Jennifer Liston-Smith (Head of Thought Leadership)
Bright Horizons

In 2022, our people are bringing more of themselves to work. With a post-pandemic mindset, we understand much more about our employees wider lives and the way that the rising generation sees work as just one part of life.

With employers highly focused on engagement and retention, what do we do with the realisation that our people’s wellbeing is deeply linked with that of their dependants?

How do we respect and enable family life in all its forms? What do employers of choice do to prioritise work-family balance in high-performing and demanding business environments? What, exactly, is needed in the hybrid world?

Jennifer Liston-Smith, Head of Thought Leadership with Bright Horizons will share insights from the latest research into the needs and aspirations of working parents and carers. The 2022 Modern Families Index shows almost 2 in 5 working parents are actively looking for a new role. Jennifer will share a model of best practice covering cultural, wellbeing and practical pathways for engaging this key population.

Managers play a pivotal role and need just-in-time information. Networks matter and topics under discussion are getting more and more personal. Enhanced parental leave is important, but not the whole story.

This highly interactive session with equip you with take-away learning you can put into effect as an employer of choice for working families.

Akhilesh Nair
Senior VP HR Genpact

Activating culture in virtual and hybrid teams

Given the paradigm shift towards hybrid working and distributed teams, the easiest thing to fall through the cracks is assimilating new hires.  The session is aimed at opening a dialogue on activating culture in such teams especially new leaders in a company.

Akhilesh (KVD as he is widely known) is passionate about driving business impact and building a business relevant for the future.   He has been a serial entrepreneur and a multidisciplinary global business leader who currently spends his focus on building future leaders, driving large transformation especially in HR and is passionate about helping the digital startup community.  Akhilesh brings his fail fast operational approach and a holistic network across US, EMEA and APAC to help businesses scale faster, grow into new territories and setup new lines of business. He is considered as a strategist and thought leader around new HR models in the age of AI and is helping companies internally and externally transform.

Neil Pickering
UKG

Stuart Smith
Sales Director UK at Cornerstone

Ciaran Moloney, Senior Account Director, General Assembly

Reinventing your skill and talent acquisition strategies amidst a time of accelerated change

Due to the accelerated pace of technological innovations, the global impact of COVID-19 and the Great Resignation or Great Reshuffle leaders are grappling with the largest talent shortage in modern times. Skill gaps continue to widen within existing employee populations, as the competition to acquire tech talent becomes more and more fierce. Today’s leaders need to take a hard look at their existing strategies and begin to rethink the way they approach gaining and retaining the talent they need to meet the future of work. This roundtable will zero in on a new way of thinking about talent inside and outside of your organization. You’ll walk away with new strategies to attract and retain the world class digital talent your business desperately needs.

Ciaran Moloney is a commercial lead with General Assembly’s European Enterprise team. He supports large organisations across a range of industries, by consulting and advising on digital capability initiatives that drive business impact and transformation.

Julia Menninga – Head of Leadership Development at Lilium

Performance and Culture
How does how we manage Performance impact our Culture and vice versa.

Louisa Hogarty – Group HR Director, Noble Foods Group 

When Noble Foods returned to family ownership in 2019 I was presented the challenge to transform the business culture.  They desired a culture they could be proud of and one that would sustain, grow and develop the business for the next generation.  An HR Directors dream!

As we all know, the first step to any change is acknowledging that there needs to be change in the first place and I had the owners of the business demanding it!

Roll on 3 years and we are proud of what we have achieved so far.  A cultural journey is never complete, but we have built solid foundations and are motivated to continue to develop what we hope will become an award-winning culture and most importantly one supports the business for generations to come.

Our cultural journey has been one of learning and I hope that by sharing our story along with some of the lessons we have learnt and key insights we have discovered, others can boost their cultural impact too.

Louisa is the Group HR Director of Noble Foods Group, the UK’s leading supplier of eggs, she is also a Non Executive Director for Friends of the Elderly.  With more than 15 years’ experience in senior HR positions Louisa has a broad experience from HR Director for G4S Secure Solutions and Directors of HR Operations at SSP, the largest operator of food and beverage brands in travel locations worldwide.

Louisa has a Degree in Music from Kingston University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management.