Guests

Jesper Ambrosius graduated with a double-Bachelor's in Media Science and Economics and a Master’s in Economics from Aarhus and Sydney University. Throughout his career, he has been working within primarily leadership and strategy – both with his own teams and as a strategy partner for several executives. He started out as a management trainee for the global telco Telenor where he later took on two different leadership positions. In 2015, he joined The LEGO Group, working on strategic initiatives with key partners including LEGO’s Chief Marketing Officer and the Chief People Officer. Later, he helped establish LEGO Workplace Experience and now heads up Environmental Product Innovation.  Jesper lives in Aarhus, Denmark with his wife Signe and their three children aged 3, 6, and 8 (who all happen to love their father’s job at The LEGO Group!)

Ryan recently joined Nancy Goebel for an episode of Digital Workplace Impact entitled 'How the workplace pendulum is swinging at Braze, DoorDash and Herman Miller' - listen to the podcast here.

Gianpaolo Barozzi: A Milanese physicist lent to Human Resources, he is the Global Head of People Experience Innovation at Cisco. His group focuses on revealing the most relevant signs of change in the world of work, exploring their impacts, designing and testing innovative experiences and solutions preparing Cisco for the future of work. Previously he was the head of the Cisco Innovation Academy and WW Sales Chief Learning Officer. Author of international patents and multiple articles in his former life as a researcher and R&D Designer; he is passionate about nature, art, philosophy and design, a practicing optimist and proud father of two girls.

Aubrey Blanche is The Mathpath (Math Nerd + Empath), Director of Equitable Design & Impact at Culture Amp, and a startup investor and advisor. Culture Amp – the leading People & Culture Platform - is helping companies around the world harness the power of employee feedback to drive positive change. Through all her work, Aubrey seeks to question, reimagine, and redesign the systems and practices that surround us to ensure that all people can access equitable opportunities and build a better world. Her work is underpinned by her training in social scientific methods and grounded in the fundamental dignity and value of every person. Aubrey’s professional expertise covers a broad range of equitable enterprise operations, from talent lifecycle programs and accessible product development to event design and communications & media. She is the inventor of the balanced teams approach to building proportional representation and a culture of belonging in the workplace, as well as the Balanced Teams Diversity Assessment in the Atlassian Team Playbook. She works to open source these methods for all practitioners and business leaders, and releases thought leadership and tools to create positive change at aubreyblanche.com. Aubrey is an advisor to a variety of groups seeking to build a more just world, including Aleria Research and Joonko. Her work has been featured in Wired, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, the Australian Financial Review, USA Today, Re/Code, First Round Review, and more. She also has previous academic affiliations with Stanford and Northwestern, and an appointment at the Equity by Design Lab at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Despite the accolades listed here, she asks that you engage with her work to judge her competence: traditional proxies of merit and/or competence help reinforce the systems that keep incredible people from the opportunities they deserve.

TBA

In conversation with Nature of Work authors, Paul Miller and Shimrit Janes, Rosie Brown, and Chief Creative Officer, James Rutter, discuss the importance of purpose, goodwill, community and relationships in building a flourishing organization in the first Nature of Work podcast episode, entitled The natural ingredients of work at ready-meals pioneer COOK

Dave Cairns started his career at CBRE in 2012 after being a professional poker player where he was ranked as one of the top 100 online tournament players in the world for a time. Since then, Dave has become a thought leader within the commercial real estate industry with global recognition. He is an avid content creator on LinkedIn, who is highly respect by his peers, and has received over 1 million views in 2020 alone. Working alongside his team, Dave’s focus is on working with high growth companies in the tech sector, Space as a Service Operators (#SPaaS), and with financial services firms on a local, national and global level for their office space needs. Dave is also the Founder of CBRE Forward, a platform designed to showcase the fastest growing tech companies in Canada.

Betsy leads the Digital Communications team at MassMutual, a Fortune 500 insurance and financial services company. Her team manages the corporate employee intranet and supports the Strategic Communications group with design, layout and usability services. She recently led the effort to re-think and re-vitalize the MassMutual intranet which was a 2-year project resulting in a modern, integrated and responsive site. Betsy has a professional background that spans the gamut of digital channels, including advertising, social media and website development. In a previous role, Betsy helped manage MassMutual’s social media presence and led the creation and execution of the “Vow to Protect” campaign, which was featured on a national daytime talk show.

