Aspire - Leadership for the future

'Leadership for the Future'

Dr Samantha Collins,
Women's leadership expert, executive coach, international speaker
and author

Dr Samantha Collins is the founder and CEO of ASPIRE, an internationally-recognized and award-winning leader in leadership training, coaching and events for women. Dr Collins will share her vision for the future of leadership and particularly how this impacts women's lives, their work and the world at large.

Samantha has been a coach for 10 years and was named One of the Top Ten Coaches in the UK by the Independent on Sunday and the Association for Coaching. She was also named one of the Top 200 Women in the UK to Impact Business & Industry by HM The Queen of England. She has contributed to The Financial Times, CNN, The Times and the BBC Global Business Report. Her PhD thesis examined the future world of work for women and she is the author of a soon-to-be published book, Go MAD – Women Leaders Making a Difference. She is also the winner of an Ogunte Women's Social Leadership Award in the category of Leader in the Workplace 2010 and was recently shortlisted for the Women in Marketing Award 2010.

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'The Practical Reality'

Baroness Verma,
Government Spokesperson on Equalities and Women's Issues

Born in the Punjab in 1959, Baroness Sandip Verma was raised and educated in Britain. Describing herself as having been a rebel all her life, she was made a Conservative Life peer in 2006, having been drawn into politics at an early age by former Tory MP Grenville Janner who she says made her feel important.

After some twenty years in community politics she decided to turn her attention to national politics and while never becoming a constituency MP has continued to be an active campaigner and spokesperson on equality and women's issues.

Baroness Verma believes that the two biggest assets to any woman are self-belief and effective networking, "There is no doubt that you have to be tough and you have to believe strongly in yourself if you are to make it".

As she said recently, "If you keep strong and focussed, you can really make life better, whatever the colour of your face".

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'Changing the face of Corporations'

Charlotte Sweeney,
Head of Diversity & Inclusion Nomura Investment Bank

Charlotte has worked in Financial Services for the last 20+ years and has led large scale Diversity and Inclusion for the last 12 years. She is Co-President of the European Professional Women's Network in London, she advises Government on their Equality Policies and sits on a number of boards. She will share her stories, research and global experience of many years of challenging the status quo in corporates to increase the representation of women at the senior levels and the push to move companies from 'trying to fix women' and focus on changing the culture of firms to remove barriers and bias to progression. She will share outputs from research and government consultations that highlight the key issues for women in business and how to overcome them. She will also focus on the challenges facing the recent push to get more women on boards and how business should focus on getting more women into the executive pipeline, thus, making the 'women on boards' challenge far more realistic. Charlotte is an avid change maker and recently spoke at the CIPD's annual conference, the World Diversity Leadership Summit at Harvard, HR Directors Summits and Oxford University.

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'Making Brave and Bold Decisions!'

Rachel Flower,
Solicitor

As a "normal" working mum, Rachel will share how to make brave and bold decisions. She will talk about the keys to doing this, 1) "Knowing yourself" , what makes you tick, things you love, things you hate, who and what makes you happy, 2) "Being brave and bold" everyday and putting yourself out there (with amazing results) and how a positive can do attitude can have a significant effect on your wellbeing as well as on your decisions and the scale of your achievements and 3) the "Imposter Syndrome" (lack of confidence in your own abilities) and understanding the fears and the limiting beliefs holding you back - resilience, overcoming obstacles (real or perceived) and how to live in the present and make the most of every day.

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'Inclusive Leadership: Moving Beyond Commitment'

Dr Gillian Shapiro,
Shapiro Consulting

Helen Wells,
Director at Opportunity Now

Gillian and Helen will share how inclusive leadership is a critical part of the mainstream leadership frameworks that help an organisation to meet its 2020 challenges and advance and develop it's talent pipeline and workforce. Gillian is a director of a not-for-profit, an entrepreneur, businesswoman and devoted and busy mum and wife. She is passionate about creating organisations that truly value diversity - in their workforce and how they provide products and services to their customers. Her career has included being a senior academic researcher focusing on employee engagement and workforce diversity issues. She led several pan-European diversity research projects and the results of her research have been published in journals and as a book.

