2016 Speakers
Sian Harrington
Conference Chairman
Publishing Director, HR Magazine
In her role as publishing director at independent media company MA Business, Siân is responsible for delivering the business plan and content strategies for HR magazine, Land Mobile, Tetra Today, B-APCO Journal, the Energy from Waste conference as well as creating and delivering new projects.
As an award-winning and trained journalist, Siân has worked in business publishing and media for 26 years, covering sectors as diverse as hospitality, retail and food and drink to marketing, design and human resources.
Her passion is connecting people to quality content that matters to them and she has spent the last 10 years working on HR magazine, a UK-based media brand aimed at forward-thinking senior HR professionals and business leaders who want insight into the best people strategies, policies and practices to help them develop high-performing organisations
(www.hrmagazine.co.uk).
At HR magazine Siân has launched the HR Most Influential ranking, HR Legal Service and the HR in the Boardroom personal development and networking group for senior HR directors, which she co-founded with Wayne Clarke of The Global Growth Institute and CEO coach Steve Tappin of Xinfu.
Prior to her current role, Siân had board responsibility for 11 titles within the Mark Allen Group, including music titles Gramophone, Jazzwise and Songlines.
Away from MA Business, Siân is a non-executive director of internationally-renowned leadership institute Roffey Park, is a proud aunt and is step-mum to three teenagers.
Chris Lynch
Travel & Logistics lead
PA Consulting
Chris works with clients in the Transport,Travel and Logistics sector to help them deliver business transformation. He has extensive operations consulting experience and for the last 5 years has worked exclusively for clients in Air Transport. He has a track record of delivering dramatic improvements in costs and performance through a mix of process, people and technology.
Chris has an MBA from Warwick Business School and a Law Degree (LLB Hons) from the University of London.
Dr Sarah Flaherty
Director
IHP Solutions
Dr Sarah Flaherty is an independent human performance specialist with broad experience across the aviation, rail and petrochemical industries, having held posts in Quality, Safety, Human Factors and HR.
Specialising in the development and delivery of solutions to address cultural, engagement and human performance issues, Sarah has worked with both civil aviation and military organisations, fixed wing and rotary, around the world, providing coaching, training and surveys to operators, regulators, manufacturers and airports. In addition, Sarah works with Clockwork Research, fatigue risk management specialists active in the aviation, oil and gas and mining sectors.
Sarah obtained her first degree in Psychology at the University of Manchester and her PhD at Cranfield University. She is a member of the British Psychological Society and the BPS Special Group in Coaching Psychology as well as Secretary of the Royal Aeronautical Society Human Factors Group: Engineering.
Dr Stephen Bevan
Director of the Centre for Workforce Effectiveness, The Work Foundation &
Honorary Professor, Lancaster University Management School
Stephen is Director of the Centre for Workforce Effectiveness at The Work Foundation and an Honorary Professor at Lancaster University. Stephen has conducted research on high-performance work practices, employee reward strategy, staff engagement and retention and Good Work. He has a special interest in workforce health and wellbeing, leading a number of national and international projects focusing on workforce health and the impact of chronic illness on productivity and social inclusion.
He is an advisor to a number of UK government departments and has advised employers and policymakers in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Australasia and North America. In 2014 he was named the 6th most influential HR thinker in the UK and received a special award from GAMIAN-Europe for his contribution to the field of mental health. Stephen is a reviewer for several academic journals, including The Lancet, a regular columnist for HR Magazine, a judge at the Global Healthy Workplace Awards and is a member of Public Health England’s Health & Work Advisory Board, the Health and Work Group of the Public Health Responsibility Deal and the British Society of Rheumatology International Strategy Group. Stephen is Chair of the UK Fit for Work Coalition and Director of The Work Foundation’s Health at work policy unit.
Wayne Clarke
Founder
The Global Growth Institute
Wayne Clarke is a founding partner of the Global Growth Institute based out of the UK/Netherlands, and from 2007 until 2012 was the managing and international partner of the advisory arm of Best Companies, who produce the Sunday Times Top 100 Companies lists. He began his career at Deloitte and went on to help BDO, the fifth largest accounting network, to achieve a top 20 ranking in the Sunday Times Best Companies lists. Wayne is an economics graduate and has spent over 16 years helping to improve the performance of organisations through improved people engagement. He works throughout the world designing and delivering strategic growth focused programmes within the private and public sector. To date he has worked with more than 500 CEOs/boards and thousands of managers in over 30 countries. He is also a co-founder of the ‘HR In The Boardroom’ programme delivered with Xinfu, the Chinese CEO advisory specialists. Wayne is an international keynote speaker and has been recognised for three consecutive years by HR Magazine as one of the top 25 “Most Influential Thinkers” and is a visiting lecturer on the MBA programme at Cass Business School in London and Dubai. In 2012 at the New York JCI/UN Partnership Summit, he was formally recognised as a JCI Ambassador for his work in promoting the principles of JCI and the United Nations Foundation; previous recipients of this ambassadorship include current UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki Moon. In July 2014 he was invited to speak alongside Chelsea Clinton at the UN in New York.