Lucy is the founder and creator of workWILD a bio-inspired consultancy. She designs and leads bespoke workshops to help you overcome your business challenges and find new ways of thinking and working inspired by nature.

Combining the best teachings and examples from the natural world (all 3.8 billion years of it!) with compelling business case studies, she helps client teams explore themes such as creativity and problem solving, collaboration and team building, diversity and inclusion, resilience and new beginnings and workplace wellbeing.

With a background in insight and brand strategy, her mission is to connect businesses with the strategic powerhouse that is nature – expanding their horizons, unlocking new sources of inspiration and redefining what it means to be in business in a post-covid world.

Lucy, together with Abigail Wilmore, from Stella McCartney, have also been guests on our Nature of Work podcast, entitled 'Embracing heart and soul at iconic fashion brand Stella McCartney' - listen to the episode here.

Tegan is one of the founders of Happy Space UK and sits on its trustee board. She graduated King's College London with a first class honours in Law, winning the Kaplan and Dickson Poon School of Law prizes for academic excellence in her final year (although really, her greatest achievement was somehow securing the 'choreographer' position in a capella group, 'The Rolling Tones', despite not being able to dance). Within Happy Space, Tegan primarily focuses on strategy, policy and compliance - her driving goal is enabling every young person to develop a lasting healthy relationship with themselves. Tegan is also a member of the Advisory Board for Arts Humanities Research Council funded Aardman Animations project 'What's up with everyone?' looking into the link between animated storytelling and mental health literacy. She currently works as a solicitor in London.

I am passionate in supporting the business in how to collaborate, communicate and work smarter by using digital tools. I have a long experience from working in an international company implementing everything from intranets, web sites, digital workplaces, business apps, Office365, IT-tools, team structures and business processes. I am always ready to walk the extra mile to deliver results and make a change. I am curious to learn new things and challenge myself and others - to do the mission impossible. As I leader I like to develop teams to be well-working and proud - and to have fun together!

Bryan is passionate about taking care of others and creating value in society. Born & raised in the suburbs outside of Chicago, Bryan is a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan and former golf caddy turned real estate guy. He has been living in San Francisco since 2013 and working in commercial real estate since 2015. Bryan works with companies as a tenant rep advisor to think through their office strategy and build workplace experiences that are supportive of employee culture. He represents the needs of his clients by listening and understanding their goals, then creating real estate strategies in collaboration with decision makers to provide the most flexible & cost effective solution for each situation. Following the philosophy of trusting the process and putting in the effort to see results, he takes pride in embracing the imperfections of commercial real estate and identifies opportunities for new office space, restructures favorable terms in existing space and provides insight into how companies foster & cultivate a healthy culture. Throughout his career, Bryan has advised hundreds of companies in the Bay Area and around the country. These transactions have totaled over $250 million in lease value and more than 1.5 million square feet leased. Some clients he's been grateful to have an opportunity to help include: Afterpay, Lattice, Webflow, Initialized Capital, Side, Hinge Health, Standard Cognition, Lilt, Knotel, Farmstead, Iterable, Partnership on AI, iNovia Capital, Atomwise, Smartbiz, Prime Roots, Clearbit, Front, Pocket, Freenome, Homebase, Collective Health, Doma, Readme, Travelbank, Clockwise, Qualcomm Ventures, UnifyID, Sourcegraph, Sakura and Bluecrew. Specialties: Tenant Representation, Strategic Planning for Real Estate Portfolio, Negotiation Skills, Insight into Aligning Tenant's Needs with Landlord's Needs, Headcount and Growth Projections, Culture Maintenance & Building, Timeline Setting, Site Selection, Multi Market Site Selection, Talent Strategy, Transaction Management, Financial Analysis, Lease Audit and Relationship Sharing. Bryan currently works at Raise Commercial Real Estate and as a builder at heart is focused on advising humans to re-imagine the workplace.

Nancy Goebel is the Digital Workplace Group’s Managing Director for Member Services. In addition to leading service delivery and member engagement, Nancy is also responsible for global expansion. During her tenure with DWG, Nancy has been involved in account management, benchmarking, research, blogging and executive producing Digital Workplace Live and DW24. She has also been responsible for the global expansion of DWG’s Member Forum. Prior to joining Digital Workplace Group, Nancy was an accomplished executive at JPMorgan Chase, where she built and led a global team in designing and implementing an award-winning intranet. She also led digital enablement and business re-engineering initiatives. Outside of work, Nancy is a wine maker, fundraiser, reiki practitioner and meditator.

