Diversity and Inclusion Summit 2022

Programme

Testimonials

"I'm partially deaf so digital events make it so much easier for me to hear all the speakers with no background noise or disruptions."
Shirley Delaney, HR Manager, Megazyme

"The range of sessions and content was brilliant. The platform used was very easy to navigate through which was great."
Niamh O'Farrell, HR Partner, Scope

"I liked the variety of the sessions, so many different topics were covered, there was also a good range of speakers."
Steffi Reilly, IQEQ

"It was scheduled very well. Presenters did not talk too long. There were sufficient breaks. I also liked the roundtable discussion at the beginning."
Martina Cronin, Development Manager, South Leinster CIS

"I liked that i had the flexibility to join the event from my own location."
Emma Turley, Learning & Development Manager, Crash Services

"[I liked] the calibre of the speakers and the interesting discussions in the chat box."
Ellen Nolan, Solicitor, McCann Fitzgerald

"The practical advice from the speakers and access to their vast array of experience."
Joe Richardson, NICS

"[I most liked the] diversity in conversation and insight."
Jason Doyle, Corporate Team Travel Manager, FCM Travel Group

"Quality speakers who were all experts in their field - so knowledgeable and engaging."
Justine Carty, Solicitor, PRAI

"The variety of the speakers and the pace was perfect 40/45 mins per speaker meant it kept the interest."
Jenny Torley, HR Advisor Equality, Inclusion & Legal, NIFRS

Presenters

• 

  Barry Phillips Chairman

  Legal Island

  Barry Phillips (CEO) BEM founded Legal Island in 1998. Since then, the company has become the leading workplace compliance training company on the island of Ireland. 

  Barry curated and chaired the first-ever AI for HR online event in September 2023. Since then, he has organised numerous webinars and workshops for HR on AI topics. He also presents a weekly podcast summarising important developments in AI for those in HR.

• 

  Sandra Kerr CBE Race Director

  Business in the Community

  Sandra works together with business leaders and government policy makers to influence action on race in the UK. The Race at Work survey in 2015 with 24,457 responses and in 2018 with 24,310 responses provided the evidence to establish the Race at Work Charter announced by the Prime Minister which now has more than 500 employer signatories.

  In 2012 Sandra was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List for Services to Black and Minority Ethnic People.

  In 2019 Sandra was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday honours list for Services to Equality and Diversity. Sandra published the Race at Work Black Voices Report in August 2020 and the Race at Work Charter 2020 report in October 2020.

• 

  Stephen Frost CEO & Founder

  Included

  Stephen is a globally recognised diversity, inclusion and leadership expert, and founded Included in 2012. He leads the team and works with leaders around the world to embed inclusive leadership in their decision-making.

  From 2007-2012 Stephen designed, led and implemented the inclusion programmes for the London Olympic and Paralympic Games as Head of Diversity and Inclusion for the London Organising Committee. From 2004-2007 Stephen established and led the workplace team at Stonewall. Stephen has also led D&I at KPMG and worked in advertising and consulting.

  Stephen was a Hertford College Scholar at Oxford and a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard. He remains a Visiting Fellow of the Women and Public Policy Program. He has won various awards from the 2010 Peter Robertson Award for Equality and Diversity Champions and 2011 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum to one of Management Today’s Change Agents for his race and gender work.

  He has taught Inclusive Leadership at Harvard Business School, Singapore Management University and Sciences Po in France and advised the British Government, Royal Air Force and the White House. He is author of The Inclusion Imperative (2014), Inclusive Talent Management (2016) and Building an Inclusive Organization (February 2019).

• 

  David Liddle CEO & Founder

  The TCM Group

  David has developed significant expertise and authority in the areas of organisational dynamics, conflict resolution and transformational culture. He is author of two highly acclaimed books Managing Conflict and Transformational Culture and has recently been recognised as one of the top 20 HR Most Influential Thinkers.

  A lifelong mediator, David has spent the last 30 years reframing HR systems, management processes, and leadership behaviours. He puts purpose, people and values at the heart of his customers’ organisations. With a passion for collaboration, inclusion and empowerment, he brings people together to deliver high impact transformational change.

• 

  Simon Fanshawe OBE Author of "The Power of Difference- where the complexities of diversity and inclusion meet practical solutions" (Published Dec 2021 by Kogan Page)

  Co-Founder Diversity by Design

  Simon Fanshawe OBE - co-founder of Diversity by Design and works with clients to achieve significant change in diversity as a talent strategy to meet their business challenges; author of The Power of Difference; one time co-founder of Stonewall. 

