BAME International Women’s DaySpeaker ShowcaseHosted by Lord and Lady Popat
Friday 8th March, 2019House of Commons
In association with Rupa Ganatra Popat andRupal Sachdev Kantaria of Oliver Wyman
Foreword
For the first time ever 20 BAME female speakers take to the floor at the House of Commons to share the biggest challenges they face not just in the UK but globally, and their tangible solutions for change.
To name a few, our inspirational speakers include Jewish Actress Tracy Ann Oberman, Baroness Prashar who served on the Iraq enquiry, Nour Shaker Fayed a transgender female activist, Diipa Khosla with a social media following of 1.5M+ and renowned Sabyasachi, arguably India’s most renowned (male) fashion designer. We have deliberately included those women who are often excluded from gender initiatives which tend to focus on middle class white straight women, as well as BAME men and non BAME women – in the spirit of true “Balance for Better” and a clear message of inclusion.
Speaker topics span sectors as diverse as fashion, finance, food with themes covering black feminism, transgender rights, antisemitism and misogyny, AI, the lack of female funding, the future of work, youth on youth violence and mental health.
While we celebrate the great diversity within the “BAME” gender category, the issues we seek to raise goes beyond ethnicities and gender. It is about us all. Our society and our shared humanity. The focus of the voices profiled are BAME women, but our message is clearly inclusion.
Rupa Ganatra Popat and Rupal Sachdev Kantaria
Rupa Ganatra PopatFounding Partner & CEOFUTR Group
Rupal Sachdev KantariaDirectorOliver Wyman
1. Rupa Ganatra Popat
2. Bayo Adelaja
3. Nour Shaker Fayed
4. Diipa Khosla
5. Tracy-Ann Oberman
6. Baroness Usha Prashar
7. Tracey Ford
8. Alice Hu Wagner
9. Sabyasachi Mukherji
10. Nazreen Visram
11. Xinran Xue
12. Sonal Sachdev-Patel
13. Sonia Meggie
14. Asma Khan
15. Bhaskar Ramachandran
16. Meenal Sachdev
17. Nishma Gosrani
18. Beth Robotham
19. Anita Goyal
20. Farzana Baduel
21. Kim Nilsson
22. Roianne Nedd
23. Sabree Kansagra
24. Avnish Goyal
25. Rupal Sachdev Kantaria
Speaker order
Rupa Ganatra PopatFounding Partner & CEOFUTR Group
OPENING
Rupa Ganatra Popat is the co-founder of FUTR Group, CIJ Festival, MadWorld + Unlimited Brewing, Board Advisor at Ahara Ventures and a Contributor for Forbes.
FUTR Group (formerly Millennial 20/20) is a year-round platform connecting companies with innovation through events, research, media and training and has hosted large scale summits across four continents with over 24,000 attendees and 1,800 speakers over the last three years. Hong-Kong listed company Pico Group acquired a stake in the company in January 2019. www.futr.today
She is also the Founding Partner of MadWorld Forum; a platform for eradicating stigma and sparking a new era of mental health and well-being in the workplace, which includes an annual European Summit in London in October of each year. www.madworldforum.com
Prior to this, Rupa was an investment banker for 8.5 years at RBC Capital Markets, where she held senior level positions including VP Structured Products and Head of Middle East Derivative Sales.
Rupa is a mentor on the London Mayor’s Business Growth Programme where she mentors and advises fast-growth companies, a Founding Board Member of the UK Guild of Entrepreneurs and has won several accolades including Management Today‘35 under 35′ Women.
Rupa has worked with global brands such as Johnson & Johnson on their innovation strategy, spoken on the future of consumers, commerce and innovation at events in London, South Korea and New York and her written work has been published in Forbes, Thrive Global, Director, Hotel Owner, Cosmetic Business, Brand Quarterly and The Drum. She has been an active member and Board Director at Ashraya Iniative for Children since 2008, a charity that works with street children in India.
@Rupa Ganatra Popat
@RupaGanatra
Rupal Sachdev KantariaDirectorOliver Wyman
CLOSING
Rupal is a Director in Oliver Wyman’s London office. She has over a decade of experience in financial services strategy consulting, subsequently as Chief Operating Officer of Oliver Wyman’s (OW) EMEA Insurance Practice across Europe, Middle East and Africa and is currently on the leadership team across Oliver Wyman’s newly launched ‘The Forum’ and Social Impact team.
