Women Returners Conference 2022 Speakers, Panellists and Facilitators
Find our more about our fantastic line-up of speakers, panellists and workshop facilitators below
Speakers
Anne Richards DBE, Chief Executive Officer, Fidelity International
Anne Richards is Chief Executive Officer of Fidelity International which offers investment solutions and services and retirement expertise to more than 2.5 million customers globally. After obtaining an Engineering Degree at the University of Edinburgh, Anne started as a research fellow at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. However, realising she wasn’t suited to a career in academia, she took the decision to try something new, leading to a 30-year career in asset management across a variety of different roles and organisations. Her passion for diversity and inclusion is based on her view that diverse teams make much better decisions. She supports a range of initiatives such as Women Returners, Women on Boards and the Diversity Project. In her spare time, you will often find her tending to her allotment.
Julianne Miles MBE, CEO and Co-Founder, Women Returners
Julianne co-founded Women Returners in 2014 as a purpose-led social business to create supported routes back to work. Partnering with leading employers, she has pioneered the development of the returner programme market in Europe. Julianne retrained as a Chartered Psychologist after a 4-year maternal career break and a first career in corporate strategy and marketing. She has an INSEAD MBA and an MSc in Organisational Psychology. Julianne is a frequent media commentator on returning to work in the media and a strong advocate for returners. She received an MBE for services to business and equality in 2019. Julianne is an empty-nester with two adult children.
Hazel Little, Deputy CEO
Hazel is Deputy CEO at Women Returners. Since 2016, Hazel has partnered with leading employers across all sectors to design, manage, deliver and support returner programmes both on an individual and cross-company basis. She has extensive experience in executing government-funded returner projects and regularly hosts returner events. Prior to joining Women Returners, Hazel had a 16-year career in HR within financial services and left her role as HR Director to enjoy a 3-year parental career break. During her career break she retrained and qualified as a career coach focusing on supporting women back into work.
Returner Panel Host
Jane Garvey, Broadcaster and Journalist
Jane is a Times Radio Presenter, co-presenter of the award-winning podcast Fortunately with Fi Glover and co-author of “Did I Say That Out Loud”. Jane presented Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 from 2007 to 2020. Born in Liverpool, she studied English at Birmingham University before being sacked from an embryonic career in advertising in 1987. She joined Radio Wyvern in Worcester and was the first voice on Radio Five Live when it started in 1994. On Woman’s Hour, she once interviewed David Cameron and Mary J Blige on the same day and interviewed Hillary Clinton in a surgical boot. Jane has 2 daughters.
Returner Panellists
Kim Aitchison, Senior Supervisor, International & Retail Team, PRA, Bank of England
Kim is a Senior Supervisor in the Bank of England’s PRA insurance directorate. She obtained a Maths degree and went on to complete her Chartered Accountancy and Chartered Financial Analyst designations. Her experience in the financial sector started with Co-op employment at Price Waterhouse whilst doing her degree and she went on to audit roles for major banks in Canada and then financial consulting with Ernst & Young. Kim planned a career in Finance but life threw some curves in that plan and after a career break of 30 years, she has now successfully returned to the career she envisaged.
Michele Anderson, Deputy Director HR, Ministry of Defence
Michele recently joined the Ministry of Defence as the Deputy Director HR, UK Strategic Command. Prior to that she joined the Home Office in 2017 on a Returners Programme following a career break to raise her young family. She held a number of positions within HR including leading on gender, as Head of Early Talent, and latterly as Head of People for a major government transformation programme. Michele previously worked in the private sector in sales and marketing roles and also had entrepreneurial success in running her own business. Outside of work, she has volunteered as a School Governor, and is involved in a number of charities championing social mobility and is passionate about striving for diversity and equality of opportunity.
