21 September 2022
Day 1- 14:00 – 15:00
As we bear witness to the racial reckoning reverberating across the globe, it is now incumbent upon leaders to step up and do better, committing to action and moving beyond mission statements. It is about connecting leaders to conversations and generating action out of these conversations. It is about encouraging leaders to show up as allies in the ways their people need them to.
Areas of discussion:
- How can organisations craft spaces for their people to have these tough conversations, and feel safe enough to share?
- How do we ensure all voices are heard and no one is left behind in our new hybrid working world?
- How can we bridge business and community to ensure both can thrive?
Panellist
Monica Stancu is the Diversity and Inclusion manager at Lloyd’s, the world’s leading insurance and reinsurance marketplace. Previously, she has worked in diversity and inclusion at the Royal Academy of Engineering, Sodexo and F. Hoffman La Roche.
Monica has also worked in international affairs and human rights at organisations such as the European Medicines Agency (EU agency). She holds an MA in Women’s History from Sarah Lawrence College, USA and was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality at Columbia University in the City of New York.
Monica has been selected as a Global Champion for Women’s Economic Empowerment by UN Women and has won a WeAreTheCity Rising Stars award. She is also the author of the book “Building Diversity and Inclusion: From Commitment to Action”, a One Young World Ambassador and a mentor at Migrant Leaders. She sits on the D&I committee at the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM).
Kat Denvir (she/her) is a Project Lead for Leeds City Council, the Council’s LGBT+ Staff Network Chair as well as an equality representative for the organisation, providing challenges to provide better outcomes for all staff. Originally from Northern Ireland (and extremely proud of this!), Kat is a bi queer activist who has written and developed training, blogs and papers about LGBT+ inclusion, mental health, burnout, and other equality/equity/inclusion topics. In her non-professional life, she is a cat parent, artist, crafter, voracious reader and videogame nerd.
Ian Adams is Director of Membership and Stakeholder Engagement at NHS Resolution, the legal arm of the health service. He has held similar roles in the education, technology and welfare sectors, following an earlier career with the BBC. Ian also served for 20 years as a local authority councillor and is a trustee of several charities concerned with social justice. He is a recognised LGBT+ role model and a regular speaker on equality and diversity.
In a career spanning almost a decade, Sharon has led policy and programmes across government, academia and civil society to promote sustainable development, tackle climate change and progress racial equality. She has just completed a 4+ year period with the UK Government, where she was most recently the Head of Long-Term International Climate Strategy at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), leading the development of the UK’s long-term strategy to reducing global emissions. With the same department, she previously led European engagement for energy and climate change and oversaw governance for a £300 million sustainable energy project.
She has advocated for race equality across government and civil society for over 6 years. As co-chair of the cross-government Civil Service Race Forum (2020-2022) and BEIS’ Faith and Minority Ethnic Network (2018-2021), she worked to tackle racism and address institutional bias across government, providing solutions to barriers facing Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff. This led to departmental policy changes in recruitment and increased representation of ethnic minority staff at senior grades.
In 2016, she also founded Youth Impact under the Clinton Global University Initiative - an ethnic minority youth empowerment platform in Hong Kong.
Prior to joining the Civil Service, she was Manager of The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Global Health and led international engagement for an academic disaster unit where she established a multistakeholder advisory group to the World Health Organization. As Regional Focal Point for the Major Group for Children and Youth, she also led the children and youth constituency’s advocacy within sustainable urban development negotiations at the United Nations, culminating in the adoption of the New Urban Agenda by the Member States in 2016.
She holds two First Class Masters in International Relations (University of St Andrews) and Public Health (The Chinese University of Hong Kong).