The Forum is a diverse community of leaders across the span of business, government and society who are engaging together to shape and co-create ideas, and practically test solutions to shared global challenges. The Social Impact team works with Governments, not for profits and social enterprises and takes a capabilities based approach to driving social change. Rupal is a strong believer in reshaping the role of the Corporate in Society.
In 2017, Rupal co-founded Mission INCLUDE, an innovative, cross-company, cross-industry, cross diversity strand, mentoring and inclusion movement across FTSE 100 firms in London to unlock the boundless potential of people, creating more empathetic leaders and unleashing creativity and innovation. Founding firms include RBS, Santander, The British Army, AIG.
Rupal is founder of “GenGive” a movement to ignite the social conscience of young people to inspire and develop a generation of changemakers. Partners range from global charity Amnesty for their “Write for Rights”, the largest grassroots campaign in the world, to The Funding Network to refugee focused social enterprise Bread & Roses.
Rupal is a director of her family charitable Foundation, an Executive Advisor to an Executive Search firm and a Trustee of national child bereavement charity, the Lullaby Trust. Rupal has been recognised via various diversity, finance and social change awards including: Brummells 30 Ones to Watch: Rising Stars of the City, UK Rising Stars, Asian Woman of the year, Financial Times Top 100 Ethnic Minority Role Model and the Guardian’s Investing in Ethnicity awards.
Rupal has a first class degree in Economics and Management from Cambridge University. She enjoys discovering new places and people, being in the mountains and forests and she loves to ski. She is a great believer in curiosity, collaboration and ‘uncommon connections.’
@Rupal Sachdev Kantaria
@Rupalkantaria
Baroness D'SouzaCHAIR
Frances Gertrude Claire D'Souza, Baroness D'Souza, CMG, PC is a British scientist and life peer. Baroness D'Souza was created a Lord Temporal as Baroness D'Souza, of Wychwood in the County of Oxfordshire, on 1 July 2004. She sat as a crossbencher in the House of Lords, where she was the Convenor of the Crossbench Peers from 2007 to 2011
On 13 July 2011, D'Souza was elected Lord Speaker of the House of Lords and began her new role in September 2011. The Lord Speaker is the speaker of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The office is analogous to the Speaker of the House of Commons: the Lord Speaker is elected by the members of the House of Lords and is expected to be politically impartial. Baroness D’Souza held the role of Lord Speaker until 31 August 2016.
Baroness D’Souza was educated at St Mary's School, Princethorpe, and went to University College London to read anthropology, graduating BSc in 1970. She subsequently undertook further study at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil.) in 1976. She worked for the Nuffield Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition from 1973–77, Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University) from 1977–80, and was an independent research consultant for the United Nations from 1985-88. From 1989 to 2002, she was the director of the human rights organization Article 19. In 1999, Baroness D’Souza was invested as a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George.
Bayo AdelajaChief Do-erDo it Now Now
Topic: How to build better businesses
Bayo Adelaja has been awarded by Durham, Harvard and Oxford University's Business Schools. In 2018, Bayo was named one of the most influential women in social entrepreneurship in the UK, by Natwest bank. She has been the subject of a TEDx talk and was twice quoted by David Cameron while he was the UK’s Prime Minister.
Bayo was once the youngest person working in a professional capacity at the House of Commons and has enjoyed a 10 year entrepreneurship journey during which she has helped over 1000 individual founders build better businesses.
Bayo currently works with organisations such as Google and Facebook to create movements that spark a massive shift in the discussion around African development and the UK’s BAME population. She is Chief Do-er at Do it Now Now, a social impact marketing and program development agency that provides brands, charities and corporations the opportunity to create truly impactful campaigns and programs that edify and equip the communities they are targeting.
LinkedIn.com/in/doitbayo
@doitbayo
Farzana BaduelFounder & CEOCurzon PR
Topic: Know Thyself
Farzana Baduel is the founder and CEO of Curzon PR. As a passionate advocate of strategic communications, she champions the power of PR as a dynamic force for building bridges and unifying the world’s voices into a global narrative. She set up Curzon PR in 2009, having previously served as Vice Chair of Business Relations for the UK Conservative Party.
Farzana has been appointed as the resident public relations expert and ambassador for the Oxford Foundry, the University of Oxford’s entrepreneurship centre, where she delivers masterclasses in PR and mentors female entrepreneurs. She is a committed campaigner for the economic empowerment of women. She is the founder of TiE Women (London). TiE is the largest global entrepreneur network in the world.