The Pattie Gonia community exists to uplift LGBTQIA+ people and allies in the outdoors and to exist as a platform to give other voices and organizations all the shine in the world. Together with her community, they’ve fundraised over a half million dollars for LGBTQIA+, BIPOC and environmental non-profits, completed over 10,000 miles of hiking together and raised awareness about the ongoing plastic crisis through their film Everything to Lose. Out of heels, Wyn Wiley (he/him) is a professional photographer, speaker, educator, and creative director for major brands as well as a number of non-profits around the world. Wyn/Pattie both have a life-long history of working with LGBTQ+ youth and social justice focused non-profits.

Lauren Griffiths is a North Carolina based human resources professional with experience working for top Fortune 100 companies. Lauren helps her clients align their talent strategy to their business strategy through active listening, curiosity and coaching. In 2020, she 'tossed' her corporate headshot on Linkedin in a viral post that has generated over 41M views and 30,000 comments. Lauren's message on authenticity in the workplace has resonated globally and has sparked ongoing debate and conversation. Lauren believes in the value of bringing your whole and true self to work.

Marie is a Director in the ESG Services Group at PwC and has more than 15 years of experience working with companies across multiple sectors, including services, pharma, retail, technology, hospitality, utilities and manufacturing. ​ She helps clients reliably and transparently communicate on sustainability and environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics to meet the new reality of stakeholder expectations. She has deep expertise advising companies on emerging trends and new standards in corporate reporting, including SASB, TCFD, and GRI.​ She has extensive experience supporting companies develop their ESG framework and improve their reporting process for more efficient disclosures. ​ Recently, Marie assisted a Fortune 50 food and beverage company enhance the governance structure supporting their newly launched goals, including the documentation of their metric-level narratives as well as the identification and mapping of data points and systems required to calculate each metric in order to prioritize potential automation projects.​ Marie is a certified internal auditor and holds the SASB Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting credential. ​

Nellie Hayat is the first Workplace Innovation Lead at Density. She was previously the Head of Workplace Transformation at VergeSense and the host of the Destination Workplace podcast. She began her workplace journey as a Real Estate and Workplace strategist at Stripe supporting the company’s hyper growth for 4 years and opened more than 10 offices around the world. During the pandemic, Nellie became an independent advisor leading the future of work movement and worked with the most innovative companies to help design engaging, inspiring and inclusive employee and workplace experiences. Nellie is a thought leader and contributes regularly to industry-related events, conferences and podcasts.

Addressing Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) issues isn’t just a responsibility or a tick-box activity. It’s a mindset and an opportunity for growth. But knowing where to start can be overwhelming. Businesses today require a plan of action that reflects their purpose. Consider that 91% of business leaders believe their company has a responsibility to act on ESG issues - and an overwhelming 86% of employees prefer to work for companies that care about the same ESG issues they do. How can organizations align their values and ESG principles with their overall growth strategy? How do you get started? PwC’s ESG Leaders will have a robust discussion on how to move from ESG theory to practical action - in a way that has sustained outcomes with your employees, customers and all stakeholders.

Char graduated from Bristol with a first class History degree in 2018. After dabbling in the events industry and travelling the world for a little while, she moved into the world of advertising - and has been working in London as a New Business & Marketing Manager at The&Partnership for the past two years. Outside of the office she is part of the Happy Space team, managing the charity’s Marketing and PR efforts to raise awareness of its important mission and resources for young people. With what spare time she has left, Char can be found scouting out the best foodie spots in London, getting stuck into a good podcast…and almost definitely with a cup of tea in hand.

Poppy Jamie is one of the world’s leading entrepreneurs, podcast hosts and speakers in the mental wellbeing and mindfulness space, on a mission to democratise conversation and tools for emotional and mental health. Poppy is the founder of the award winning Happy Not Perfect mindset app, host of the chart topping Not Perfect podcast and author of Happy Not Perfect: Upgrade Your Mind, Challenge Your Thoughts and Free Yourself From Anxiety.

