General Sir David Richards is the highest ranking General in the British Army, with over 35 years operational experience having completed regimental duties and commanded in various countries such as Germany, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan. From 2006-7 Sir David was responsible as commander of NATO international forces in Southern Afghanistan elevating him to his current role, Commander in Chief Land Command on 1 February 2008. General Sir David will present a unique study upon leadership at this year’s summit and will focus on operational effectiveness, recruiting and retention of high quality people and promoting high performance in multinational/multicultural teams with a military perspective.

Dr. Edward de Bono is regarded as one of the world’s most outstanding thinkers in the field of creative thinking as an explicit skill. Inventor of Lateral Thinking, Dr de Bono has written 75 books and consulted with major corporations and governments in more than 50 countries in the last 30 years. Referred to as a creative genius, his techniques can change an entire company’s performance by teaching employees to think in a more efficient manner. The essence of Dr. de Bono’s work has been to produce thinking techniques that are simple, practical and effective such as his renowned Six Thinking Hats method. Dr. de Bono will open this year’s HR Directors Business Summit with an enthralling keynote discussing the power of lateral thinking and the methodologies associated with constructing creative thinking that have been utilised by companies and people world wide to think differently.

As Vice President, Global Human Resources Services, Penny oversees the development and implementation of processes and improved technologies that enhance the global delivery of human resources for AstraZeneca. Penny joined AstraZeneca in 2004 as Vice President, U.S. Human Resources. During her tenure, she is credited with building an industry-leading workforce and helping to establish a successful strategic direction for the company’s U.S. business. Penny began her career in 1987 as a Tax Associate with Coopers & Lybrand. During her 10 years there, she assumed the lead role for human resources in the tax business division. She later served as Vice President—Human Resources for CIGNA Corporation and the Internet Capital Group. In 2002, she joined Amersham Health as Vice President—Human Resources for its North American business. Prior to her current role, Penny served as Vice President—Organization and Management Development for Amersham PLC. She has lived and worked in both Japan and the United Kingdom.

David has enjoyed a rich and varied career in Human Resources. Since joining Lucas Industries as a Graduate Trainee, he has built an HR department from scratch for Transport Development Group; was the youngest Group Manager at H J Heinz; and was European Director of Recruitment and Leadership Planning for SmithKline Beecham where he ran a large shared services department and took the company to “European Employer of Choice” in its sector. David moved to Tesco Stores in November 2000 as Group Resourcing Director and was quickly given the additional accountability of Corporate HR Director. In May 2005 David joined McDonald’s Restaurants Ltd as Vice President of People, and in January 2007 was promoted to Senior Vice President, Chief People Officer – Northern Europe with responsibility for HR, Training, Education, and Customer Services. In July 2006 David was voted HR Director of the Year by readers of HR Magazine and in June 2007 and June 2008 he secured No.1 position in Personnel Today’s Top-40 HR Power Players list. In October 2008 David was voted CIB Business Communicator of the Year.

Johanna is the HR Director for Germany, a key member of the European HR leadership team and Managing Director of Dow Deutschland's headquarters. Johanna's challenges include the development of an aligned workforce, business environment and labour relations in Germany. Also to plan and execute re-structuring, mergers, divestitures, acquisitions, and JVs, emphasizing change management, labour relations and strategic resource planning. Previous to Dow Johanna has held senior roles at Huhtamaki responsible for global compensation & benefits and Ericsson. Johanna will present an informed keynote looking at how Dow is restructuring the business and HR function following a $10bn global joint venture.

Matthew Brearley was appointed UK HR Director at Vodafone in 2006 having previously worked at British Foods, B&Q and Marks and Spencer. At M&S Matthew’s role involved overseeing the People Strategy and transformation of HR for a workforce of 57,000 employees across 320 stores. He is currently applying his skills and experience to drive performance and efficiencies at Vodafone. Matthew holds a key role on the UK board working closely with Vodafone’s UK CEO Nick Read. Brearley is truly focussed on HR at the heart of business and will discuss how Vodafone is managing changing and adapting to a tough marketplace and the critical role of leaders within times of change.