Helen is Director of Opportunity Now, the organization that empowers employers to accelerate change for women in the workplace because it makes good business sense. She has worked for the gender equality campaign for nine years and has extensive expertise in gender issues in the workplace. In her time at Opportunity Now she has been responsible for advising and challenging employers and sharing employment best practice on how to recruit, retain and promote women in the workplace. She has headed up initiatives to address equal pay, increase the number of women on boards and the future of leadership.

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'Think Big, Act Like a Visionary'

Barbara Sharples,
former Managing Director, The Body Shop and Dorling Kindersley Publishing

Barbara Sharples is a mother and grandmother and a retired corporate business woman now running her own consultancy practice. She has had an amazing career working with blue chip companies and feels privileged to count Peter Kindersley and Dame Anita Roddick not only as past colleagues, but as friends. Her career highlights were as Managing Director of Dorling Kindersley Family Learning International (publishers) and Managing Director of The Body Shop Multi Channel operations and The Body Shop at Home International. Dame Anita Roddick, Activist and Founder of The Body Shop, said of Barbara at this time: - "She defines the reality then defies it. She has a passion that persuades everyone she touches. I am her devotee".

Barbara is passionate about people, opportunities for women and the planet and she has transformed thousands of women's lives across the globe. Hear from this most inspirational woman on how to think big, overcome obstacles, and take visionary action to make a difference to yourself, your family, your team and the world at large!

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'Your next great opportunity...'

Alexa Tilley,
Client Relationship Manager, Towers Watson Insurance Consultancy

Alexa is perhaps best known from her appearance on the second series of The Apprentice with Sir Alan Sugar. Though 'fired' in front of millions on television, she firmly feels the experience of going head to head with Sir Alan helped her move onto the subsequent opportunities that came her way. Throughout her career, one new experience usually leads onto the next and she believes that you never know what is going to be around that next corner.  Her philosophy has always been to put herself into new situations and seize opportunities as they present themselves, as they are all chances to learn new skills; have new interesting experiences and most importantly help along the way to doing the next exciting thing.

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'Be Fearless – How to break through to the next level in life and work'

Staness Jonekos,
Launch Executive Producer, Oxygen Media

Staness was one of the original executive producers who, along with co-founder Oprah Winfrey, launched Oxygen Media. She is an advocate for women's health, wellness and empowerment and has devoted most of her career to women's issues. She co-created the Be Fearless campaign at Oxygen Media and executive produced 'Who Does She think She Is?!' profiling powerful women; 'Just Cause' featuring celebrities and their causes; 'Oxygen Women's Forum' with Vice President Al Gore and 'Worth the Risk' partnered with WITNESS, a Peter Gabriel organization committed to global human rights.

Staness will explore how to break through to the next level in your career and life, how she did it, what she wouldn't do again and how to make sure you live a healthy foundation to life.

Recently, Staness launched her first book The Menopause Makeover and has appeared on The Today Show,  A published author, television executive and on camera personality, at 53 Staness says, "I've Still Got It!"

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'Leading Positive Change'

Avril Martingdale,
Partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Avril has been a partner at the international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer since 1997. She was global co-head of the IP/IT practice group from 2000-2006, and head of the London IP/IT practice group from 1999-2007.

She advises clients on a wide range of matters and has worked across a number of industry sectors including consumer products and retail, automotive, financial services, chemicals, TMT, healthcare, energy, sports and leisure.

Avril recently took the reins in leading gender diversity initiatives in the London office and is passionate about positive changes that impact both client service and quality of life for employees.

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'Your Success Strategies'

Barbara Dennis, OBE
Leadership Consultant, P3 Consultancy

Barbara is the winner of numerous prestigious awards and recipient of an OBE for services to economic and housing regeneration. Her versatility in working with a wide range of business leaders from many different backgrounds and walks in life, coupled with her interest in people make her determined to give her audiences world-class, proven business strategies, leaving participants excited, enthusiastic, action-focused and ready to embrace important changes every time. With her emphasis is on examining your personal set of strategies, she focuses on developing the ability to access and use personal power to overcome internal and external barriers to success.

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'Woman on a mission - tackling the ugly stepsister of developing nations'

Melanie Stubbing,
Global Health Advocate and President, Weight Watchers International

Melanie's vision is to make a significant difference to women and children around the world by eradicating obesity. Melanie will discuss role models, values and her top strategies for success She will talk about how to achieve your vision by making life style choices that work, looking after yourself, saying no and knowing your real priorities.