Farzana is a Chartered PR practitioner who regularly lectures around the world on PR and women leadership and, as a thought-leader, is asked to contribute on the BBC, Forbes, the Financial Times and Al-Jazeera. She has also written for newspapers/publications such as The Guardian and PR Week. Her industry blogs can be found on the PR Insider.
Farzana has been a judge for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ PR awards. She has won awards including Businesswoman of the Year at the Muslim Awards 2016, Entrepreneur of the Year at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards 2015 and the Media Professional of the Year at the Asian Media Awards 2014. She donates her time and expertise to various organisations and audiences on a voluntary basis.
@farzanabaduel
Tracey FordCEOJAGS Foundation
Topic: Youth on Youth Violence
Tracey Ford is the CEO and Founding Director of JAGS Foundation, an acronym of her late son James Andre Godfrey Smartt-Ford.
In February 2007, Tracey was managing a business whilst taking care of her two children, daughter Becky (14) and James (17) .
When James was shot and killed at a friend's party inside Streatham Ice Rink, Tracey created a non-profit organisation named JAGS Foundation as a tribute to James. The nature of the organisation is to address the rising trend of both violence in the community and wider London.
Tracey shares her story as a well sought-after inspirational speaker attending local schools, prisons and pupil referral units. Through JAGS Foundation Tracey leads peer support groups for bereaved families to explore different ways of coping with the traumatic sudden loss of a child.
Tracey has spent her life living in London and remains passionate regarding restorative justice and providing access for young people to youth services.
Nishma GosraniPartnerDeloitte
Topic: Future of Workplace is Women
Nishma Gosrani leads the Banking and Capital Markets Change and Organisation Design practice at Consulting powerhouse Deloitte as a Director. She has authored a number of publications and articles in the banking and capital markets sector and became famous for the controversial article the crash might not have happened if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters.
She has won a number of prestigious business awards which include; Young Achiever of the Year, Asian Professional of the Year and Overseas Female of the Year. She is also the Sponsor of the Multicultural Business Network for Deloitte which won the Race for Opportunity ‘Network of the Year Award’ in 2015.
She is a trustee and board member of City Hindus Network and Tamasha, a leading theatre company which champions the voices of emerging and established BAME artists. She was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce, and was named the diversity and inclusion leader of the year at the GG2 Awards in 2015.
Nishma has featured in the Movers and Shakers' Survey as one of Britain's most influential young women. In 2015, she was quoted by Management Today as a rising star under 35. In May 2017, she was listed as an EmPower Top 35 Future Leader in the Financial Times.
@nishgosrani
Anita GoyalPhilanthropistGoyal Foundation
Topic: Modern Philanthropy
Anita Goyal is CEO and trustee of The Hemraj Goyal Foundation. She is a Patron of Binti International and Honorary Chair of the FGM Appeal for Barnardo’s in the UK. She is an award-winning philanthropist, community champion and author of Voices from Punjab.
Anita completed a BSc in Biomedical Materials Science & Engineering at Queen Mary College, London. She taught Science at secondary level and then progressed to Assistant Head Teacher of Inclusion. Anita has completed her MA in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education and UCL.
She is the Co-founder of Ultimate You where she designs and conducts seminars and workshops on leadership, business, life and relationships with her husband. Under the family Foundation, Anita has launched a platform for investing in the personal development and empowerment of all people. She is passionate about making a difference and believes in doing everything with passion and purpose.
@anitagoyal_
Avnish GoyalEntrepreneur and PhilanthropistHallmark Care Homes
Topic: Male Allyship
Avnish Goyal is Chair of Hallmark Care Homes an award-winning luxury care home operator with 18 homes in the UK. He also is Chair of Care England which is the largest trade association for care providers. Avnish is the founding trustee for the Care Workers Charity and also founded his family charity Hemraj Goyal Foundation in 2010 to make a difference and help alleviate suffering by supporting women's and children's charities both in the UK and abroad.
He and his wife Anita, run educational programs as part of their philanthropic endeavours on couples relationships, goal setting and empowerment events. He is currently writing his book which will be published later this year on entrepreneurship and happiness where he will be sharing his life lessons. He has three wonderful grown up children - two girls and a boy.