Shimrit Janes is Director of Knowledge at Digital Workplace Group. She manages the AskDWG knowledge service for DWG's members, bringing them research, insights and case studies in answer to their digital workplace queries. She also oversees the "Digital Nations" Research Centre within DWG, authors research reports, and is currently co-authoring DWG's next book, "Nature of Work". Shimrit was previously a Knowledge Project Leader at a global law firm.

Diana Kelley’s security career spans over 30 years. She is Co-Founder and CTO of SecurityCurve, Chief vCISO at SaltCybersecurity and donates much of her time to volunteer work in the cybersecurity community, including serving on the ACM Ethics & Plagiarism Committee, on the Executive Board at Sightline Security and Cyber Future Foundation, as Executive Board and Inclusion Working Group champion at WiCyS, Cybersecurity Committee Advisor at CompTIA, Advisory Board Chair at WOPLLI Technologies, Advisory Council member Bartlett College of Science and Mathematics, Bridgewater State University, and RSAC US Program Committee. Diana produces the #MyCyberWhy series and is the host of BrightTALK’s The (Security) Balancing Act and co-host of the Your Everyday Cyber podcast. Diana was the Cybersecurity Field CTO for Microsoft, Global Executive Security Advisor at IBM Security, GM at Symantec, VP at Burton Group (now Gartner), and a Manager at KPMG. Diana is a sought after keynote speaker, the co-author of the books Practical Cybersecurity Architecture and Cryptographic Libraries for Developers, has been a lecturer at Boston College's Masters program in cybersecurity, the EWF 2020 Executive of the Year, and one of Cybersecurity Ventures 100 Fascinating Females Fighting Cybercrime.

Isabel Kelly is Founder of Profit with Purpose, a consultancy committed to helping companies build social purpose into the heart of their organisation - making them accountable not only to shareholders but to their full set of stakeholders. Profit with Purpose works globally with companies of varying sizes and across sectors - clients include Experian, Blue Prism, Gucci, Sage and Shiva Hotels. For 12 years from 2002 Isabel established Salesforce.org internationally, delivering their model of integrated philanthropy and initiating an innovative revenue-generation model. She worked at Oxfam and Amnesty International for 12 years prior to joining Salesforce. She is a non-executive director at tech company The Panoply, a careers advisor for MBA students at the Said Business School at Oxford University, and is on the board of The Big Give, the UK's largest match-funding charity.

Graham Kennedy is head of Digital Workplace at Fidelity Investments. Fidelity helps 35 million people feel more confident in their most important financial goals, manages employee benefit programs for over 22,000 businesses, and supports 13,000+ financial institutions. As head of Digital Workplace, Mr. Kennedy provides the vision and oversight to ensure Fidelity’s associates have an integrated, engaging digital experience along with the tools, training and support to do their best work. Over his 20-year career at Fidelity, Mr. Kennedy has had several leadership roles in sales, service, and strategy across various business lines. Prior to Digital Workplace, Mr. Kennedy was Head of Strategy, Planning & Operations for Fidelity’s central process re-engineering and automation resource that enables Fidelity's digitization. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President with Fidelity Workplace Investments that supports our institutional clients and their employees' benefit plan needs. Originally from Canada, Mr. Kennedy is now based in Westlake, Texas and is a father of three.

Cai Kjaer is the Co-founder and CEO of SWOOP Analytics, and is a subject matter expert on measuring collaboration. SWOOP is a leading global enterprise social network analytics platform that uses data from Microsoft Teams,  Yammer and Workplace by Facebook to help organisations and their people to become better collaborators. SWOOP have also collaborated with leading universities such as Stanford, Sydney University and Griffith University to ensure that metrics are evidence-based and valid. With more than 150 organisations participating SWOOP also runs the world’s largest independent benchmarking study of Yammer and Teams  which provides for a very deep understanding of how people collaborate, and how to make them better and faster.

Elisabet has a solid background in the Digital Workplace sphere, passionate about connecting the dots between digital projects, internal communications, change management and IT. She has run several Intranet projects, implementing digital capabilities to diverse business areas. Over the last couple of years, focus has been on transforming the Digital Workplace of the City of Malmö, aligned with the City’s digitalization programme. The team’s focus on user research and employee engagement was awarded a ’Digital Workplace of the year Award for User Engagement’ 2020, by Digital Workplace Group, DWG.

