst in this role, Lea introduced new ways to ensure events were fully accessible to colleagues and, never afraid to challenge the status quo, she soon became a powerful voice on accessibility and inclusive best practices.
In 2020 Lea became Deputy Co-Chair of Reach and took the lead on a number of key initiatives, including the relaunch of ‘This Is Me’, a storytelling campaign which encourages colleagues to bring their whole selves to work. When a Co-Chair role became available in January 2021, Lea took another step up and is now leading the 2,000-colleague network with drive and passion.
Caroline McIntyre | NatWest
By aged 18 Caroline had already broken free of the societal pressures impressed upon her by a highly academic high school, turning down six university placements in order to pursue an entry level career in finance.
After 4 years climbing the ladder of a small finance department Caroline bucked the trend. Proving her critics wrong, she secured a position at JP Morgan despite the absence of a university education.
Now a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants with 16 years’ experience spanning banking and technology Caroline leverages her diverse career history to challenge the status quo. Positively disrupting the norm at NatWest to encourage an open mindset to inclusion and diversity. As a strong and active advocate and sponsor within her organisation, she is making a significant impact. Acting as a role model among the female population, championing potential, and driving gender and racial equality.
Caroline is dyslexic. Only recently choosing to speak openly for the first time about her own brain disorder, the challenges it brings and the judgement and labels she has had to deal with during her career. She now strives to encourage others to join her voice and make disability a more openly spoken about aspect of diversity and a cultural norm.
Tribeni Chougule | Visa
Qualified as an Electronics and Power Engineer, Tribeni has over 20 years’ experience in technology across diverse sectors and geographies, starting her journey as an ABAP programmer (SAP’s proprietary programming language).
She is currently Head of Change Management in Visa Finance (Europe). Prior to this, she led the Technology innovation team in the London Innovation Centre. In her 8 years in Visa, Tribeni has delivered Agile transformations and managed multiple complex programmes and projects during and post-Visa Europe acquisition. She is a Warwick Business School Executive MBA student and also a Staff and Students Liason Committee representative for her cohort. Her dissertation explores Responsible Innovation using fair and unbiased AI within financial services. Prior to Visa, Tribeni has worked with the top tier of Indian IT companies of Tata Technologies, Wipro and Infosys, through which she worked across various industries and geographies in the SAP domain. Passionate about the inclusion of diversity and social impact, Tribeni is the co-chair of Visa's Women in Technology Europe network, and a techUK Skills and Diversity Council member. She is a Cherie Blair foundation Women in Business mentor alumnus, Women in Payments and Migrant Leader mentor, and an AI APPG task force member. She also mentors recipients of the STEM bursary which she has set up from her personal fund for girls from a disadvantaged background – one with Kendrick School, Reading and the other with the WBS foundation course.
Amanda Newman | Accenture
A senior professional in IT, I’ve had a career involving 20 years at Shell, 18 months at Microsoft and I’m currently at Accenture.
I have worked in project, programme and portfolio management delivering large scale multi million $ IT programmes across Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, Retail and Public Sector as well as service delivery. I’m well respected and considered to be an asset in teams, focusing on collaboration and delivering as a team, ensuring a happy and fun work environment. At times I’ve led teams up to 250.
I studied maths and computing at Uni which made me fall in to a career in tech. It also highlighted to me from a young age the lack of women in STEM.
Kate-Lily de Graft-Johnson | British Land
Kate-Lily joined British Land three years ago having worked in various industries including Higher Education, Television and Tech.
At British Land, Kate-Lily has demonstrated high skills, professionalism, dedication and been a mentor, motivator, and supporter of employees at Broadgate with a focus on Employee Wellbeing and Diversity.
Born to Ghanaian immigrant parents, Kate-Lily was bought up in an inner-city area, part of the EC1 New Deal programme of the 2000s. The EC1 New Deal was a Government programme to raise and improve the community’s deprived profile. Kate-Lily attended St Marylebone Secondary school for Girls and studied law at Brunel University. After graduating from university, Kate-Lily’s first job was Widening Participation and Community Engagement Admin Assistant for City University London before progressing to a Widening Participation Projects Officer. Here Kate-Lily’s work, focused on creating, coordinating, and delivering outreach projects with the purpose of helping young people (aged 5 – 19) fulfil their potential through “AimHigher “- a government initiative to encourage young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to consider Higher Education.
After four years at City University London, Kate-Lily spent two years working in the Television Industry; a short time backpacking across South East Asia followed by four years in Tech; before arriving at British Land, where she has flourished within the Broadgate team.
Kate-Lily’s current role has enabled her to evaluate her values and work ethics. She is passionate about the wellbeing of colleagues as well as demonstrating awareness of diversity across the workplace and in projects. She is a member of several Wellbeing and Diversity Committees at work and a champion and supporter for Wellbeing and Diversity activities at Broadgate and British Land.
As Central Services Manager, she has helped with the refurbishment of the Estate Management office, supported the roll out of Broadgate’s new branded uniform to over 500 employees and contributed to the creation of Broadgate’s Wellbeing and Diversity strategies, creating guides to support the framework of both.
Kate-Lily’s strength lies with people interaction and building effective working relationships. She is a good organiser and has demonstrated such skill in many events at Broadgate.