@avnishgoyal
Alice Hu WagnerMD, Strategy, Economics and Business DevelopmentBritish Business Bank
Topic: Venture Capitalism and Female Founders
Alice Hu Wagner leads Strategy, Economics and Business Development at the British Business Bank. She is responsible for the overall strategy of the Bank, all economic forecasting and analysis, as well as leadership on business/product development and innovation.
Alice joined the Bank in April 2015 from Barclays plc, where she was the senior lead director for Group Strategy. Prior to spending five years at Barclays and Barclaycard, she worked in London for Lloyds Banking Group and Prophet, a strategic marketing and brand consultancy. She began her career at McKinsey and Company, latterly specialising in corporate finance and strategy.
Alice earned her undergraduate degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and her MBA from INSEAD.
http://linkedin.com/in/alicehuwagner
Sabree KansagraSenior AssociateKPMG
Topic: Friendsline: “Mental health and wellbeing”
Sabree is a Senior Associate within the Restructuring department at KPMG LLP working with myriad of companies in the public and private sectors. Her experience with organisationsincludes implementing cost efficiencies, working capital management, economic profitability optimisation, contingency planning, early options and insolvency engagements. Before this, she has worked in Debt Capital Markets and Asset Management.
Sabree has been a Trustee of Friendsline International since it was founded in 2014. Her passion for Friendsline is driven by the organisation’s ability to build confidence and empower women and girls, which is critical for the sustainable development of communities worldwide. For Friendsline, it is clear that improving mental health is a key step to achieve this.
From a young age, she has organised fundraisers for orphanages, taught English at schools in developing countries, and volunteered at care homes.
www.linkedin.com/in/sabree-thakrar-78208057
@SabreeThakrar
Asma KhanChefDarjeeling Express
Topic: South Asian women’srole as custodiansand teachers of ourfood heritage
Asma moved to Cambridge from Calcutta in 1991 to join her academic husband. She is Rajput on her father’s side and Bengali on her mother’s. After studying law-Asma went on to do a PhD in Law at Kings College London.
Cooking was her passion and she began her food career in 2012 as a supper club in her home. In 2015, she opened a pop-up in a Soho pub and Darjeeling Express the restaurant opened its doors in June 2017. A year later, her cookbook “Asma’s Indian Kitchen” was published by Pavilion in October 2018. The book was the winner in the U.K. category for food publishing in Indian cuisine in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, the cookbook will qualify as a finalist for the Best in the World. Asma is the first British chef to feature in Netflix Emmy nominated Chefs Table.
Asma is married and has two boys.
Diipa KhoslaFashion influencer, model, creative consultant, and speaker
Topic: Social media for change
Diipa Khosla is a fashion influencer, model, creative consultant, and speaker based between Amsterdam and London.
Born and raised in a small hill town in the beautiful country of India, Diipa then moved to the Netherlands to study law. She is an International Law graduate and has done an internship at the United Nations' International Criminal Court. An Indian girl with a very international upbringing, her exotic looks, ever positive outlook on life, and down to earth personality has managed to amass a following of 1.6 million in just over 3 years.
One of Diipa's main focuses in life is female empowerment. She has given speeches, visited war-torn countries, and works closely with the UN & other NGO's to help women all over the world.
Diipa Khosla
@Diipa_Khosla
Sonia MeggieDiversity Specialist, Social EntrepreneurBusiness in the Community
Topic: Microagressions
Sonia Meggie is the award-winning founder of Inspirational YOU; a London based social enterprise. Their mission is to connect, inspire and empower young people, women and ethnic minorities who want to progress personally and professionally.
She is passionate about tech, BAME progression, diversity and Africa, which saw her be selected as an RSA Diaspora Changemaker. Sonia is a Diversity and wellbeing Consultant and can be seen hosting and supporting inclusion initiatives around the UK. In February 2019, Sonia was shortlisted for Stylist Magazine ‘Inspirational woman of the year’ award in their inaugural Remarkable women awards.
In 2016 she launched an accessories brand called FunkyNChunky creating ethically made accessories from Africa, this has seen her brand grow globally. Her passion is empowering others and giving back. This summer (2019) will see her open a Saturday school for those aged 8-14 in South West London.
Sonia is a qualified football coach, Trustee for the Jason Roberts Foundation, Friends Committee member of the Black Cultural Archives and Ghana GUBA Trade Expo. Via Inspirational YOU she has held over 100 events in 8 years, which include the popular teen and ‘women at the top’ masterclass at the House of Commons.