Melanie Stubbing is and a global health advocate and President of Weight Watchers International, Inc., the world's leading provider of weight management services. In the more than 45 years since its founding, the Company has built its meetings business by helping millions of women around the world lose weight through sensible and sustainable food plans, exercise, behavior modification and group support. Each week, approximately 1.3 million members attend almost 50,000 Weight Watchers meetings around the world, which are run by more than 15,000 leaders—each of whom has lost weight on the Weight Watchers program. Prior to joining WeightWatchers, Melanie was Managing Director, Hedstrom, U.K and held various marketing positions at Mattel UK Ltd., including Group Marketing Director. Melanie is a business graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University.

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'The Power of Believing in the Right Thing and Your Extraordinary Potential'

Caroline Casey,
Award winning Social Entrepreneur, Business Woman and International Speaker

Caroline Casey is a social entrepreneur; co-founder of London based charity, Elephant Family, Founder of Kanchi and the O2 Ability Awards and is also an international speaker and adventurer.  Caroline aims to change the way people think about disability through a deeper level of engagement with society, business, media and politics to affect change through positive solution based thinking.
 
A former management consultant with Accenture, Caroline was the first Irish person to be appointed a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum in 2006. In the same year, Caroline was awarded an honorary doctorate from NUI Ireland, became the first Ashoka fellow from Ireland and the UK and received the Eisenhower Fellowship in 2007. Caroline has also spoken at TED in Washington, the Global Competitiveness Forum in Riyadh and is a return speaker at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.
 
Through the highs and lows of her life story, Caroline inspires you to believe in what you are really capable of, if only you would truly believe it!

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'Unlock Your Creativity'

David Adams,
Group Chairman of Vistage International

David is a business coach working mostly with chief executives and senior managers as individuals and in teams; he has more than 30 years' experience in financial services. A chartered accountant, he has been a stockbroker and corporate financier. Previously chief executive of Henry Cooke Group plc., a leading provincial house, he was subsequently head of private clients at national investment managers, Capel-Cure Myers, based at their head office in London.

David helps business people and others to open up their creativity or drive their thinking from left to right brain in order to use the whole brain and so drive innovation. By performing several examples of powerful poems he reveals how we can write, even if we've not done so since schooldays. David was inspired to start examining the effect of poetry after receiving a poem his daughter wrote him for his birthday which he said "knocked me out" and he is particularly passionate about the creative affect that women have on business and the world.

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'Forget the glass ceiling, just look in the mirror'

Emma Leech,
Director of Communications and Marketing, University of Nottingham

Emma is an award winning Chartered Marketer and Chartered PR Practitioner who is passionate about what she does and about development and the personal freedom that comes from unlocking ones potential. Regarded as one of the UK leaders in her field, she believes the best advice is to forget about boundaries, create your own future, raise your profile, navigate politics and influence others.

Emma will share her top tips, ideas and best strategies for advancing your career and accelerating your success.

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'Reinventing Yourself at any Age'

Hazel Cushion,
Founder and Managing Director, Accent Press Ltd.

Describing herself as funny, bubbly, honest, slightly irreverent, but engaging and inspirational, Hazel was living alone with her five-year old triplets, when she set-up her own company in 2003 after completing an MA in Creative Writing. The award winning company is now the UK's largest erotic publisher and has won the ETO Best Erotic Book Brand in 2010 and 2011. Her talk, like her life will demonstrate that women can change their futures; get a degree; be mothers and develop successful businesses.

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'The Power of the Network'

Jo Taylor,
Head of Learning, Internal Diversity Strategy and 4talent, Channel 4 Television

Jo, an experienced television professional believes that 'The Power of the Network' is a phrase which has never been more important, indeed it is now more important than what you know and this has never been more prevalent in the key challenges that businesses are facing in recruiting, developing and nurturing their employees. Passionate about breaking down barriers to entry, nurturing and developing talent and ensuring that businesses maximise their strategies both culturally and economically, Jo will address why this is important, whether there is a danger that it can limit diversity, and how, as leaders, do we encourage and embrace this in our businesses.

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'The Power of Resilience and Resourcefulness'

Julia Langkraehr,
CEO and Founder, Retail Profile Europe Ltd.