  He was awarded the OBE in 2013 for services to higher education. In the same year he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Sussex for services to the University and equality and social justice.

• 

  Susie Leacy People Operations Director

  HEAnet

  Susie came from Musgrave Wholesale Partners, one of the Musgrave Group divisions, supporting the wholesale and Foodservice areas in a time of organisational change. Susie is a member of the Senior Leadership Team and Functional Head in HEAnet who has responsibilities for People Operations. This incorporates all people related matters including the people experience and workplace experience teams for HEAnet as well as supporting our subsidiary EduCampus Services. Susie’s focus is ensuring that our people at the centre of what we do and how we work together. Alongside being a People Operations Director, Susie is also an Executive Coach as well as providing coaching and mentoring to HR professionals.

  Susie graduated from the Dublin Institute of Technology and holds a Master’s in Business Studies specialising in Human Resource Management from the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business.  She also holds Chartered Fellowship Membership with CIPD (The professional body for HR and people development), holds Agile HR certification, has an accreditation in Advanced Coaching with Neuroscience as well as being EQi 2.0 & EQ 360 accredited.

   

• 

  Mark Fenton CEO & Founder | Executive Coach

  MASF Consulting Ltd.

  Founder of a specialist advisory firm focused on the power & influence of the Inclusion of Diversity. Inclusion empowers organisations to attract and retain the best talent and enables this talent to be at their best everyday. Transformation focus - business, culture and strategy. Start-up and Scale-Up expertise. Advisory Board Member of Irish Tech Society. Senior international executive with over 20 years' experience, the majority of which gained while living and working in London and Paris.
  
  Mark also works as an Executive Coach (for example via the University College Dublin (UCD) MBA Coaching Panel, and the UCD CEMS Mentoring Panel) and has been accredited as a Senior Practitioner by the European Mentoring & Coaching Council. 

• 

  Joeli Brearley Founder & CEO

  Pregnant Then Screwed

  Joeli founded Pregnant Then Screwed in 2015 after her own experience of pregnancy discrimination. She writes for the Telegraph, is the winner of the Northern Power Women Agent for Change award, is an Amnesty International Human Rights Defender and a member of the United Nations Working Group: Women’s Human Rights in the Changing World of Work. In January 2021 she took the Government to court for indirect sex discrimination due to the way self employed mothers were being financially penalised by the income support scheme. Her debut book: ”Pregnant Then Screwed: The Truth about the Motherhood Penalty, and how to fix it’’ was published by Simon & Schuster on the 4th March 2021

• 

  Uruemu Adejinmi Chairperson of Longford Municipal District, Longford County Council

  Cllr Uruemu Adejinmi is mayor of Longford municipal district, marking a series of firsts for the county, as she is the first migrant, first African and first black female to become mayor.

  Uruemu’s election as Cathaoirleach of Longford Municipal District also makes her the country’s first female African mayor. Her journey into politics began in 2016 when she supported a candidate in a local election. Shortly afterwards, her neighbour asked her to join Fianna Fáil.

  In 2018, she undertook an internship with the Immigrant Council of Ireland, shadowing Joe Flaherty while he was a local councillor. In 2020, Mr Flaherty became a TD and Uruemu was co-opted to his seat.

  Uruemu is passionate about getting information across to diverse community groups to help them to get access to services and support, and encouraging political parties to engage more actively with migrants.

• 

  Raafi-Karim Alidina Consultant & Author

  Included

  Raafi-Karim Alidina is a consultant at Included, where he designs and implements behavioural insights interventions to improve equality, diversity, and create inclusive cultures in organizations. Raafi is co-author of Building an Inclusive Organization: Leveraging the Power of a Diverse Workforce.

  His research on using behavioural economics for inclusion in organisations and the development of a behavioural measure for inclusion as part of his Masters in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School was awarded the Jane Mansbridge Research Award, and the Susan C Eaton Memorial Prize for the top HKS Masters Thesis in Social Policy.

• 

  Nuala Murphy Interim Head of Business

  Diversity Mark

  Head of Business Diversity Mark - the awarding authority on Diversity and Inclusion across the UK and Ireland. Nuala has been described by the Irish Times as “one of the next generation of female business leaders in the North.”

  A community builder and connector by nature, Nuala has been an impassioned advocate for women’s equality with a deep commitment to creating workplaces where every person has a seat at the table and a chance to be heard.  With a deep expertise in D&I issues and experience building communities that empower and connect people across differences. 