Jennie Monon is currently the Head of HR, Operations & IT Banking following her recent role as Global Head of Talent Management for ING Group. Previous to these roles, Jennie was HR Director for the green field organisation of ING Direct in the UK, building this organisation from scratch to being #5 in the FT’s Best Workplaces List of 2007. Jennie is a career veteran of Hewlett Packard holding senior Business Consulting roles before moving into Human Resources in the early 90s. Jennie has held positions in Compensation & Benefits; Learning & Development and Business Partnerships at country, European and Global Levels in both small software houses and major corporations. Jennie will provide an insight into the talent process for 130,000 staff, brokering and moving talent across the globe and the implementation of new succession planning techniques at ING.

David Clutterbuck is one of Europe's most prolific and well-known management writers and thinkers. David was recently ranked in the top 15 most influential thinkers in HR by HR Magazine’s annual survey. Visiting professor in the coaching and mentoring faculties of both Sheffield Hallam and Oxford Brookes Universities and co-founder of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, David brought the concept of structured mentoring to Europe in the early 1980s. Through his research, writing and promotion of good practice, he has been central to the development of European approaches to coaching and mentoring - 12 of nearly 50 books are devoted to this topic area. David leads an international consulting practice specialising in helping organisations build the internal capacity to make coaching and mentoring work in their environments. His most recent book is Coaching the Team at Work.

Stephan Thoma is Head of Learning and Development for Google in Europe, Middle East and Africa. His focus is on ensuring the learning agenda supports Google scale for the future whilst retaining and building its innovative and distinct culture. Stephan joined Google in 2006 to help build the learning strategy, deliverables and team for Google and previously he has held senior learning and talent development roles at NTL, Cisco Systems and GE.

Originally trained as a digital systems engineer, Hugh’s early career was in the Royal Air Force, managing professional engineering training and major redesign of training approaches for engineering. After moving to Barclays in 1995, Hugh broadened into organisation design and development, especially of service operations needing significant technology enabled change. He moved to Barclays Group in 2000 where he designed, set up, and headed HR service operations for the UK plc. In 2003 Hugh was recruited to Transport for London at its inception under the new Mayoral powers. He set up the post-merger HR function, and then led it as Group HR Director, creating and implementing the IR framework, senior management compensation and benefit, performance management, and talent approaches. Hugh moved to BT in November 2006, initially as HR Director Wholesale Operations, and from July 2007 as HR Director BT Wholesale Markets.

Alan started his career in vehicle design and development with Ford Motor Company, and IT systems development with BAe, BT, and a software house now part of EDS. Alan then joined PwC, where he spent 10 years consulting to clients on change, innovation, leadership and performance improvement, as well as working on culture/performance change programmes internally, developing new services, and training partners. Attempting to avoid a life dominated by SAP projects, Alan left PwC in 1998 and set up his own consulting business, with clients including AOL, BT, Ford, and Shell. In 2006 Alan joined the central team at BP which oversees development for 18,000 leaders worldwide, where his constant question now is how to provide differentiated leadership development for businesses as varied as subsea exploration, high-street retail, refining, shipping, and wind/solar, and making sure all of them deliver tangible business benefits.

Peter started his career in 1985 with Westminster Council and then went on to work in planning at the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC). Peter redeployed into HR at the LDDC in 1993 including managing a highly successful career development programme. In 1995 he completed an M.Sc. in Public Service Management at South Bank University gaining a distinction dissertation was on Exit Strategies for organisations. In 1998 Peter went to work for Canary Wharf Group as Deputy Personnel Manager. In 1999 moved to WNSL and another successful career development programme was linked to the closure of the Stadium and Peter continued to work on HR but also on operational planning for the new building. He was heavily involved in the financial close process for the new stadium and planned for its reopening including being the event owner for the first test event. Peter is an active member of the event day team and is now working on the move and integration of the Football Association (The FA which is the parent company and owner) into the new Stadium. He has recently been nominated for HR Director of the Year 2008 by Human Resources Magazine.

Ed has recently been appointed as the Chair of Acas following 7 years as the Deputy General Secretary of Amicus. Acas aims to improve organisations and working life through better employment relations. Provide up-to-date information, independent advice, high quality training and working with employers and employees to solve problems and improve performance. At the 2009 conference Ed will share insights into the latest employee relations codes and current Acas best practice in this area.

