Speakers: Symposium

Dr. Jonathan Ashong-Lamptey is a globally recognised authority on diversity and inclusion in the workplace. He has a PhD from the London School of Economics and publishes research in this field.

Jonathan hosts the Resource Groups Podcast, a weekly show that informs and educates through applied research and insights from experts and thought leaders. He understands the science behind inclusive organisational behaviour and has studied the principles necessary for success. Today, he is the Founder and Chairman of the Resource Groups Company; a London-based organisation that helps individuals and organisations to reach their potential through inclusive practices.

Jonathan is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and has worked in a variety of finance and consultancy roles, his previous employers and clients include The Walt Disney Company, News International and Channel 4.

Jonathan combines his professional expertise with academic rigour to drive change through research, training and consultancy. In 2019, he launched The Resource Groups Youtube Channel to support his mission to help 1,000,000 people to make their workplaces more inclusive.

15:00 - 16:30 | The Business Case for Diversity: How Can Diversity Create a Competitive Edge and What Does it Take for a Coach to Support This?

What happens in companies and with individuals after the coach has left the building? This and other questions occupy Ginny Baillie’s curiosity about what really works in how people change. She’s been coaching for twenty one years, coming to the profession from an international finance background. She works in deep collaboration with clients and her coaching friends, getting her best ideas from these connections. She believes people inside companies need to shift on how they take responsibility for their experience in order to be innovative, collaborative and truly engaged in what they do. Her current work helps make that happen through her process POD Connections. She works with global companies, their senior teams, groups across regions, and people in intense leadership positions.

Bernadette joined Aviva in January 2017 as Global Talent & Organisational Development Director. She is responsible for setting the talent, leadership and organisation effectiveness strategy for the group, and is a key member of the People Leadership Team.

She joined Aviva from global technology specialist Fujitsu. Prior to that she held a number of business and HR roles at BT, Virgin Money, Northern Rock, and Barclays.

Operating at Board and Group Executive level, Bernadette has a track record of developing and leading innovative transformational people strategies across several sectors.

Away from the office Bernadette’s passion is her family. She took a long career break (6 years) to focus on the children and enable her husband to fulfil a dream to set up a school in the African bush. More recently she is more likely to be supporting her kids with various sport and theatre commitments.

Louise is an experienced executive coach and development consultant. She has been with KPMG since 2009 and joined KPMG EMA team as the Head of Partner Development and Coaching in 2017. She had previously refreshed and reinvigorated partner development in the UK firm and established the UK Coaching Centre of Excellence, operating as a coach to experienced partners and leaders.

Louise is particularly interested in how leaders engage with the possibilities that arise from ambiguity, complexity and uncertainty. She has a growing curiosity about the possibilities and ethical dilemmas created by AI in organisations.

Louise’s interest in coaching was sparked by her frustration at the limited impact of traditional learning on behaviour. Learning how more authentic conversations could unlock barriers to change she began her conscious journey to coaching with a desire to create ‘ripples’ that would change the conversations, narratives and culture of organisations.

Louise has Masters Degrees, in Management Learning and in Professional Coaching. A recognised shaper and thought leader in the coaching industry, she is a founder member of the Future of Coaching Collaboration, and was awarded Internal Coach of the Year in 2015.

Jamie Cooke is SVP Chief of Staff for Discovery EMEA, a global leader in real life entertainment.

Jamie’s role covers 140 markets, including UK, Poland, France, Germany, Benelux, Italy, Spain and Nordics. He heads up the management of Discovery’s pan-regional feeds across EMEA, working closely with all departments including broadcast services, advertising and distribution sales to create a cohesive business operations strategy across EMEA. Jamie also oversees the HR and Project Management functions. Under his leadership, Discovery launched offices and recruited staff in Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria Turkey and Serbia.

During his 12 years with Discovery, Jamie has held several roles in the HR department, overseeing recruitment, reorganisation and strategy development for the EMEA region, UK business, the Emerging Business region and DNI Corporate Services.

Bob Hughes is the co-founder of the Forton Group, a specialist leadership and coaching company based in the UK and operating around the world. He is the co-creator of the internationally-accredited ‘Leadership Coaching Model’ and a recognised expert in leadership.

