Jennifer Smith | Teens and Toddlers
I am an experienced Executive Assistant and Office Coordinator, having worked in local government and the third sector for over 10 years. I currently work at Teens and Toddlers; previously, I worked at the NSPCC and was involved in the creation of their strategy for 2016-2021. I have a degree in Psychology and diploma in business administration for personal assistants.
I am also a member of the Executive & Personal Assistants Association (EPAA), a national body whose mission is to champion, promote and develop the Assistant profession.
Barclays
Barclays is a transatlantic consumer, corporate and investment bank, anchored in our two homes markets of the UK and US, with global reach.
We aim to foster a culture where individuals of all backgrounds feel confident in bringing their whole selves to work, feel included and their talents are nurtured, empowering them to contribute fully to Barclays vision and goals.
Our common purpose is to help people achieve their ambitions – in the right way. This sits at the core of our business and underpins everything that we do. We believe that only a business driven by strong values can deliver strong, sustainable returns.
Hanfia Khan | Carlton Bolling College
As captain of the girl's cricket team, Hanfia Khan must personally stand for all the attributes the team pride themselves on. Loyalty, perseverance, dedication and steel hard determination is what makes her the unique individual that she is. She has a blinding ability to take control and simply captain the situation and take responsibility for the outcomes which happen.
Developed from a girl who struggled to voice her concerns and walked around with her signature slouch and body language practically screaming 'stay away from me', she is now the captain of the first all-Asian girl's team to ever achieve anything like this.
She now stands proud, knowing she is playing a sport which has helped her overcome obstacles and made her the educated individual she is today.
She has had the pleasure on speaking on national TV, doing several radio interviews, filmed for national TV headlines and recived plenty of attention for the many awards the team has managed to pick up.
Looking back, she had come a long way from the challenged little girl that first began her journey three years ago as she has learnt, taught and played within the isolation of society. She now stands a proud performed woman, captain of the team who can genuinely say that cricket has saved her life.
Sonal Shah | Barclays
Many years experience in Programme, Project Management Office and Tech, working in large IT and business change programmes and projects.
Successfully changed careers to Tech by taking a year out to study for MSc in Computing & IT and have since worked in a range of IT, Change, Regulatory and digital security projects to the present role as Vice President Delivery PMO at Barclays International.
Outside the Investment Bank day job my commitment, enthusiasm and passion are well received through all voluntary activities whether through my company or externally, where I organize and participate to inspire and share my passion to encourage diversity.
This ranges from Tech or women in senior management to inspire others from deprived backgrounds, from school age through to professional women.
I like to encourage and influence within the fast paced, growing Tech industry and also women in senior management through my active charity work to inspire and be inspired from others by regularly giving back to the community.
An active committee member of Barclays Gender network co-chairing Enable & Engage committee, Lead on the Wellbeing workstream and organize many tech and non tech community based voluntary activities outside the day job. I’m delighted that my company encourages diversity and this is one of the qualities I really appreciate which further give the opportunity to create real impact on the issues that matter such as encouraging more into STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) and improve the pipeline.
Use of previous experience as a keen voluntary worker ranges from teaching OAPs in my spare time in the local community centre to learn / coach on PC and iPads to become more 'IT savvy' to sharing tips through my passion and knowledge influencing – for example, encouraging more women into IT through my blogs (that have over 12,000 hits and have been published on corporate sites) and help and mentor young people to assist in careers an Tech such as CV help, mentoring to encourage interest for females to join the Tech sector. Also share skills and experience in a professional women’s forum where I actively participate such as speaking at a conference and participate and organise many voluntary forums.
Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu | Women in Leadership Publication
Dr Shola is a dual qualified New York Attorney and Solicitor of England & Wales with over a decade of financial services experience working in-house as a trusted senior legal advisor to heads of business and stakeholder partners. Her experience includes providing strategic legal risk management to SMEs and large organisations. She is experienced at facilitating effective decision making to deliver key mandates; brokering strong alliances and cultivating productive relationships to influence and shape outcomes; and demonstrating leadership and mentoring qualities that drive forward developments within respective areas of responsibility www.legaldistinction.com .