Baugur Group is an international investment company focussing on investments within the fields of retail, financial investments and media in Iceland, the UK, and Scandinavia. Companies related to Baugur Group employ some 75,000 people worldwide in over 4,300 stores with a total turnover of £9.8 billion. Among Baugur's principal retail investments are Iceland, Hamleys, MK One, Jane Norman, Mosaic Fashions and House of Fraser. Nadine is responsible for strategic and operational HR across the Baugur Group in the UK, Iceland and Denmark. She will discuss HR's challenges to promote ethical, green and responsible company values to attract the correct employees.

Siân Thomas is deputy director at NHS Employers, driving key work areas including workforce planning and productivity, recruitment and retention, equality and diversity. A key focus of Siân’s work is ensuring that NHS Jobs delivers a high quality, cost-effective recruitment service that also functions as a key tool for workforce planning and management. Siân is currently managing and will present information on the NHS business performance and productivity measurement survey; incorporating trends from 5 years of the NHS staff survey, the largest staff survey in the world, to understand and measure productivity against patient satisfaction and the value of staff.

Over the last four years Nicki has overseen considerable cultural and operational change within the organisation, not least an acquisition by an American based private equity group and the formation of the European Division. This has been a critical step in preparing the business for aggressive expansion and saw Nicki appointed to the Senior Management Team. The company is now about to embark on a rapid European growth strategy and it plans to open an additional 400 stores across 10 countries in the next 3 years. Life is never dull at Claire’s and Nicki has ensured that HR is at the heart of the business and plays a key role when driving through a complex pan European change program. Nicki will be talking about the HR challenges of implementing a complex pan European change program and how she has managed to get HR to the heart of the business and top of the senior exec board’s agenda.

Ian Iceton is Human Resources Director at Volkswagen Group UK, with a head office in Milton Keynes employing 533 staff and indirectly a further 1500 people. Ian achieved a BSc in Business Studies from City University, is a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, and has an MBA. Ian began his career in the City before joining Volkswagen Group in March 1992. For the last eight years he has held his current position. During that time Volkswagen Group UK has been in the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For on three occasions, and has also won awards for their excellent Pension Scheme.

Nick Worrall is UK HR Director of National Grid with responsibility for all HR centres of expertise across the UK, including Resourcing, Learning & Development, Compensation & Benefits, Pensions, Employee Relations and Inclusion & Diversity. Nick’s current strategic focus is to drive the successful globalisation of National Grid’s HR function. Prior to joining National Grid, Nick has worked in a senior HR capacity with AstraZeneca, First Caribbean Bank and Barclays.

Sandy Begbie is HR Director of AEGON UK plc. He is a member of AEGON UK Executive team reporting directly to Otto Thoresen, CEO of AEGON UK. Sandy joined AEGON UK in August 2007 and previously during his seven-year career at Scottish Power and, before that, his time at the Royal Bank of Scotland, had responsibility for a range of functions including Leadership, Management and Talent Development, Business Change, Organisation Development, and Training and Reward.

As the Human Resources Director of European Operations for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Donna Miller oversees all aspects of people development for Enterprise in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany, which includes more than 4,700 employees. In her 18 years with the company, she has been instrumental in the recruitment growth for Enterprise in the U.S., Canada and Europe and now serves as one of the company’s officers. After serving as Human Resources Manager in Southern California, Donna was promoted to the position of Group Human Resources Manager, and oversaw HR operations for four states in the New York/New Jersey area of the country. In 1999, she was promoted to Corporate Human Resources Manager, and moved to Enterprise’s corporate headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. In this position, Donna provided support and assistance to Enterprise operating groups in Canada. After one year, she moved to a similar role to work with European operations. In 2002, Donna was promoted to the position of Assistant Vice President/HR Director of Enterprise’s human resources operations in Europe.

Chester Elton is co-author of several successful leadership books including The Carrot Principle and The 24-Carrot Manager, both New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. Elton's books have been translated into over 20 languages and have sold over half a million copies worldwide. Chester is the senior vice president of the Carrot Culture Group with the O.C. Tanner Recognition Company. He serves as a recognition consultant to Fortune 100 firms such as DHL, KPMG, Wal-Mart and Avis Budget.