Julia Langkraehr, winner of 'Small Business of the Year' from London's Evening Standard newspaper and entrepreneurial founder of Retail Profile Europe Ltd combines 14 years of senior positions in corporate America and Europe with 10 years of building, selling and recreating entrepreneurial businesses. Along the way, she lost her own business and got it back over a weekend and has recovered from dramatic illness, developing her powers of resilience and resourcefulness to recreate her life and business to live out her dreams. She is also a regional director of the non-profit EO (Entrepreneurs Organization) and has 15 global volunteers where she spends 25% of her time. She leads training sessions and strategic summits to help emerging and seasoned entrepreneurs across Europe and Africa realize their full business potential.

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'Is success a Porsche?'

Julie Nazerali,
City Law Partner, DAC Beachcroft LLP

Born in Kenya, but having grown up in London and studied and lived in London and Belgium, Julie specialises in European and Competition law. In the past she has worked at both the European Commission and the European Parliament and today, in addition to her work at Beachcroft LLP where she is a partner, she sits on a pro-bono nine-member international tribunal (His Highness Prince Aga Khan Shia Imami Ismaili International Conciliation & Arbitration Board) adjudicating on disputes within the Ismaili Community and dealing with jurisdictions across 18 countries. Julie will talk about striving for success, finding balance and her mentors along her journey. She does not own a Porsche, but she is happy.

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'Global Leadership – Raising profile and making a difference the 'high touch' way'

Katherine Tulpa,
Global CEO, The Association for Coaching

As a pioneering leader within her field, Katherine is the Global CEO of the Association for Coaching, a leading professional coaching body, and Co-Founder of Wisdom8. Described by others as someone who 'pushes the boundaries', and who role-models, 'collaborative-based' leadership, Katherine specializes in cross-cultural and global/top team coaching, having worked with CEOs and their teams from across 28 different nationalities. She is the recipient of the awards for Influencing and Impacting the Coaching Profession and was made Coach/Mentor of the Year, by Coaching at Work. She is also an author, speaker, and lecturer, with recent contributions in Leadership Coaching, Excellence in Coaching, and Diversity in Coaching (Kogan Page), and is on the Editorial Board for Coaching, an International Journal of Theory, Research, and Practice (Routledge).

Katherine will share the key skills and qualities needed in order to be an effective leader today, how female leaders can use their natural strengths to stand out and the success factors for leading others, both virtually, and globally.

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'Breaking Barriers and Building Bridges'

Lindy Wafula,
CEO and Founder, Project Africa

Lindy winner of the prestigious Africa MDG Achievers Award is an active politician in her home country of Kenya, where she is determined through her work and through her organization Project Africa to help to empower women and girls. Her talk will examine this issue and also tell of her struggle, having lost both her parents to HIV/AIDS, denied her right to inherit, but expected to take on all responsibilities in the upbringing of her siblings. She will look at the future of young women in Kenya and share their challenges and hopes and so inspire women everywhere to believe in themselves and their power to create a better world for themselves, their households, their communities and their nations.

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'Extreme Courage – How to overcome Fear and Act Intuitively'

Lt Corp. Sarah Bushbye,
The British Army

26 year old Corporal Sarah Bushbye is the third woman in military history and one of the youngest to receive the military cross for extreme courage as she treated injured colleagues amid 'bullets and bombs' in a Taliban attack in Afghanistan.

Ignoring the risks of more explosions and incoming fire, she ran 500 yards across open ground to reach the men. Newlywed Sarah, of North Tyneside in The UK, heard she had won the medal while on holiday in Crete with husband Danny. She said: "I don't see myself as any heroine, I was doing my job. But it is an honour to receive it and I am very proud."

Be inspired by Sarah and her extraordinary exploits and how she overcame her nerves at that critical moment and how she learnt to rely on her intuition and gut instinct.

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Anna Barez-Brown,
Aspire Programme Leader & Executive Coach

Anna is a highly experienced Aspire executive coach and facilitator with over 10 years experience of working with board level executives and managers to improve the quality of leadership, business performance and communication.  Her clients include SAP, Yahoo, Microsoft, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Linklaters, Freshfields LLP and KPMG.