Michael Jenkins
Chief Executive Officer
Roffey Park Institute
Michael completed his education in the UK with a degree from Durham University in Chinese Studies.He left the UK to study Japanese language, politics and economics at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan on a Rotary Foundation scholarship after which, as the company's first British employee in Japan, he worked for Toyota as a motor industry analyst for four years. Following his return to the UK in 1988, Michael worked at the University of Bath as Director of the University's Foreign Languages Centre and in 1993 went to Australia on a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship to research the training of Japanese and English interpreters. This resulted in the establishment of the UK’s first MA in Interpreting and Translating for Japanese and English, and Chinese and English. In 1999 he joined the business school INSEAD, based in France, as Regional Director for Japan and Korea, transferring to Singapore in 2001 to become Director of the school’s Executive Education Department. After eight years in Singapore working in executive education and leadership development, Michael joined Roffey Park as Chief Executive in 2009. Michael regularly contributes at conferences on leadership-related topics and has a keen interest in leadership in a global context. He presented at the Singapore Human Capital Summit in 2010 and contributed to the Singapore Ministry of Manpower’s publication Asian Leadership: What Works (edited by Dave Ulrich and Robert Sutton) in the areas of collective purpose, multi-culture and culture, and leadership transition in Asia. He has given presentations on leadership “East-West, North-South” and strategic leadership and change at the University of Cambridge (Judge Business School), International Christian University in Tokyo and the Human Resources (HRDergi) Forum in Istanbul. He contributed to the 2013 publication The 50 Best Business Leaders (Future Publishing) and was named by HR Magazine in the UK as one of the top 20 HR Thinkers in 2013. He is currently developing ideas around balancing compassionate and caring leadership with delivering results and achieving targets.
Eugenio Pirri
VP, People & Organisational Development
Dorchester Collection
In the last 18 months, Eugenio and his team have won more than 18 prestigious HR awards, including the Gold Award at the HR Excellence Awards, with Eugenio himself winning both HR Director of the Year and Reader's Choice HRD in 2014. These awards come as a result of the continued success of the business over the last four years, achieved through a holistic approach to people management and organisational development.
Eugenio Pirri is a hospitality stalwart with a career spanning over 27 years; beginning in reservations and then food and beverage, before making the transition into people leadership. This transition has seen him work in various hotel companies including Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Pan Pacific Hotels and Delta Hotels and Resources, operating and managing in several countries such as Canada, the US, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, China and the UK.
As Vice President, people and organisational development for the London-based Dorchester Collection, Eugenio and his team are responsible for all aspects of Human Resources, Learning and Development, Employee & Guest Engagement, Innovation and Corporate Responsibility, working with all functions in the business to ensure our people are the cornerstone of every business decision. He received his Certified Human Resources Professional designation in 2002 in Canada and in 2014 achieved his Chartered Fellow status with CIPD.
Dr Christoph Wahl
Head of Global Business Services Practice
Egon Zehnder
Christoph Wahl, based in Berlin, leads Egon Zehnder's global Services Practice. He is deeply experienced across transportation, travel and hospitality and is a trusted advisor to professional services and technology services organizations. Christoph counsels international clients in CEO succession and conducts global-reach executive search for a range of leadership roles including CEO, COO, CCO, executive chairman, head of strategy & planning, and head of supply chain management.
Prior to joining Egon Zehnder, Christoph was an Associate Principal with McKinsey & Company, based in Berlin/Zurich, where he worked with transport, travel, logistics, and aviation industry clients across Europe, Africa, and the US, developing broad knowledge in organization design as well as large-scale change programs. Christoph started his career as a project manager and scientific assistant at the Institute for Operations Research in St. Gallen, Switzerland, focusing on distribution logistics and inventory control.
Christoph earned an MA in Business Administration at University of Augsburg and a PhD in Management Science from University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland.
Daniel Gallo
Group People Director
Manchester Airports Group
Justine James
Chief Executive Officer
Talent Smoothie
Justine James makes it her business to understand what motivates and engages people at work. She is future focused and leads on-going research into Gen Y, Gen Z, the ageing population and the changing world of work. Before founding talentsmoothie she held senior management and consulting roles in top professional services firms such as PwC. She uses her 20 years of in-house and consulting experience to help her clients' organisations connect better with their people and create environments where people can thrive and do their best work.
Justine has a BA Honours Degree in Economic and Social History from Exeter University, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (FCIPD) and sailed around the world at the age of 22.
Ashley Hever
Talent Acquisition Manager for UK and Ireland
Enterprise Rent A Car
After graduating with a degree in Criminology from The University of Hull, Ashley joined Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Within a management development programme he developed through the organisation to become Area Manager. In 2008 he was appointed UK and Ireland Talent Acquisition Manager, with responsibility for all aspects of activity, from recruitment strategy through to on-boarding and retention.
Steve Girdler
CEO
HireRight
Steve Girdler is HireRight's Managing Director for EMEA and APAC, responsible for growing HireRight's client base and capabilities in the regions with offices in various locations including UK, Poland and Singapore.
Steve joined HireRight in April 2013 from a background in executive management, business development, marketing and product development with expertise in the resourcing, HR solutions and professional services industries. He has worked for KPMG as well as some of the largest names in the resourcing and outsourcing industry such as Manpower, Kelly Services and Adecco. In his most recent role at Adecco he was Director of London 2012, a three year endeavour that included the successful recruitment and delivery of 8,300 staff for the Olympic games as well as the management of the Adecco Olympic sponsorship. The project was lauded in the media and Government for delivering the most diverse and inclusive games ever through the development of innovative tools and programs.
Tom Willis
Director, Security
Heathrow Airport
Tom Willis has been leading teams in large organisations for the past twenty years. Specialising in change through engagement, Tom believes customer satisfaction starts and ends with how colleagues connect with their roles. Tom spent 12 years at Royal Mail, the UKs postal services provider leading teams of up to 15,000 people. In 2012 Tom joined Heathrow Airport initially as Operations Director T4 before moving to the role of Director Security, a position he has held for the last two and a half years. Within this role Tom leads Heathrow’s security function of 4000 people and is accountable for maintaining security across the airports terminals and perimeter control posts. Over the past two years Tom and his leadership team have made significant progress changing the culture within the function which has transformed regulatory compliance standards, passenger service and efficiency levels. Tom holds an MBA from City Business School London and is set to conclude an MSc in Coaching and Behavioural Change at Henley Business School later in 2016.