She can deliver on all three Broadgate values of: Connecting, Surprising and Empowering. Examples include surprising the team with wellbeing boxes full of personalised items; connecting colleagues with opportunities or lending a listening ear and empowering others to shine and coaching them to success.
In terms of her own management, Kate-Lily has excellent working relationship with peers and senior management. Although Kate-Lily draws inspiration from her current Director who instils confidence in her daily work, she has been affected by instances where she has experienced low self-esteem that affected her mental health and performance due to poor management and lack of appropriate support.
However, such situations have strengthened her character, making her resolve to support and help others at all times and drive change in the conversations around Mental Health, Wellbeing, and Diversity.
Louise Goux-Wirth | UWE Bristol
I am Louise, a proud self-proclaimed equality geek, human right activist, public speaker and aspiring CEO.
My passion for equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) began when I when I was a student at UWE Bristol in 2007 where I joined the LGBT+ Society. What started as nights out in gay clubs at the beginning of the semester ended up with becoming the Vice President of the LGBT+ Society. This opened me up to a world of activism, campaigning and politics which admittedly I completely fell head over heels with. My passion for EDI, creating change and championing marginalised voices grew from there and led me to amazing opportunities of representing my University at various conferences and events. After 2 failed elections to be a full time representative within the Student's Union - I got elected as Vice President Community and Welfare at the 3rd attempt. This was the first time that I realised that I could get paid to do what I love.
Since then, I have had the privilege to be in different roles and organisations where I have advocated for diverse voices and experiences to be celebrated, heard and visible. Now, out of some twist of fate, I have returned to UWE Bristol to be their Staff and Student Engagement Officer where I lead on University level engagement programmes such as Black History Month, our sponsorship relations with Bristol Pride and St Paul's Carnival, Staff Networks and our organisational wide health and wellbeing campaign. When I ran in the elections as a student my strapline was "Making Things Happen" and I am proud that I have lived by my motto throughout my career.
In the last year, I have spoken on a variety on national and international panels, led on research projects, curated digital content on equality issues – and have what it feels like grown in my career journey on an accelerated trajectory.
As a proud Black lesbian with anxiety and depression - I know first-hand the importance of organisations taking diversity and inclusion seriously. For me, equality isn't just my job but an intrinsic part of who I am.
Siwan Smith | KTN
As Knowledge Transfer Manager for Diversity & Inclusion at KTN, Siwan works to ensure diverse innovators have access to the support and funding opportunities they need throughout the UK’s innovation eco-system.
Leading on KTN's activities for Innovate UK's Women in Innovation and Young Innovators programmes, Siwan has supported thousands of innovators through workshops, webinars and 1:1 support. She is also a key member of the Diversity & Inclusion Taftie Task Force, which is working with Innovation Agencies across Europe and beyond to develop Inclusive Innovation practices.
A graduate from the University of Chester, Siwan has worked across several technology sector areas and has extensive expertise in marketing, PR and events management.
Siwan is a trained facilitator, a mentor as part of LMF Network’s global mentoring programme, and a dedicated champion for diverse entrepreneurs, ensuring they have the opportunity to shine. She counts show management for the Liverpool Comedy Festival and volunteering for Manchester Pride amongst her favourite memories, and hopes to take up more volunteering positions within 2021.
Born and raised in Liverpool, when Siwan isn't spending time with her two Goddaughters and Sprocker Spaniel Loki, she is a keen traveller, with Singapore, New York and Dubrovnik amongst her favourite destinations to date, although she is still very much looking forwards to visiting Hobbiton in New Zealand and having a pint at the Green Dragon when time allows.
Rimshah Razzaq | BBC
When I was growing up in Pakistan, I never thought that one day I'd be working in the Tech sector. Moving to England was a massive change as a 12-year-old; I had to learn a new language and culture while battling an identity crisis.
At 16, I wanted to join the army - crazy I know! But my media teacher knew I was made for the Tech and the Broadcasting world, and encouraged me to apply for a media apprenticeship. That’s how I ended up working for the BBC and haven’t left yet. I honestly believe we are making a difference - I passed my GCSEs because of Bitesize.
I have been been very fortunate and have had various job roles across the organisation. At 16 no one really knows what there doing. I started my career journey in production as a runner setting up a production offices on location, getting to mess around with cables and tech was a dream. I tried Talent and Resourcing for BBC Children's for a while and then moved on become an IT Manager for BBC Religion, Comedy & Children's. This is was my calling, I loved fixing issues and helping teams make the most of their IT equipment.
It's so important to keep learning and then I went on to do an operations role, where I was responsible for the operational delivery and the point of contact for all publishable content through to iPlayer, Red-button and Technical Operations. This allowed me insight to the digital world and then I went on to become a Project Manager in Software Delivery in BBC Design and Engineering. It was only at this point I knew the career path I wanted and it was in project management.
As a Project Manager I get to work with people across the organisation, solve problems, help build strong teams and deliver change that helps the public in England and Worldwide. Soon I will be working for BBC Sounds, A streaming media and audio download service from the BBC that includes live radio broadcasts, audio on demand, and podcasts. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones and tablets, personal computers, cars, and smart televisions.