  As a diversity and inclusion leader and President of the lean in Belfast Network and President Elect of Lean In UK & Ireland Council, Nuala has led and scaled the Lean In movement across Ireland for more than 7 years, a global community of women who led grassroots groups in countries like Iraq, India, and the United States, which bolstered her ability to work across cultures and race. 

• 

  Jo Berry Founder

  Building Bridges for Peace

  Jo Berry is an inspiring speaker who works to resolve conflict around the world. Sixteen years after her father was killed by an IRA bomb, Jo first met with the man responsible, Pat Magee. This initial three-hour meeting led to them speaking on over three hundred occasions, on a shared platform around the world. Their unusual relationship has been told in the BBC documentary "Facing the Enemy", was featured in the film "Beyond Right and Wrong", and inspired "The Bomb", a play by Kevin Dyer.

  The founder of the charity ‘Building Bridges for Peace’, Jo advocates that unbounded empathy is the biggest weapon we have to end conflict. With political, religious and racial divides deepening as global and local events unfold, her words offer a message of hope and encourage us all to see the humanity in others.

• 

  Dr. Barbara Covarrubias Venegas Keynote Speaker | Executive Coach | Author & Passionate Dancer

  Barbara is an Expert for New Ways of Working & Digital Leadership | Virtual Learning Journeys. She defines herself as a Virtual Enthusiast, researcher by education, speaker by passion and author by results. She is passionate about New Ways of Working & Learning, Positive Leadership & CULTURE overall. For the past 10 years, she has been very involved with the intercultural community across the globe, not only as a researcher or professional, but also as a virtual team leader and team member.

  She works and teaches in English, Spanish, Italian and German. Besides, she is a passionate dancer (13+ dancing styles) and developed a training concept with the title "Dance your way into hybrid leadership".

• 

  Seònaid Ó Murchadha Workplace Coordinator

  See Change - The National Mental Health Stigma Reduction Partner

  Founder of Amputee Disability Federation Ireland, Seònaid Ó Murchadha (pronounced ‘Show-nid Oh Muraku’) has been promoting the employment of disabled people for more than two decades, regularly contributing pieces across news media, Irish national radio, and television.

  With certification from the International Disability Management Standards Council as well as recognition from the Canadian National Institute of Disability Management & Research (NIDMAR), she helps organisations embrace disability and difference by providing creative solutions to disability inclusion at work, facilitating inclusive recruitment processes, and advising on policy. She also represents the Independent Living Movement Ireland on employment issues at government level and was honoured to be elected to their board of directors last year. She currently lectures at Maynooth University on Disability Studies and provides HR support for members of the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association.

  Nicknamed the Bionic Business Woman by broadcaster Conall Ó Morain when she received her new bionic arm in 2017, she uses the moniker as her social media handle as it is much easier for others to spell or remember!

• 

  Rob Hopkin Co-founder

  Axis

  Rob is a co-founder of Axis, a virtual collaboration platform designed to help organisations harness the power of diverse teams through inclusive, engaging and effective workshops and meetings. Rob is a firm believer in the wisdom of crowds and the power of diverse minds to solve big problems and re-imagine the world. His goal is to provide technology that makes it simple and easy for anyone to design and run meetings and workshops where every voice is heard.

• 

  Ciara Fulton Partner, Head of Office

  Lewis Silkin LLP

  Ciara Fulton is partner and Head of Lewis Silkin (NI) LLP.

  Ciara is dual qualified and advises on all aspects of employment law in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. She has significant experience of advising clients on the full range of employment issues including complex discrimination issues, bullying and harassment claims, disciplinary and grievance matters, business reorganisations, senior executive severances, restrictive covenants, employment related litigation and TUPE.

  Ciara’s approach is to partner with clients providing practical, commercial advice to resolve HR issues whether contentious or non-contentious. Ciara works with a variety of sectors with particular experience in the construction and infrastructure sector.

  Ciara regularly speaks on a range of employment issues at internal and external events and delivers bespoke training to clients on the differences between NI and ROI employment law. Ciara is a member of the Employment Lawyers Group and the NI Representative for the Employment Lawyers Association. Ciara is also a legally qualified member of the Appeals Tribunals NI.

• 

  Patrick White Head of International Growth

  Applied

  Patrick is Head of International Growth at Applied, working as a leading trainer on D&I issues including how to create fairness and remove bias from recruitment processes.