Speakers

Kelly Beaver is Chief Executive of Ipsos in the UK and Ireland, where she has worked for over a decade, previously leading their public affairs division.  Prior to this, she started her career in economic consulting for KPMG and PwC. She is regular commentator in the national press and broadcast media on societal and consumer trends across a range of topics including trust, gender equality, employee engagement, leadership, and many others. Kelly holds a Senior Research Fellowship at Nuffield College Oxford, and Kings College London, and was awarded an MBE in June 2022 for services to academia, research and the covid response.  She was named as one of 100 Women to Watch in Cranfield University’s FTSE Board Report, 2022.

Isabel Berwick is editor of FT Work & Careers, covering all aspects of our working lives, management, leadership, wellness and the future of work. 

She joined the FT in 1999 at the height of the dotcom book and has since held a variety of senior commissioning roles at the paper.

She was previously personal finance editor and business editor of the Independent on Sunday.  

Jo Bibby is Director of Health at the Health Foundation.

Jo is responsible for leading the Foundation’s Healthy Lives strategy to create the opportunities for everyone to lead a healthy life.

Joining the Foundation in November 2007, Jo initially led the Foundation’s influential portfolio of work in patient safety and person-centred care.  

Jo has worked in health care at local and national level for 25 years, including 10 years at the Department of Health. As Head of NHS Performance, she oversaw the implementation of the policy agenda set out in the NHS Plan. At the NHS Modernisation Agency, Jo led an international quality improvement initiative – Pursuing Perfection.

Before joining the Foundation, Jo was the Director for the Calderdale and Kirklees Integrated Service Strategy where she led a major service reconfiguration programme to deliver improvements in quality, safety and patient experience.

She is a trustee at the Centre for Homelessness Impact and from June 2021 a non-executive director at Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust.

Jo has a PhD in Medical Biophysics.

Professor Dame Carol Black is currently Chair of the British Library, the Centre for Ageing Better, and Think Ahead, the Government’s fast-stream training programme for Mental Health Social Workers. She chairs NHS Improvement’s Advisory Board on Employee Health and Wellbeing, and is Adviser to NHSI and on Health and Work. She is also a member of RAND Europe’s Council of Advisers, and of the Board of UKActive.

She recently completed her seven-year term as Principal of Newnham College Cambridge, where she was a Deputy Vice-Chancellor. She still sits on the University’s Advisory Board for the Centre of Science and Public Policy, and the Strategy Board on Student Mental Health and Wellbeing. She is a Patron of the Women’s Leadership Centre in the Judge Business School. Dame Carol has completed three independent reviews for the UK Government: of the health of the working-age population in 2008 as National Director for Health and Work; of sickness absence in Britain in 2011 as co-chair; and of employment outcomes of addiction to drugs or alcohol, or obesity, in 2016.

In February 2019 the Home Secretary announced that Dame Carol would lead an independent review on illicit drugs, demand, supply and treatment. Professor Black is a past-President of the Royal College of Physicians, of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, and of the British Lung Foundation, and past-Chair of the Nuffield Trust for health policy. The Centre she established at the Royal Free Hospital in London is internationally renowned for research and treatment of connective tissue diseases such as scleroderma. She has recently been a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.

Justin Boxall has been with Mars Inc 26 years. During his early career in Sales Leadership, he found his passion for developing people and helping them to achieve their full potential in a supportive environment. This led to moving into HR, supporting people through transformation projects, and leading Mars UK’s initiatives in Diversity &Inclusion. In 2022 he moved into ‘the best job in Mars’ – Health and Wellbeing Manager and is responsible for leading a team of Occupational Health and Wellbeing professionals to ensure all Mars UK associates are fully supported in their physical and mental health, and can thrive at work.

Jeremy Gautrey-Jones has been the Assistant Director of Employee Experience with the RSPCA since 2020, working as a core member of the people and culture leadership team, driving through vast improvements to the employee experience to create a modern and inclusive culture. He has extensive experience in developing and maintaining employee relations strategies in small to large sized organisations, as well as leading effective negotiations at the most senior levels at a UK and European level on a wide range of issues. Jeremy is an experienced employment law practitioner, who can undertake and oversee complex case management and investigations.

Lea Ghanem is Co-Chair of the Wellbeing Blend; Senior Strategy and Business Planning Manager with Starbucks EMEA, where she has been working for the past three years. In her day job, she works in Strategy and Business Planning, she is also a trained Mental Health First Aider and alongside her colleague Robert Wigmore, is the co-chair of the Wellbeing Blend at Starbucks. Lea is passionate about breaking down the stigma surrounding mental health, driving more open conversations on wellbeing, and supporting people to embrace themselves, no matter where they sit on their wellbeing journey.