Mike is a highly experienced professional with a blue-chip background in strategic learning and development, in both internal and external consulting roles. Mike started his career in the Financial Services sector and progressed rapidly through front line operational roles before becoming Head of Learning for NatWest Group. He subsequently joined Oracle to head up learning in EMEA, before finally ‘jumping the fence’ to become a consultant with a US based HR consulting firm. Mike is a Hemsley Fraser Board Director. He has a highly results focused approach, which links investment in learning to impact on the business and ability to demonstrate application and value. Mike works closely on a variety of key client projects bringing strategic insight and direction to mission critical, strategic or large scale interventions and outsourcing projects.

Becta is the government’s lead agency for technology in learning. Stephen Crowne took up his appointment as Chief Executive in 2006, bringing a wealth of experience in education. After graduating from Cambridge University, he undertook a broad range of jobs in the Department for Education, including Principal Private Secretary to successive Secretaries of State. He left to become the first Chief Executive of the Further Education Development Agency. Returning to the Department in 1998 to become Head of Special Educational Needs Division, he went on to be Director of Operations in the Standards and Effectiveness Unit, Director of School Resources and latterly interim Director General for Schools.

Elaine is a member of the Learning & Development team at MBDA, a world leader in Missile systems, design and production. She has been a key player in the introduction and evolution of the managed service provision for training administration provided to MBDA (UK) by Hemsley Fraser Group, which commenced in 2002. Focusing on providing a seamless, value-for-money service to the MBDA end users, Elaine oversees and monitors the contractual demands of the partnership and maintains the strong working relationship with Hemsley. She facilitates the operation of this strategically important service which has a huge impact on the development of MBDA's individual employees.

Fiona Church is Dean of the Faculty of Business, Computing and Law at the University of Derby and a member of the University Corporate Management Team. The Faculty delivers a full service provision to 4,500 students, together with consultancy and research activity. The Faculty is a supporter of enterprise and business start up and is a lead player in delivering business support activity. Fiona is an employment law expert who regularly publishes in this field and delivers consultancy to industry. Manager to circa 120 academic, technical and administrative staff, Fiona is also well aware of the HR issues facing managers of today and the need for strong partnerships with HR to develop and enhance staff provision.

Sylvia Vogt is President of the Carnegie Bosch Institute for Applied Studies in International Management in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Carnegie Bosch Institute is a unique alliance between the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University and a global industry leader, established in 1990 through a major endowment from the Bosch Group headquartered in Germany. Before joining the CBI, Sylvia was Vice President, Corporate Affairs Americas at Robert Bosch LLC in Detroit, responsible for communications, external affairs and corporate strategic planning. Previously she held various managerial positions with the company in Illinois and Michigan. Sylvia began her career with Bosch in 1994 as a corporate attorney at the global headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. A particular focus in her current role work is providing seminars for advancing leadership in multicultural contexts.

Jennie Monon is currently the Head of HR, Operations & IT Banking following her recent role as Global Head of Talent Management for ING Group. Previous to these roles, Jennie was HR Director for the green field organisation of ING Direct in the UK, building this organisation from scratch to being #5 in the FT’s Best Workplaces List of 2007. Jennie is a career veteran of Hewlett Packard holding senior Business Consulting roles before moving into Human Resources in the early 90s. Jennie has held positions in Compensation & Benefits; Learning & Development and Business Partnerships at country, European and Global Levels in both small software houses and major corporations. Jennie will provide an insight into the talent process for 130,000 staff, brokering and moving talent across the globe and the implementation of new succession planning techniques at ING.

Ed has recently been appointed as the Chair of Acas following 7 years as the Deputy General Secretary of Amicus. Acas aims to improve organisations and working life through better employment relations. Provide up-to-date information, independent advice, high quality training and working with employers and employees to solve problems and improve performance. At the 2009 conference Ed will share insights into the latest employee relations codes and current Acas best practice in this area.

Sandy Begbie is HR Director of AEGON UK plc. He is a member of AEGON UK Executive team reporting directly to Otto Thoresen, CEO of AEGON UK. Sandy joined AEGON UK in August 2007 and previously during his seven-year career at Scottish Power and, before that, his time at the Royal Bank of Scotland, had responsibility for a range of functions including Leadership, Management and Talent Development, Business Change, Organisation Development, and Training and Reward.