Sonia has worked alongside organisations such as Google, Deloitte, Barclays Corporate, BAML, MP’s, Law Chambers, PwC, Pearsons, ITV, Sky, London Youth, BBC, Channel 4, Stephen Lawrence Trust, DAC Beachcroft and UK Supreme Court.
@soniameggie
@soniameggie
Sabyasachi MukherjiFashion Designer
Topic: Protecting traditional Indian craftsmanship
Sabyasachi is arguably one of the most powerful and influential fashion brands in India, creating an aspirational story of Indian luxury across the globe with offerings in clothing, jewellery, accessories, home, art and beauty.
Through his work, he has been able to restore a sense of pride for Indian textiles and clothing traditions in the mind of Indian consumers and has carved a niche market for himself in the luxury industry using indigenous textiles and crafts which were hitherto dying out because of lack of patronage.
Being the most plagiarised brand in the country, his design influence has created a parallel economy for several thousands of craftsmen, embroiderers, weavers and dyers across the length and breadth of India. He considers this his biggest contribution as an entrepreneur.
Roianne NeddInclusion ExpertRoCaro Consulting
Topic: Black Feminism
Roianne Nedd is a Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) expert, author, speaker and coach. She is passionately committed to improving workplaces for all by helping organisations to embrace D&I principles, especially intersectional feminism, unconscious bias, and inclusive leadership.
She has built an impressive range of skills since starting her career within Central Government including qualifying as a Chartered Accountant and gaining her Post Graduate Certificate in Leadership. She is a well-respected D&I consultant sharing her expertise across various sectors e.g. FMCG, hospitality, financial services and UK government, to name a few.
In October 2018, she realised a lifelong ambition to publish a book about the workplace experiences of Black women in the UK, called the Trusted Black Girl. This has been a natural progression from her activities as Founder and Chair of Women of Kaieteur, a global empowerment network supporting Guyanese women.
@RoianneNedd
Kim NilssonCEOPivigo
Topic: AI and Women
Kim has a background in science, with a PhD in Astrophysics and an MBA from Cranfield School of Management. She is the co-founder and CEO of Pivigo – the Data Science Hub.
Pivigo is a data science, accelerating data innovation in organisations by connecting them to a global community of freelancing data scientists. Pivigo also runs Europe’s largest data science training programme S2DS. Kim with her team at Pivigo are passionate about bringing businesses and scientists together to harness the value and opportunities in data, by bridging the gap between the two fields.
Since the launch of Pivigo, Kim has been named a Rising Star among the Top 100 Influencers of Big Data in the and she was recently awarded ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ in the Women in IT awards. Kim is passionate about data, people, and connecting the two.
@kimknilsson
Tracy-Ann ObermanActress
Topic: Antisemitism
Tracy Ann Oberman is a well-known stage, screen and audio actor and writer. She has just finished a run of the five star Celebration and Party Time. (Pinter6 of Jamie Lloyd’s Pinter at the Pinter season) Her many television roles include murdering Dirty Den as Chrissie Watts in Eastenders and world-saving Yvonne Hartman who fought Cybermen and Daleks in Doctor Who. She is also series regular Mrs Purchase in Toast of London and Auntie Val in the multi-award winning comedy Friday Night Dinner.
Tracy Ann began to find her own voice whilst writing plays for BBC Radio 4, most successfully with her Hollywood Tales (“Bette and Joan and Baby Jane” which she wrote and starred in with Catherine Tate), Rock N Doris (Frances Barber and herself as Liz Taylor and Doris day) and “Mrs Robinson I Presume” about the making of The Graduate (in which she starred as Anne Bancroft opposite John Simm as Mike Nichols and Kevin Bishop as Dustin Hoffman).
She began to speak out on misogyny and anti-Semitism particularly in The Labour Party two years ago, in response to the abuse that Luciana Berger was receiving for being a Jewish female MP. Little did she realise that she herself became a target for abuse, smears and intimidation. The aim was to silence her. She has resolutely refused to.
@tracyanno
Baroness Usha PrasharHouse of Lords
Topic: Creating change
The Rt Hon Baroness Usha Prashar, CBE, PC, is a crossbench member of the House of Lords, who was made a life peer on 15 July 1999. During her career, spanning forty seven years, she has chaired and led significant organisations with distinction and has made substantial contribution to public life and public policy in the UK. One of Baroness Prashar’s most pressing appointments has been to serve on the Iraq Inquiry since July 2009. She was sworn of the Privy Council the same year to facilitate access to the classified information related to the Iraq War.