Dr Meg Davies-Kabir, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend
Meg recently got back into medicine after a 9-year break. After graduating, she worked as a junior doctor in London and specialised in psychiatry. She moved to the UAE to be with her airline pilot husband. Two years later she stepped out of medicine to raise her children (and organise toddler groups, write food reviews for Time Out Abu Dhabi, and do an MSc in Medical Education!). After moving back to Wales in 2018, she got back into clinical medicine via a Maudsley boot camp, an unpaid clinical attachment, and then a part-time specialist doctor appointment. She re-entered psychiatry training and since August 2019 has been a full time higher trainee in Child and Adolescent psychiatry, hoping to secure her first consultant role next year.
Julia McAleenan, Senior Applied Data Scientist, dunnhumby
With a background in investment banking, Julia looked to return to a different career after a 9-year break raising her three young children. Having always had an interest in tech, she chose to pursue this during her career break and completed various programming courses and a data science bootcamp. After discovering Women Returners, Julia attended dunnhumby’s Insight Event for their Returner Programme and, inspired by what she heard, successfully joined their 6-month programme in a data science team. In her new role, Julia’s professional confidence grew and she realised that she could bring many valuable transferable skills from her previous roles to her new job. She’s now on a permanent contract and has since been promoted to Senior Applied Data Scientist.
Yvette McLaren, Recruitment Coordinator, Swissport North UK
Yvette worked in marketing, project management and HR for over 15 years before taking a career break in 2000 to raise her 4 children. During her career break, she helped her husband run his architecture business, volunteered at her children’s school and also undertook Undergraduate and Masters degrees in business management. Following her husband’s death in 2018, she tried to find work but found it very deflating applying for roles and not hearing back. She joined Women Returners Scottish Government-funded Career Boost bootcamp programme in 2022. Before the end of the programme, she was approached by a headhunter for a permanent role with Swissport. She started working for Swissport as a recruiter in March 2022 for Edinburgh and Glasgow, and her role has grown to include Newcastle and Swissport North UK.
Employer Panel Host
Claire Cohen, Author and Journalist
Claire is an award-winning freelance journalist and author of the recently published book ‘BFF? The Truth About Female Friendship’. She writes for publications including the Telegraph, the Times, the Evening Standard and Grazia – and presents the ‘BFF?’ podcast, interviewing high-profile women about their own experiences of female friendship. She also regularly appears on television and radio as a commentator. In 2022, she was named Women’s Editor of the Year by the British Society of Magazine Editors.
Employer Panellists
Tiziana Casaula, Audit Director, J.P. Morgan
Tiziana is the Audit Director for J.P. Morgan Asset Management, leading a team of auditors based in London. She joined J.P. Morgan in 2015 as a Returner herself after a 5-year career break raising her three children. Previously, she was a Director at Deloitte Enterprise Risk Services in Italy leading complex projects supporting major Italian banks setting up the Internal Audit function as well as being responsible for the outsourcing of the internal auditing activities. Her enthusiasm for the returner initiative and her desire to help others to get back into a professional career led her to support the ongoing J.P. Morgan Re-Entry as mentor, buddy and speaker sharing her experience and how she has tackled challenges. Since she joined J.P.Morgan, Tiziana was promoted to Audit Team Leader in 2019 then Executive Director in 2020. In 2022, she became the hiring manager for an experienced Returner who took a 4-year career break and moved from India to London.
Dane Dwyer, Finance Manager, Amazon
Dane is a Chartered accountant (FCCA) with over 13 years of Finance Leadership and Business Partnering experience in the FMCG, Media & Ent. Industry and Tech Retail/Last Mile Logistics (present focus) space. He is currently the Finance Manager for Amazon’s out-of-home delivery business (Hub) in EU and MENA/TR with primary responsibility to deliver value for money from both Opex and Capex investments. Dane is experienced in managing wide scale organizational change in multicultural environments; finance operating model transformation and finance performance system implementation/optimisation. He has lived and worked in Jamaica (his home country), Central America (Costa Rica/Honduras) and now in the UK for the last 6.5 years, where along with working, Dane completed his MBA at Imperial College Business School. The team he manages at Amazon has been very interested in supporting the returnship programme and finds that candidates that come through this pipeline bring a lot of experience and collaborative values to the table.