Dr. Edward de Bono is regarded as one of the world’s most outstanding thinkers in the field of creative thinking as an explicit skill. Inventor of Lateral Thinking, Dr de Bono has written 75 books and consulted with major corporations and governments in more than 50 countries in the last 30 years. Referred to as a creative genius, his techniques can change an entire company’s performance by teaching employees to think in a more efficient manner. The essence of Dr. de Bono’s work has been to produce thinking techniques that are simple, practical and effective such as his renowned Six Thinking Hats method. Dr. de Bono will open this year’s HR Directors Business Summit with an enthralling keynote discussing the power of lateral thinking and the methodologies associated with constructing creative thinking that have been utilised by companies and people world wide to think differently.

Mark is the Partner in charge of KPMG People and Change practice which focuses on managing the people aspects associated with transformation programmes. Mark has over 20 years of experience in this area, working in industry for Excel Logistics for 10 years and subsequently KPMG.

Sara is the Sales and Marketing Director for DBM UK and has worked for DBM since 2004. Her current role involves increasing the DBM brand awareness in the UK through strategic marketing initiatives, effective relationship management of customer relationships and driving forward new business initiatives. Sara has over 15 years experience in working in the HR sector in Change Management, Career Management, Advertising, Communications and Recruitment. She has worked in the UK and globally and understands the impact of major change programmes on the existing workforce and the challenges transitions bring in retaining high performers as well as in attracting new talent.

Mike is responsible for business development within Personal Group and has vast experience in the benefits market. He is well known for his forthright views and straight talking on issues surrounding reward and benefits. During the past 17 years he has been responsible for innovative benefit strategies that have gone on to become widely used by some of the UK’s largest well known employers and benefit providers.

As a highly regarded player in the Interim space, Kirstin has many years experience in this fast moving and dynamic sector. In 2001, she then spent several years with a leading global search firm in their Interim division. Kirstin successfully resourced senior and board level executive interims across all disciplines on business critical assignments both nationally and internationally. She has resourced assignments across a wide variety of commercial industry sectors and has overseen assignments that have included all manner of change projects, including company/department restructure and business transformation due to changing market conditions as well as new project initiatives. Kirstin has also worked extensively across several areas of the Public Sector including Central and Local Government organisations in addition to Health. Assignments managed have included large-scale projects that have varied from bringing commercial expertise/practise to the Public Sector to helping organisations cope with changing legislative requirements from the Government and the EU. She now heads up the Interim Executive Division of Praxis Executive for the Impellam Group Plc.

Professor Derek Longhurst is one of Europe’s leading experts on developing higher education to meet the needs of business. He has extensive knowledge of the workings of academic institutions and of addressing workforce needs in both private and public sector businesses. He is the Chief Executive of fdf (Foundation Degree Forward) which specialises in bridging the gap between universities, colleges and businesses to maximise in-house talent. Professor Longhurst has led partnerships with major employers such as JCB, Tesco, BT, Network Rail, RAF, NHS and many others to develop degree level programmes that meet the specific requirements of employers. He has also led initiatives with organisations such as Regional Development Agencies, the Skills for Business Network and the British Chambers of Commerce to develop partnerships with employers to design Foundation degrees to fill skills gaps. Derek’s current mission is to make employers aware of the opportunity of Foundation degrees which are designed to be delivered flexibly, advance skills, increase retention and improve operational performance. He is also one of the founder members of Employer Based Training Accreditation (EBTA), a unique organisation which accredits employers’ in-house training and incorporates it into work-based university level qualifications.

Natalie is CEO of ENTHEO™ Ltd, an innovation and change agency. ENTHEO™ partner with companies to create new products and services whilst building bespoke innovation processes and capabilities to sustain a climate for innovation. Natalie has a background in marketing, business strategy and organisational change, both from experience in industry and as a Director in a variety of innovation consultancies including corporate incubators and HR technology start-ups. Passionate about the inter-relationship between the creation of value added products and services with the cultural and psychological elements of fostering a climate for innovation, Natalie believes the role of HR is going to become more fundamental in creating long term business success.