Since the 1970s, she has served as a director or chairman of a variety of public and private sector organisations. She became the first chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission upon its creation in April 2006.
Born in Kenya, she came to Yorkshire with her father Naurhia Lal Prashar and family in the 1960s. She was educated at the independent Wakefield Girls' High School, becoming head girl in 1967. Prasharread Politics at Leeds University, graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, after which she undertook postgraduate studies in Social Administration at the University of Glasgow
Lady Prashar was a director of the Runnymede Trust from 1976 to 1984, a Fellow with the Policy Studies Institute from 1984 to 1986, and a director of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations from 1986 to 1991. Having been appointed a Civil Service Commissioner in 1990, she was First Civil Service Commissioner from August 2000 to 2005. Lady Prashar was chairman of the National Literacy Trust from 2001 to 2005.
Lady Prashar was also a non-executive director of Channel Four Television Corporation from 1992 to 1999, of UNITE Group plc from 2001 to 2004, and became a non-executive director of ITV plc in February 2005. She was appointed a trustee of the BBC World Service Trust in 2002, and is president of the Royal Commonwealth Society. She is deputy chair of the British Council.
Baroness Prashar was appointed to the Order of the British Empire as a Commander (CBE) in the 1995 New Year Honours. She recently conferred the Honorary Degree (D.Litt.) from Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) University ,Bhubaneswar Odisha, India.
Bhaskar RamachandranPhilosopherVedanta Institute London
Topic: Lift yourself, by yourself
Bhaskar Ramachandran is a Minister of Vedanta philosophy. He educates people on the fundamental principles of living that helps one to reduce stress, improve productivity and find harmony in relationships. He has addressed several companies, management forums and various audiences for the past 19 years in the UK including J.P. Morgan, Accenture, BP, John Lyon School, Freshfields and Young Presidents Organisation.
Bhaskarji, as he is popularly known, is a senior disciple of the world-renowned philosopher A. Parthasarathy and has graduated from the 3-year residential course at the Vedanta Academy in India. Following a career in the Merchant Navy, he has been dedicated to the study and dissemination of Vedanta for over 25 years. His practical insights and focused presentations attract businesspersons, professionals and students to attend his introductory courses, retreats and weekly classes in the UK.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhaskar-ramachandran-4b55402a/
Reena RangerChairman and Co-FounderWomen EmpoweredWHIP
Reena was successfully elected as one of the three District Councillors for Moor Park & Eastbury in May 2014. She previously ran as a County Council Candidate 2013 and was a Parliamentary Candidate in the 2017 General Election. She addressed the delegates at the Conservative Party Conference in 2017 on the topic of “Fighting Injustices” and remains active within the Conservative Party.
Reena is Chairman and Co-Founder of Women Empowered, a grass roots, social initiative that aims to inspire and help women make the best of their individual talents and skills by connecting with successful and inspirational women and to help them make the most of their abilities and help them gain new opportunities through a variety of events. The group is championed and supported by prominent women and men from all walks of life, from politics to media, from finance to music.www.womenempowered.co.uk . It also consists of a charitable arm based on the donation of time an service and an online blog.
Reena has worked within her family business for almost 20 years. She has worked in variety of roles, always close to the heart of activity she has been involved closely from both operational and strategic aspects
Reena is a TedX speaker and has contributed to a variety of Asian media newspapers and radio.
Beth RobothamExecutive Director / VPGoldman Sachs,City Mental Health Alliance
Topic: Mental Health
Beth Robotham is the Chief of Staff to the Head of Human Capital Management at Goldman Sachs International in EMEA.
Beth was previously responsible for Health and Wellbeing at GS in EMEA and also spent three years as Head of Business Development at Bupa. Beth is passionate about creating mentally healthy workplaces and is the Vice Chair of the City Mental Health Alliance, aNon-Executive Director for Mental Health First Aid England and a Mental Health First Aid instructor
@Beth Robotham
Beth_robotham
Meenal SachdevCEOShiva Foundation
Topic: Modern Slavery and Trafficking
Meenal Sachdev is Director at Shiva Foundation, which aims to tackle and prevent human trafficking and modern slavery in the UK.
Most recently, the Foundation developed the ‘Stop Slavery Blueprint’, which has been piloted and rolled out across all London hotels within the Shiva Hotels group. The Blueprint helps provides hotels with practical measures to address modern slavery. The Foundation also coordinates the Stop Slavery Hotel Industry Network, which brings together various stakeholders within the hotel industry globally to offer guidance around this issue.