Dr Heather McKee is a lifestyle behaviour change specialist. Having studied health behaviour change psychology for 10 years, her mission is to offer a sustainable, evidence-based alternative to an industry saturated with quick fixes and health fads. Globally Heather has worked with over 100+ companies in 15+ industries to create evidence-based wellness programs, deliver keynote talks on how to create a sustainable lifestyle change and help people find joy in their healthy habits through her Sticky Habit Method. Her research has been published internationally in leading academic journals, as well as featuring in Time magazine, Vogue, Huffington Post, The Times, and LA Times.

Ryan Hopkins is the Future of Wellbeing Lead at Deloitte.

Ryan Hopkins is on a mission to engage 1 billion people in the betterment of wellbeing. He is the Future of Wellbeing Leader at Deloitte, Host of the Audacious Goals Club, Creator of Toilet Break Wellbeing, TEDx Speaker and soon to be Published Author – ’52 Weeks of Wellbeing: a no-nonsense guide to a fulfilling work life’ will be available in January 2024. Ryan’s work has positively influenced the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. He shares his personal story of bulimia, depression, anxiety openly and has reached over 6 million on social media, recently being announced Global Emerging Wellbeing Leader of the Year and is currently a finalist for UK Storyteller of the Year.

Karen manages benefits across the EMEA region at Microsoft, with extensive experience in the UK and recently branching out into Middle East and Africa. Karen has a passion for wellbeing and ensuring employees are supported during those ‘moments that matter’. Whilst companies are invested in expanding benefits to support more inclusive health matters – such as fertility, gender dysphoria, and menopause, Karen is committed to ensuring the support extends to how these life events are managed in the workplace, through allyship and manager capability.

Recognising the importance of providing employees with opportunities for social connection, Karen co-founded the Families employee resource group at Microsoft UK, providing a community for employees to connect and share experiences, and to support each other through the challenges of family life.

Carole Spiers currently serves as the Chair of the International Stress Management Association (ISMA).  On their behalf, she founded Stress Awareness Day in 1998 and to recognise its anniversary in 2018, established International Stress Awareness Week in 2018. She is also a leading international business stress consultant and CEO of the Carole Spiers Group. With her background in psychology, Carole has over 25 years of experience as an industry expert on how to reduce stress and manage organisational change. She shows organisations how they can profit from a healthy workplace culture by building resilience for improved health and wellbeing. Carole has published books such as Tolley’s Managing Stress in the Workplace and Show Stress Who’s Boss! She is a Fellow and past President of the Professional Speaking Association.

Sean Tolram has over 20 years of experience in the corporate world, leading digital teams at IBM, Arcadia and HSBC. He now heads up the HSBC Mindfulness Team where he is helping employees to nurture their brains and achieve their true potential. Sean believes that by moving out of fight or flight mode, where many of us usually are, we can open up the true potential of our brains. In his early career he saw too many colleagues fall victim to stress-related illness. And he was surprised by the fact that many of them took time off to recover, only to return and go through the same cycle all over again. Sean promotes the idea that work should be good for you. It should motivate and energise you, and give you a sense of fulfilment. However, studies have shown that employees are experiencing higher levels of stress and anxiety than ever. And reports of burnout and exhaustion continue to increase year after year. Sean is passionate about reversing this trend by creating healthy systems in the workplace which enable long term culture change.

Robert Wigmore is Co-Chair of the Wellbeing Blend; Senior Manager Total Reward and Analytics at Starbucks EMEA, where he has been working for over three years. He leads the Total Rewards Team and so has an element of wellbeing in his day job. Alongside his colleague Lea Ghanem, he is the co-chair of the Wellbeing Blend at Starbucks. Having faced his own mental health struggles, Robert would like people to understand that this is not to be ashamed of, and know from experience, that if you get help you will get better.  That is what the Wellbeing Blend Network is set up to achieve.

Mariyana Zhou is an HR Director at Boson Protocol, a Web3 fully remote global tech company aimed at revolutionising the world of eCommerce. She is focused on delivering a people and culture strategy for the digital nomads workforce of the future. Balancing between employee engagement in the Metaverse, global benefits regulatory compliance and ‘new gen’ wellbeing trends, she is paving the way for HR professionals and is always willing to share lessons learned. Before joining Boson Protocol, Mariyana worked as a HR consultant at PwC, supporting international clients with their people strategy and projects. She holds a Chartered Fellow CIPD membership and a degree in HR Management.