According to a recent Catalyst report, “The number one thing people wish they had known in their career is about organisational politics, becoming visible, and advocating more for themselves, that “just” working hard is not enough to succeed”. Without political savvy skills, it may be that you can get overlooked on the career ladder and miss out on the credit for your ideas or achievements. Anna will share ideas and strategies on how to grow your skills in being highly politically savvy while acting from high integrity and a psychology of consensus.

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'Why "Wild Women" never get the blues'

Lynne Turner,
Group Director of Finance, Centrica

Lynne has a 26 year corporate career as a Finance Director of a UK energy company and previously Financial Services. Prior to this she was Customer Director Business Banking at Alliance & Leicester and a chartered accountant at KPMG.

In addition to her corporate role, Lynne focuses on empowering women by connecting women in the developed world with those in the developing world. Her most recent adventures being the Malawi Challenge and The Namibia Desert Challenge. Lynne encourages us to stretch our horizons, broaden our minds and discover our amazing physical, emotional and mental potential. She will share her own story to inspire others to discover their passion and purpose to others to achieve economic independence and self-determination.

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'How to Dream Big'

Melanie Nash,
Head of Business Development, Neal's Yard Remedies

Melanie joined The Body Shop in 1985 and for the following 24 years has had the most amazing varied career, often working alongside Dame Anita Roddick. Throughout those years she learnt what it meant to be an ethical company as well as the importance of developing and supporting others. For the last 2 years she has been working for Neal's Yard Remedies, a small privately owned company with very strong values and ethics. About a year ago she made the decision to reduce the hours she worked each week allowing her to spend at least 1 day per week ticking off everything on her 'wish list for life' (you know the list you have in your mind where you say one day I really must do x,y,z). She will talk about the power of dreams, identifying them and going for it and achieving your dreams through times of adversity by staying authentic and aligned to your core values.

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'Following Your Passion to Inspiration and Authenticity'

Nick Williams,
CEO and Founder, Inspired Entrepreneur.com

Nick is on a mission to help people move beyond their fears and transform their passions into profitable work, travelling the world sharing a his vision of work. A sought after speaker, best-selling author and broadcaster, Nick knows that while most of us have a sense that there is a person we could become, all too often we don't live that life fully. Our fears, doubts and insecurities kick-in, the conditioning we've been bought up with kick in. However through his own experience of personal change and having worked with thousands of others, he knows the steps to take to be more inspirational and authentic in life and work.

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'Standing Out from the Crowd'

Rebecca Jones,
Author and Founder, Business in Red Shoes

Rebecca knows from experience that different things shape us and by keeping to our key strengths and by drawing on our morals and values we can grow and achieve things which initially seem unrealistic and impossible. She believes that much of her own success has been down to a willingness to stand apart from the crowd, move out of her comfort zone and meet people who can support her on her journey. The child with an entrepreneurial mother, who used to make Paddington Bears, her gift and indeed her business, is to help women reflect on what has shaped them and how they can break down the personal internal barriers they have because while standing out from the crowd can make you feel vulnerable, it also makes you feel so alive!

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'Inspiring women who've made a difference'

Meg Munn,
MP

The former Minister for Women and Equality Meg Munn will inspire us as she leads us through the women she has met in her career who've achieved change and who have been role models to us.

She is the first elected Member of Parliament for Sheffield Heeley 2001, chair of Kurdistan Region in Iraq All-Party Parliamentary Group and vice-chair of Women and Enterprise APPG. Born 1959 in central Sheffield, she joined the Labour Party when she was 15. She is a trained social worker and was Assistant Director for Children's Services at the City of York Council.

Passionate about women in leadership, she was Chair of the Women's Committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party July 2003 - May 2005 and editor of the 2011 Smith Institute's report on Women in Science, Engineering & Technology.

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'Become a Practical and Confident Change Maker'

Servane Mouazan,
Managing Director, Oguntê

Servane, the founder of Oguntê and the Global Tribal Network, is passionate about supporting, connecting and promoting women who develop social ventures, and contribute to making the world a better and more equitable place. The winner of numerous awards for both coaching and enterprise mentoring, she will showcase the positive impact women are bringing about around the world as impact investors, social innovators and social ventures leaders, and importantly how they connect to each other to make things happen and sustain the change. She will go beyond the "We need to change; we need to be more assertive, be more confident." and give tools and insights to the women in the audience to become practical and confident investors in change.