In 2015, Meenal was elected as a Councillor for Hertsmere. In this role, she has been instrumental in establishing the Hertfordshire Modern Slavery Partnership. As well as her work in the UK, Meenal supports various causes close to her heart in India. Meenalcontinuously seeks to apply her skills and resources to human rights issues and community led work.
@meenal_sachdev
Sonal Sachdev-PatelCEOGMSP Foundation
Topic: Violence against women in the BAME community
Sonal graduated from Cambridge University with an MA in Economics and Management Studies and award for academic excellence. She started her career as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company, and is now CEO of GMSP charitable Foundation that works to fundamentally improve the rights and lives of vulnerable women and girls. She is Head of Global Partnerships at award-winning global initiative, Think Equal which is working across twelve countries to bring a system change in education.
As a social entrepreneur, Sonal endeavours to take well known but complex social challenges and retell them in powerful ways which challenge convention: bringing acid attack survivors to the catwalk in London fashion week and curating an ethical luxury fashion line to give a voice to Indian artisans. Most recently she co-led the first collaborative crowdfunding effort across the BAME sector to raise awareness about violence against women in BAME communities.
Sonal is co-author of top-selling book Gita: The Battle of the Worlds, published by Harper Collins. Featured on SKY news, London Live, BBC and Times of India, Sonal has been spreading the message of meditation and mental health support.
Sonal was recently awarded the Influencer Award by DSC Awards for her work in social change in the UK and India.
@sachdevpatel
Nour Shaker FayedProduct Developer and LGBT+ ActivistVodafone
Topic: The Transgender Experience
After working in Dubai, Egypt, and Europe over the last 13 years working in specialist IT leadership roles, Nour moved to the UK three and half years ago to achieve the next milestone in her career path and also to continue her gender transition journey.
Nour plays an important role as Trans Advisor for the Vodafone UK LGBT+ Friends Network and has played a key role in the network getting the 2018 #1 UK LGBT+ Employee Network award from Stonewall.
Nour is also strongly committed to drive change and engagement throughout Vodafone globally through leadership, by engaging in the Reverse Mentoring programs currently running within Vodafone around LGBT+ inclusion and awareness, running panel discussions with executive and senior leadership in Vodafone, and also taking part of the joint leadership programme between Google and Vodafone to empower LGBT+ leaders to drive moreglobal-scale cultural changes.
In addition, Nour played an integral role in creating Vodafone’s HR policies to support Colleagues who start their transition whilst working at Vodafone. She has and continues to challenge homophobic, biphobic and transphobic behaviour and is regularly involved in leading and participating in LGBT+ events and webinars focused on delivering a message of empathy, awareness, and education to increase trans* and LGBT+ visibility.
Nour’s aspiration is to build life and industry changing business solutions to better support people’s lives in a rapidly changing society whilst maintaining a strong framework of digital ethics and personal integrity.
www.linkedin.com/in/nourshaker
@BrighterNour
Nazreen VisramHead of CharitiesBarclays
Topic: Pluralism
Nazreen is Head of Charities at Barclays responsible for helping charities to achieve more, and leading a team of industry specialists, providing banking services to the Healthcare, Charities and Education sectors. Previously she led the Citizenship strategy for the Corporate Banking business, driving the social and environmental strategy and building relationships and partnerships with clients to drive Citizenship and commercial efforts. Nazreen alsoco-chairs the Embrace Network, responsible for the multicultural diversity agenda and is very committed to voluntary service within her faith community where she currently leads the women’s agenda for the Ismaili Council UK.
Nazreen was shortlisted for an Asian Woman of Achievement Award in 2017, listed in the Financial Times as top 100 Ethnic Minority Role Model in 2018 and The Guardian’s Investing in Ethnicity Awards. She graduated from King’s College with a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry.
Nazreen is also an avid Arsenal supporter!
linkedin.com/in/nazreen-visram-22705622/
@VNazreen
Xinran XueAuthor and MBL founder
Topic: Chinese Women's Rights
Founder of The Mothers’ Bridge of Love (MBL)
Freelance Columnist of The Guardian
Freelance adviser of BBC World Service
Author of seven published books:
The Good Women of China, Sky Burial, China Witness… and Buy Me the Sky.
Nominated by the Guardian's top 100 of the world's most inspirational women in 2011
Notes