Sarah Mavius, Head of Returners Programme, FDM Group
Sarah is Head of the Returners Programme at FDM Group, which focuses on supporting professionals on their journey back into the workplace following a career break. She joined FDM as a Returner herself after a 10-year career break. Her love for the initiative and her desire to help others step back into a rewarding career led her to join the team internally 5 years ago. Since then she has been working on building an inclusive and supportive environment for other returners, creating new opportunities and diversifying to support broader skillsets. Prior to leading the FDM Returners Programme, Sarah worked for over 18 years with some leading organisations in the financial services sector across China, Japan and the UK.
Brian Stanislas MBE, Senior Inclusive Practice Lead, Civil Service HR (Cabinet Office)
Brian works within the Civil Service Human Resources team in the Cabinet Office, helping to mainstream diversity and inclusion in line with strategy. Before that he was Product Manager of the multi award-winning Civil Service Job Share Finder website and of the Civil Service Careers website. Brian began working for the Civil Service in 1996 in DWP and subsequently worked in the Home Office and HMRC before joining the Cabinet Office. He has progressed through a variety of job roles over the years including Employer Engagement Executive, Learning Consultant, Account Manager, Career Consultant, Project Manager and Product Manager. In May 2020 he was appointed Co-Chair of the Cross Government Flexible Working Network and in 2020 he was awarded an MBE for Services to Flexible Working and Equality.
Alexander Trusty, EMEA Diversity Sourcing Specialist, Moody’s Corporation
Alexander is a member of the Talent Acquisition team working very closely with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) group to develop strategies and processes for recruiting exceptional diverse talent across all of Moody’s business groups, including Re-Ignite, Moody’s return to work programme in the UK and the US. In addition to this, Alexander works closely with the firms’ Business Resource Groups and external DEI partners to foster an inclusive working environment where all employees are represented through support and diversity programmes.
Prior to Moody’s, Alexander had an illustrious career as an executive search consultant before shifting his focus toward DEI, working for a global D&I consulting firm called Equality Group. As a consultant, Alexander was responsible for advising Private Equity and Venture Capital firms, focusing on assessing biases within recruitment processes, promotion cycles and leadership structures and addressing key internal imbalances by creating tailored solutions for inclusion.
Workshop Facilitators
Karen Danker, Head of Coaching, Women Returners
Karen is the Head of Coaching at Women Returners and has extensive experience in supporting returners back to work. A former lawyer with 2 teenage sons, Karen went on to work in recruitment, L&D, and leadership development across the corporate and charity sectors. She has a particular interest in supporting professional women to flourish and fulfil their potential in line with their skills and values. Karen re-qualified as a career coach and now enjoys delivering coaching workshops and 121s alongside working with Women Returners’ brilliant coaching team to continually evolve its coaching offering to organisations and returners.
Victoria McLean, Founder and CEO, City CV
As Founder and CEO of award-winning, international career consultancy City CV, Victoria has devoted her career to guiding organisations and professionals through career transition, development and management. Following a career as a headhunter and roles at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, where she oversaw recruitment, she established City CV in 2009. City CV is now part of the Hanover Group, where Victoria sits on the global group board. Featured in leading media, Victoria is an international keynote speaker on D&I and all things career related. With a particular passion for supporting women in their careers, she has been a key partner of Women Returners for several years. She now works with boards and HR leaders, advising on talent, redundancy, retention, engagement, DEI, and employer branding, while supporting individuals via bespoke programmes and City CV’s Career Refinery Portal & App.
Stephanie Rix, Senior Coach, Women Returners
Stephanie is a registered professional career coach with an MA in Career Development and Coaching from Warwick University, and a Board Director for the Career Development Institute. She combines over 15 years’ commercial marketing experience with L’Oréal and Avon with a creative and results-orientated approach to coaching and career development. During her own career break following the arrival of her second child, Stephanie started a career coaching qualification and then returned to work to lead the marketing training programme, and coach senior leaders across UK, Europe and Latin America. She later left the corporate world to specialise in the career development of professional women, including those returning to work after a career break. She has many years of experience of supporting returners, both on returner programmes and on their journey back to work.