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'Four Steps to Balancing Work and Home'

Sharon Gladish,
Senior Manager – Advisory, KPMG LLP

Part-time senior manager and full-time mother, Sharon found returning to work after the birth of her child a difficult transition, but feels that the process has taught her much. She has defined the four key stages a woman in her position goes through. From the clock watching and just getting through the day to feeling that the passion that was her life (her job) was taking second place and feeling the loss of her career to persevering to achieve a different approach to her job, by finding alternative ways to be fulfilled through voluntary work and by building new networks of supportive people and so finally putting herself 'centre-stage' again as both an career woman and a mother.

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'Girls with attitude'

Sue Field,
Deputy Chief Executive, Girlguiding UK

Sue believes passionately in the amazing work that her organization is doing for the next generation of women. The Girl Guides (102 years young) provides an invaluable platform for girls to express their attitudes, find ways to grow in confidence and so truly fulfil their potential, but there is still more to be done as the Girlguiding's annual Girls Attitude's survey shows. However Sue feels that some of the worrying facts about girls and their careers choices can be dealt with in some simple ways through the influence of senior women and people with an ambition to see more women in the boardroom. Through their passion and dedication they can truly help change things in the workplace.

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'Stand on your own feet and believe in the possibility of change'

Sweeta Noori,
Country Director of the Afghanistan chapter of international humanitarian
and development assistance nonprofit organization Women for Women International

Sweeta Noori was born in Kabul in 1973, she is a daughter, a mother, a leader, a war-survivor and three-times a refugee. She has survived many regime changes and social shifts in her homeland, from the Soviet occupation, to the mujahidin, to the Taliban, to today's fledgling democracy. In her work as Country Director of Women for Women International-Afghanistan, she has assisted over 20,000 women in her country with financial assistance, rights education, and vocational skill straining. She was instrumental in launching one of Afghanistan's first microcredit lending programs targeted to women, which has disbursed over $11 million to approximately 47,500 women, maintaining a repayment rate of over 90%.

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'Find and Increase Your Courage Quotient'

Tracey Ford,
Founder and Director, JAGS Foundation

Tracey may describe herself as ordinary, everyday working class mother of two, but that is her way of downplaying her drive and determination. Having suffered the life-changing tragedy of the losing her 17-year old son, she not only overcame such unbelievable adversity, but started a national charity to help, advice and assist other families. Tracey shares her ideas and success strategies on how to find and increase your courage in your lowest and highest moments and how she now leads, advocates and impacts changes she never imagined possible.

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'Thriving, not Surviving as a 21 Century Leader'

Veera Johnson,
Head of IT and Telecoms at Templewood LLP

Leadership is much more than just being authentic.  It's about having a passion, being able to show your weaknesses, creating a sense of purpose and most importantly it's about creating the right balance of all of these things to suit the situation.  In the current climate there is so much expectation on all senior managers to be 'out there'.  This coupled with the capability of technologies and the speed at which business moves means that are few places to hide.  So how do we survive as leaders in the 21st Century and how can we excel?

Veera is the Head of IT and Telecoms at Templewood LLP. Prior to this, she was CEO of ProcServe and a Senior Partner at PA Consulting. Veera is the Vice Chair of the London Branch of the Institute of Economic Development and was named Business Woman of the Year at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards.

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'You can achieve it – practical ways to make it work'

Vivien Matthews,
Head of Human Resources, Henmans LLP

Vivien has over 30 years' experience in HR and has worked for a variety of firms including chartered surveyors, cosmetics, breweries and security and has achieved both Lexcel and Investors in People accreditation for her current law firm. All of which is something her teacher would never have dreamt possible! Having left school with two O' levels and the words of her teaching saying she would never amount to anything ringing in her ears, her earlier career was one of set-backs and hurdles, but also of a will to succeed. Having done her college degree in the evenings and working hard, this mother of two is now an MA in HR Management, Fellow of the CIPD and Head of HR in a leading regional law firm. As her talk will show, it is never too late to better yourself.