She is the Co-Chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) Africa Committee responsible for managing the 400+ member Africa committee in the ABA Section of International Law, which includes managing the basic operations of the Committee, initiating projects of interest including programs (Seasonal Meetings, Forums, and committee non-CLE programs), policies, publications (including Committee newsletters) and communications (including Committee webpages). Liaising and interacting with high-level attorneys within the ABA and forging new relationships externally to contribute to African legal affairs.
She is the Executive Board Director of the Centre for African Business Education (CABE), a UK based institution focused on the development and exchange of practical knowledge on doing business in Africa but also on Africa doing business globally. She also sits on the steering committees of a number of organisations including (i) the International Law Section of the ABA; (ii) Women’s Equality Party; and (iii) Women’s March Global, to help shape and drive positive outcomes on key mandates.
Dr Shola is an activist for women rights and one of the organisers of Women's March London. She was at the forefront of the 2017 and 2018 Women's March and Time's Up rally in London. She has written a number of articles addressing the challenges faced by women and tackling the difficult issues; and featured in British Vogue, Huffington Post, Telegraph, RED, Stylist, Evening Standard, The Voice among others.
Sophie Ball | Apps for Good
Sophie joined Apps for Good in 2013 as part of the Business Development team after completing a four year BA degree at University College London in History and French (with a year spent studying at the Sorbonne in Paris). Whilst at University Sophie had the opportunity to work for a small start-up Benivo (previously FlatClub) and became increasingly excited about how technology can be created and leveraged to improve people's everyday lives and communities. On finishing University, the opportunity at Apps for Good then perfectly combined Sophie's already existing passion about education and growing interest in technology. Now after 4.5 years at Apps for Good, Sophie has built and nurtured a number of long-term social impact partnerships with industry partners and large foundations and trusts, enabling Apps for Good's reach to grow from 6,000 to over 28,000 students per year across the UK. Sophie particularly enjoys developing new products and forging new partnerships with the aim to improve the diversity of Apps for Good's beneficiaries and in particular gender equality in the wider tech sector. Sophie now looks forward to continuing to deepen Apps for Good's impact on young people, develop more valuable partnerships for social good and be a positive agent for change, supporting a more diverse talent pipeline into tech and business.
Joana Baptista | Oxford High School GDST
Joana is an award-winning 16-year-old entrepreneur from Oxford, currently studying for her A-levels at Oxford High School (Computer Science, Economics, Maths, Spanish). As well as excelling in her educational studies, she is the founder of three successful startups, a podcast show and an Economics magazine.
She has set up a popular code-club for 7-17-year-olds, as well as teaching computer science and internet safety workshops to disadvantaged pupils. She also teaches science lessons and has delivered talks at a variety of schools and University on Business, STEM and Misogyny, both to students and teachers. Further to talks, she has sat on, and chaired, panels for the University of Cambridge, Girl Guides, STEMettes and most recently, Facebook.
Her three passions lie in STEM, Entrepreneurship and feminism, which she advocates for through every activity she is involved in.
Her proudest achievement was being named the Young Star at the Women of the Future Awards 2017, having been a finalist the year before in the Rising Star category of the FDM Women in Technology Awards.
Anita Verma | Marks & Spencer
I am Anita, 26, from Lisariya village of Sikar Rajasthan.
I pursued my primary education there in Sikar only and at a very young age at 15 my family got me married to a person who was 20 years, at that time in 2007.
After three years bearing with him, I decided earn my bread and butter, as he was not totally supporting the family. I moved to Jaipur in 2012 with my newly-born baby.