Jeremy brings entrepreneurial and management experience from the Internet, Financial and Medical industries. In 1998, he started an internet software company called Versity.com where among other things; he developed enterprise course management software for universities. At Versity, Jeremy raised $12M and sold the business for $80M. The software is still used enterprise wide at universities like Stanford and Berkeley. Previously, Jeremy was a financial analyst at DLJ-LA and York Capital (a $12 billion hedge fund); he also was the special assistant to the CEO of CR Bard, a $9 billion medical device company.

David started working life in the coal industry before studying chemistry. He spent some time in academia and research, before entering the brewing industry, where he held several management and leadership positions at different locations in the UK. In his last role he was engaged in major organisation and culture change. He has experience as a director two small companies and prior to joining Coverdale twenty years ago he owned a small farming enterprise in the UK. David has extensive overseas working experience in consulting, facilitating and managing organisational development projects (from vision to implementation) and helping businesses to achieve their aims through their people. A particular interest is in leadership in multicultural contexts.

Before joining Lane4 in 1998, Dominic worked in major event marketing specialising in media management. He is now a member of the Lane4 Board and Europe Practice Director. Dominic is a Bronze Medalist in Modern Pentathlon having competed in two Olympic Games and is still actively involved in the sport. He plays a lead role in the implementation of the lottery funded World Class Performance Programme of the sport in the UK, and has been Team Manager at the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games, yielding Gold, Bronze and Silver medals respectively. Between 1983-1994, Dominic served as an Army Officer in The Life Guards including active service in Bosnia. He draws on his background as an Olympian and his experience with elite performers in business and sport to specialise in the fields of leadership development, organisational change and understanding team and individual behaviour.

Elin is an employment law specialist with many years’ experience of both employment litigation and strategic advice. Most of her clients are employers. Elin is a trained mediator and is a fervent believer in resolving disputes quickly, cost effectively and where appropriate confidentially. A significant proportion of Elin’s work involves training, both internally within client companies and externally via joint ventures with organisations. Also Elin and the senior members of the team provide valuable hands-on support to clients in internal disciplinary and grievance matters. Elin Pinnell wins over clients for “not wasting their time” by “giving them all they need to know in as concise a way as possible.” She has been involved in major workforce reorganisations, tribunal representations, TUPE and employment seminars.

Christopher is recognised as a leader in his field by Legal 500 which says he has "proven expertise in employment work with regular appearances in the EAT". He receives numerous plaudits from clients and "does not entertain time wasting". Chambers & Partners recognised Christopher as a leader in his field for commercial litigation and clients say he is "superb and clever" and "perfect for a difficult case". Christopher is also a chairman of the Employment Tribunals, appointed to the Birmingham region. Christopher trained in Cardiff and at Simmons & Simmons in London, then became a partner in Cardiff firm Edward Lewis & Co in 1989 before founding the firm that became Capital Law.

Glenn read law at Trinity College, Cambridge and before joining Dickinson Dees spent six years with the major City of London practice, Freshfields. Glenn has been a partner since 1986. He has been advising on employment law issues for over 20 years and is head of the firm’s employment law team. Glenn has considerable experience in advising clients on all aspects of employment law and regularly appears as an advocate in the Employment Tribunal. He advises clients in both the public and private sectors including local authorities, NHS Trusts, Durham and Northumbria Universities and well known companies such as Nike, Formica, and Northern Electric. Glenn has particular expertise in relation to TUPE, redundancies, strikes and labour relations issues, advising on organisational change and executive terminations.

Tricia Desnos was appointed UK HR Director at LeasePlan in February 2006. As a member of the Managing Board, Tricia's remit is to lead the people strategy in support of the companies growth and change agenda. Prior to LeasePlan, Tricia worked as HR Director Sales Europe at Dunn and Bradstreet where she led major organisation change programmes both within the sales organisation and across the rest of the business . Tricia has also held senior HR roles at Vodafone UK, Telewest Communications and Iveco Ford Truck. Her main areas of interest are business change, organisation design and the talent agenda.