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'The value of achieving fulfillment in life and work'

Kathryn Britten,
Chairman, Forensic, KPMG

Kathryn is partner and chair of KPMG Forensic in the UK who wholeheartedly believes in people being able to reach their full potential while remaining true to their values. She has 35 years experience in the accountancy profession where she is one of the UK's most senior and experienced accountancy expert witnesses, having written hundreds of reports and given oral evidence on many occasions. Kathryn has been a pioneer and supporter of women in business throughout her career and she has been a proponent of the benefits of diversity for many years. She has spoken regularly in the press and at various events on this topic. She actively supports KPMG's women's network and she mentors women in a variety of professions. She won the Accountancy - Woman of Achievement award with Women in the City in 2008. She is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants steering group - Narrowing the Gap (helps members return to work after a career break) and has led a steering group which researched flexible working practices and produced a guide for flexible working.

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'Identity Crisis: Mummy, Mogul or Madwoman?'

Rebecca Maguire,
CEO, Maguire Media Group

Rebecca will address the common crisis facing working mothers (and women in general) who feel themselves pulled in many directions at once. Every day, we are expected to raise families, run companies - and get dinner on the table at a reasonable time. How can we manage it all? Rebecca Maguire is the CEO of Maguire Media Group who has seen made her way into the pages of Cosmopolitan Magazine, The NY Times and AOL News. Her ghostwritten blogs are featured on The Doctor Oz Show and Psychology Today websites. Additionally, she pens a blog on the ins and out of being both an entrepreneur and a mother for Working Mother.com. She is in hot demand - not only in her career - but as a mother to three young children, and the wife of a hard working family man. Despite her best efforts, she (nearly always) manages to forget something important at the shop, realises that chasing her dreams means sometimes housework has to be outsourced and believes wholeheartedly that perfection is what we make it to be. She hopes to help other women maximize their time and fulfill their dreams of greatness - both at home, and at the office.

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'Making Your Big Dreams Actually Happen'

Louise Farnell,
Director & Founder, Capidale Consulting

In January 2010, Louise and her husband Simon against all odds embarked on a life changing trip for 15 months on a round the world adventure with their 5 and 7 year old children. How many of us have dreamed of jacking it all and going travelling...? And how many of us have wanted to spend more time together as a family...? Or thought that work perhaps isn't everything it is cracked up to be...? If Louise had a motto, it would be the saying 'you never regret the things you do, only the things you don't'

Hear Louise's amazing story, how 5 years ago, a plan was formed, "we'd work & save as hard as we could, try and squirrel away enough to give up our jobs, take a year out and have money left over to survive whilst we sorted ourselves out when we got back" and how this dream was followed through and achieved with amazing results..

Louise brings her ability to make big dreams come true into high work as a highly experienced Charity Consultant with a successful track record in generating large revenue streams for her clients. Her winning bids have ranged from £10,000 to £16 million, including the successful £16 million bid to the Big Lottery Fund for Time to Change, a consortium of mental health charities. This was followed by successful applications for a further £4 million from Comic Relief.

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'Messages that Inspire'

Cherie Lunghi,
Actress

Cherie M. Lunghi is a film, television and theatre actress. She is probably best known for her role as Guinevere in the 1981 film Excalibur and as football manageress Gabriella Benson in the 1990s television series The Manageress. She also competed in the 2008 series of Strictly Come Dancing. She is the mother of the actress Nathalie Lunghi. She has just finished a UK theatre tour of 'The Syndicate' with Ian McKellan.

Cherie is an advocate for women’s rights and in March this year she joined forces with Women for Women International, Annie Lennox and Bianca Jagger and many other women and men with the sole purpose of making the world a better place for women. She marched to the Millennium Bridge and later to the Southbank Centre where speakers such as Helen Pankhurst, Lynne Featherstone MP, Liz Morgan Lewis and a group of female Afghan politicians made a general call to action to support gender equality and peace around the globe.

Cherie stated that "When one women finds her voice and gets together with other women and men and children all over the world we create a power and a strength, a people power, that can shift all the obstacles that lie along the path on the way to fulfilling our vision of a better world for women."

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'Women Leaders as Global Change Makers'

Vivienne Hayes,
CEO, Women's Resource Centre

Vivienne is the CEO of a national not for profit Women's organization based in the UK and is passionate about women's equality, social justice and developing female leadership as a means to improving life for all. She is committed to growing women leaders across all sectors. She will raise the question of whether current women leaders have a responsibility to support the next generation; whether women leaders are different to men, how to thrive as a woman leader and the role of women as global change makers.

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