Bob is also a non-executive director for Engage for Success, promoting employee engagement as a better way to work that benefits individuals, teams, & whole organisations.

His knowledge is built from many years working in large corporates at a senior level, and coaching leaders worldwide.

An experienced learning and development manager, leadership consultant, coach and people manager, Bob has a successful track record in leadership development, talent management, employee engagement and project delivery in major corporations.

John is Executive Chairman and founder in 2000 of the AoEC, a global coach training organisation accredited by ICF, EMCC, AC and Middlesex University. His initial eighteen-year career was in Gestalt therapy and group facilitation with a clinical practice. He was Gestalt Centre London CEO for 12 years whilst delivering team development and consultation in organisations before becoming an executive coach and completing his MA in executive coaching.

With this experience John developed a specialty in Systemic Team Coaching. He coaches Senior Leadership Teams on personal leadership, interpersonal dynamics, stakeholder relationships and team strategy/objectives.

John, with Prof Peter Hawkins and Dr Hilary Lines designed and facilitate globally Systemic Team Coach CCEU Certificate and ACSTH Diploma training programmes, involving our Team Connect 360 instrument which effectively evaluates team performance.

He is author of Fertile Void, Gestalt Coaching at Work AoEC Press 2014 and co-author of Systemic Team Coaching AoEC Press 2018.

13:30 - 14:30 | A Look into the Future – Systemic Team Coaching

Iona is an International Coach Federation-accredited coach at MCC level, having trained with the Academy of Executive Coaching. She is one of the Executive Directors at Resurgo, a social impact organisation, overseeing a 30-strong team running the award-winning Spear Programme, coaching young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into sustained employment. Iona also works for Resurgo’s Consulting arm, engaging leaders in business in how to adopt a coaching approach in their leadership style.

Liz is a freelance learning and performance improvement specialist with over 25 years’ experience in consulting, leadership development, coaching and team coaching. Liz is an expert in driving sustainable performance improvement and large-scale cultural change programmes, with extensive experience of heading up leadership, management and organisational development programmes that have delivered exceptional results. She is a ICF UK Chapter board member, leading on team coaching, and faculty director for Heidrick’s ICF accredited Team Accelerator Coaching programme.

A highly skilled team coach, Liz has held senior positions, focusing on operational and people development, in both consulting roles and in industry at Ford and Sky and co-founded Bluesky Performance Improvement.

Liz’s distinctive skill is her extensive experience of enabling sustainable change, working with every level in the organisation to embed growth learning cultures. Known for her commerciality, creativity and fresh thinking in her design, she helps teams find clarity and transparency to have the conversations they need to have to accelerate performance.

Sharon is about to take up a role as head of organisation and people development in a European professional services organisation. Until recently she was a Leadership Consulting partner in the Heidrick & Struggles with global responsibility for the Accelerating Teams practice. With over 20 years’ experience as an executive and top team coach, she is an Organisation Development expert and highly skilled consultant.

Prior to founding Co Company, which was acquired by Heidrick & Struggles in 2015, Sharon was a leader in Accenture’s Change Management Practice in New York and London. Holding an MSc in Organisational Psychology, an MBA from London Business School and being a UKCP qualified psychotherapist with an MSc in Integrative Psychotherapy, Sharon brings a depth of psychological understanding and rigour to behavioural and mindset change. She designed and led the UK ICF accredited Team Accelerator Coaching Program (TACP) and is co-author of Accelerating Performance (Wiley. 2017). She has published widely in journals including in the McKinsey Quarterly, the London Business School Business Strategy Review and Business+Strategy.

Lucy Widdowson is an accredited executive coach, team coach and a Director of Performance Edge Partners Ltd. During a 30-year corporate career, Lucy worked at board level as an HR director and led award-winning teams.

Lucy has developed a unique team coaching framework, ‘Creating the Team Edge’, that has been proven to improve team performance.

A graduate of the Henley MSc Coaching & Behavioural Change, Lucy has also been a key contributor to ICF global research on team coaching competencies and is currently co-authoring a book on team coaching.