Alison Esse is a co-founder and Director of Marketing at The Storytellers. With a strong background in PR and Marketing, Alison has been instrumental in pioneering The Storytellers’ approach to connecting employees to strategy and vision across the globe, seeing it blossom from a ‘big idea’ to an approach that has been successfully embedded by many of the world’s largest and most challenging organisations.

Karen Frost is Director of Coaching for Values Based Leadership where she heads up their Coaching Centre of Excellence. Karen has more than 20 years experience leading teams and has been a member of Senior Leadership Teams in a variety of businesses. She is a fully qualified Business Coach and concentrates her coaching on working with Senior Managers where there is a need for both coaching and mentoring.

Mike combines his 12 years experience as a senior company leader at Blue Chip companies with leading edge HR insight. He has a degree in accountancy with a Masters in Management Development. He is an occupational psychologist and experienced leadership coach. After a successful international career in HR Mike Pilkington launched Pilkington Leadership which is an established consultancy focused on assessing and accelerating the effectiveness of business managers and their team’s. In addition to his experience as an HR Director, Mike draws on a unique set of experiences and qualifications to ensure his company deliver leadership solutions which are both engaging and commercially relevant for a broad range of successful businesses.

Claire is the HR Director for British Gas Business, part of the Centrica PLC group. As part of her role at BGB, Claire is responsible for Employee Engagement, an essential part of the HR framework within her business and the driver of several people orientated initiatives which have been rolled out during the course of this year. Prior to BGB, Claire spent 6 years at the mobile media company, 3, where she was HR Director for their Customer Services business.

Since 1991 Gary Mathews has worked at senior levels in a range of organisations and as an independent consultant. Common to all his roles has been a customer focus in the context of training and organisational development. Mr Mathews is currently is a Senior Manager at Investors in People UK.. Investors in People is the International Standard which provides a framework for improving business performance and competitiveness Mr Mathews is involved in business development, planning, budgeting, policy making, information technology, and links with Government in the UK and overseas. He has experience of working with a wide range of organisations in the public and private sector, ranging from multi-national corporations, local and central government departments, and small/medium employers. He is also the link between Investors in People and the University sector in the UK He has been in his current role for seven years. Prior to this his work was equally varied and included management development work with the Northern Ireland office as it moved to devolution in Northern Ireland.

Dianne Lowther has been in Learning and Development for most of her working life. After achieving a degree in Psychology she started her career as a line manager in the service sector with responsibilities for training. She progressed to corporate training manager roles and then became a consultant in the early 1990s. She is the principal of Brilliant Minds and has been teaching accredited NLP programmes for about twelve years. Dianne is known for her application of NLP principles and techniques to business leadership and has a highly practical and professional approach to NLP. She is possibly the only NLP Trainer in the UK to have run an NLP Practitioner programme exclusively for Police officers. Her public courses attract Senior Managers and Directors from a wide variety of organisations.

Gareth is an innovative learning and development specialist with senior management and consultancy experience in both public and private sector organisations. He has run training organisations and more recently the focus of his work has been to consult large organisations on how to develop and implement new approaches to learning to improve efficiency and competitiveness. In particular, he has advised training leadership teams advising them on how to operate effectively as a business partner – engaging in the diagnosis of business and operational issues and designing technology-led solutions that address performance improvement, culture change as well as improvements in knowledge and skills. The areas in which Gareth has worked extensively include running training organisations, developing training and evaluation strategies and knowledge management. He has pioneered the development of learning management systems that support both formal and informal learning.

Peter is one of Hay Group UK's most experienced executive compensation consultants and was UK practice leader from 2001-2003. His clients include the compensation committees or senior management of large companies in the UK, the Netherlands, Norway and Ireland, including several from the Fortune Global 500. His work is mainly focused on pay, the design of long-term incentives and benefits for senior directors and managers. Peter has a track record of developing innovative solutions for his clients. Peter is a qualified actuary and before joining Hay Group, he advised the trustees and sponsoring employers of occupational pension schemes.

Andrew has a solid track record in the advertising industry, first spending 18 years with London-based recruitment agency Moxon Dolphin Kerby, where he rose to director level. When MDK was acquired by TMP Worldwide in the mid 1990s, Andrew took on a three year tenure as UK Chief Executive, implementing and driving the company's acquisition strategy in the United Kingdom. Andrew has significant online experience, first launching monster.co.uk in 1996, at the very beginning of the internet recruitment market in Europe, before leading Monster's expansion across Europe, and subsequently as Managing Director for Monster Europe. Andrew's current focus is solely on the development and quality of our innovative, market-leading advertising and communications business at TMP Worldwide.