I could not get any support from either from my family nor from my husband's. I took it as challenge against me, where all the situations were against me. Considering my socio-economic background, I searched for a job to pursue my education and to earn my bread and butter.
Fortunately was able to get a job in jewelry shop as greeter, where I worked very hard and soon within two months I got promoted as sales staff. Along with it, I completed my post graduation from University of Rajasthan.
In the meantime I was offered an opportunity to work with Marks and Spencer Reliance India Pvt Ltd. as service associate where my work was recognized well. In every alternate month I was Employee of The Month for the store, I lived with all the core values of Marks and Spencer - Inspire, Integrity, innovation and in-touch.
Here I was recognized as value champion for the store and recently I was awarded with Employee of the Quarter award at regional level.
I am educated which helps in making wise decisions the same I am inheriting in my daughter too by giving her good care and education. It is a bit tough but I am managing best at my level. Even after office hours, I have to cook feed and take care of my daughter. Its become little heavy to travel between 25 KM to pursue my job, but I have a very good balance in my personal and professional life.
Micky Lagvankar | Barclays
I am a proud Army daughter and wife and an alumnus of prestigious (B'Tech) Motilal Nehru National institute of Technology.
I started my career with Goldman Sachs Bangalore, as an intern. Here, I learnt the most important work ethic of being true to your work and giving your best from the very start.
I got appreciated for my work during the internship and was offered pre-placement offer which I gladly accepted because there was so much more I wanted to learn from the great organisation. I worked with Goldman Sachs for 4 years in their Asset management Team and the Private wealth management Team.
Joining them as a NAPA exposed us to lot of networking and training opportunities in India and New York from the finest of trainers in the Capital Market industry. Being new was never a deterrent in giving me the opportunity to work on critical projects; this exposure gave me the confidence that I can do it.
I got the opportunity to work as a developer on an Order management tool with the latest tools and coding platform in an agile and test driven methodology way back in 2007. It was in Goldman Sachs that my interest in Business domain increased, to pursue my career further in Risk and Analytics.
I moved to Pune and joined Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia as development lead to deliver their Basel II commitment for Credit Risk. During this period at CLSA I traveled every weekend to Mumbai to pursue Certificate in Financial Engineering and Risk Management from National Institute of Securities Market [an education initiative by SEBI.
I came across the opportunity to work on the latest implementation of Basel III in Barclays Credit Risk division. This helped me to learn a lot about the things I was taught in my course and gain appreciation and recognition. My hard work was rewarded with the opportunity to lead the Credit Risk and Market Risk Project testing team globally.
While working with this wonderful team all across the Globe for the last 3 years I have learnt a lot about how as a team we can achieve so much personally and for the firm.
During my 10 year career I have been blessed to have 2 beautiful kids and get back to work, seeing me working my kids also have become appreciative of my efforts and are very independent.
Rarely one is so lucky to have come across so many wonderful opportunities, so I tried to make most of them but at the same time I have continued to apply my first lesson of doing my best every time every day.
Nisha Shetty | Barclays
I am currently working as a Business Manager (APAC) in Barclays, Compliance team. In my current role, I manage the headcount budget and financials for the entire Asia Pacific Compliance team. As an extension to my role, effective January 2017, I have been given the additional responsibility of handling a global role, which, inter alia, includes managing headcount for the Barclays International Compliance team, based out in Americas, APAC, London and Europe. I joined Barclays in 2014 as an Analyst in the Compliance Risk Assessment (CRA) Team which facilitates risk assessment, which is a framework for assessing the firm-wide risks and controls in place to establish if any gaps exist. In a year’s time I was seconded to the Chief of Staff team, wherein I adapted quickly and was absorbed into the role full time and also got promoted as an AVP.
I am a Chartered Accountant with more than 5 years of experience in the field of Audit and Compliance. Prior to Barclays I have worked with KPMG and Tata Consultancy Services in their Audit department. In my free time I like to read and travel. I truly live by the saying “Live and Let Live”.