Gerry has worked for Balfour Kilpatrick, Mechanical and Electrical Services contractor and part of the Balfour Beatty Group since 1998, initially as HR Manager and then was promoted to HR Director in 2005. Gerry is responsible for 16 HR staff providing an HR service to 900 staff and 1200 operatives across the UK (and Sri Lanka). Key HR challenges facing Balfour Kilpatrick are recruitment/retention and talent management. Before joining Balfour Beatty spent 10 years with contract caterer Gardner Merchant – 7 years in HR and 3 years in a Business Development role.

After spending five years in line management and industrial relations in the automotive industry with Cummins Engine Company, Mark joined what is now PriceWaterhouseCoopers as a consultant and subsequently a Managing Consultant. One of lloydmasters’ original founders and Directors, Mark has led projects to implement significant organisational and cultural change with multi-national corporations such as BP, Balfour Beatty and Fujitsu. He specialises in operational environments and has worked with clients in the UK, Europe, USA, Africa and Russia. As well as consulting work, Mark has undertaken two long-term secondments while at lloydmasters – one as Group Director of Organisation Development for Fujitsu Europe, the other as HR Director of a major acute hospital NHS Trust.

Octavius co-founded The Mind Gym, he is responsible for ensuring that the company lives up to its promise: to help people use their minds more effectively so that they get more out of life and give more to others. In his life before The Mind Gym, Octavius led the Sales & Marketing effort at employee communication consultancy Smythe Dorward Lambert as it grew from 9 people to 100 (and was sold to Omnicom in 1996). He also worked for Robert Maxwell, trained at Booz, Allen and Hamilton and was a journalist on both sides of the Atlantic.

Fionna White heads up the Recruitment Centre of Expertise at Nestlé which provides a recruitment service to Nestlé UK and a number of Nestlé associate companies. Prior to heading up the recruitment team Fionna has held number of generalist HR roles within Nestlé, Marks and Spencer and the RAC Motoring Services organisation. Fionna has been part of the journey that the whole HR function has taken within Nestlé moving to the Ulrich 3 Box model which was implemented in 2001.Since it's introduction Fionna has led the Recruitment Centre of Expertise from a team of recruiters to, how they now operate, as an in-house recruitment agency.

Katrine has been a Director of Personal Group since 1999 and is part of a team of Key Account Directors who are responsible for all major Clients. With many years of experience in the benefits market, Katrine’s expertise lies in the development and implementation of bespoke employee benefits programmes for the voluntary, company funded and flex market. Her intuitive style has gained her a reputation for creating innovative, highly valued and well communicated benefit programmes to meet a wide range of budgets.

Russell is an experienced TV presenter, focusing on lifestyle and travel programmes and has hosted his own prime time BBC1 travel series and was a regular presenter on the BBC Holiday programme and ITV's Wish You Were Here …. He was also a regular columnist for the Daily Mail, acting as their Travel consumer champion. He also coaches top executives in communications and presentation skills. In a previous life Russell was Group Corporate Communications director of Thomson Travel Group Plc and was a key member of the management team that floated the business on the London Stock Exchange in 1998 for £ 1.7 Billion.

David Stevenson is Director of strategy and development for The Rocket Science Group and head of its fast growing media division, encompassing business TV, video and virals plus new media. A former series producer of prime time TV programmes for BBC TV (Panorama, The Money Programme, Tomorrows World, Wish You Were Here and Inside Out), David is also a hugely experienced financial journalist who currently writes the weekly Adventurous Investor column for the Financial Times' weekend edition.

Dave Inman is Director of Qikker Solutions and has worked in a variety of senior management positions within the IT and Services industry. This includes UK and European roles in both large and small companies such as Agfa, Data Translation, Anixter International, IT Counsel and System Management ARTS. Dave’s background of building, managing and developing technical, marketing & sales teams, across Europe, has provided a client insight into the people related issues and difficulties of traditional manual HR processes and poor communications approaches.