Elizabeth Marsh is an independent researcher as well as leading DWG's programme of best practice research. She has researched and/or managed numerous research projects relating to topics such as digital workplace strategy, digital skills, the future of work, digital leadership, digital well-being and more. In 2015, she co-authored 'The Digital Renaissance of Work: Delivering digital workplaces fit for the future' with DWG CEO Paul Miller, which was shortlisted for CMI Management Book of the Year 2015.  Elizabeth was awarded a MSc Psychology with Distinction from Coventry University and has authored a peer reviewed paper on the impact of digital literacy on digital workplace adoption in the International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence (IJDLDC). She is currently undertaking part time doctoral research at the University of Nottingham on technostress and mindfulness. 

Richard M Marshall, Principal of Concept Gap, has over 30 years of experience in the field of software design and innovation. His background includes over 18 years as an entrepreneur, where he built and sold three different software development companies in the areas of mobile app design, web design and requirements management. It also includes over 5 years as a Gartner analyst, where he led a team that focused on global application design and development trends and where he served as a vocal champion of the emergence of enterprise mobile app technologies. Richard's expertise covers numerous areas of software development including, mobile, low code, web tools, AI and the future of work. He has lectured extensively on these topics and published numerous white papers, articles and reports through the years. Richard holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh.

TBA

Once described as “human caffeine” on Twitter, Dr Nicola Millard injects a positive, people-centred expresso shot to innovation and future strategy. Half social scientist, half technologist, all academic, she uses techniques from disciplines such as design thinking, psychology, anthropology, computing, and business consulting to generate data, provocations and stories which can engage and create conversations from the board room, to the front line. No frothy coffee; just solid research. In her long and varied career at BT – mostly based at Adastral Park in Ipswich, Suffolk, UK – Nicola has done many jobs, including futurology, research, usability, customer service, marketing, and business consulting. She was involved with a number of BT firsts, including the first application of artificial intelligence into BT's call centres, BT's initial experiments with home working, and helping to develop BT’s “net easy” score, a new way of measuring customer experience. She currently looks at innovation in both employee and customer experience. Nicola got her PhD from Lancaster University in 2005 and has authored over 50 publications – including 1 book and numerous book chapters. Nicola is an award winning presenter, with 2 TED talks and hundreds of conference panel, chair and keynote sessions under her belt. She occasionally pops up on radio and TV around the world, including appearances on 'Woman's Hour', 'Tech Tent', ‘The Genius of Invention and ‘Back in Time for the Weekend' for the BBC. She is a judge on a number of award panels, including the Institute of Customer Service, the CCMA and the Association of Business Psychology. She is also on the AI advisory board for ContactEngine. In both 2019 and 2020 she was listed as one of the top 20 UK CX Influencers by Customer Experience Magazine.

Business and social entrepreneur Paul Miller is CEO and Founder of Digital Workplace Group (DWG). His latest book, The Digital Renaissance of Work: Delivering digital workplaces fit for the future (co-authored with Elizabeth Marsh), was shortlisted for the Management Book of the Year 2016 Award, and his previous book, The Digital Workplace: How technology is liberating work, helped to popularize and explain the term “digital workplace”. Paul hosts the Digital Workplace Impact podcast, is Executive Producer of the 24-hour global digital experience Digital Workplace 24, and hosted the pioneering internet radio show Digital Workplace Live for five years. He has given many inspirational talks on the digital future of work, for audiences at Microsoft, IKEA, Google, Accenture, Harvard Business Review, Cisco, European Commission, IMF, Adobe and Oxford University. Paul was ranked one of the world’s Top 50 Social Employee Advocacy Leaders in 2015. Prior to founding DWG, he was Founder and CEO of communications company The Empowerment Group; Publisher and Editor of social and digital innovation magazine ‘Wave’; and, in pre-internet days, Co-founder of the Ideas Café salon. He lives in the Cotswolds in the UK.

Gabi Miller is a life and business coach and psychotherapist in training. Gabi studied Psychology at university and went on to qualify and certified as a professional coach with the Coaching Training Institute. In 2017, she left the corporate world to set up her own coaching business and now does the majority of her work with companies supporting them in creating growth mindsets amongst their teams and leaders and cultivating working cultures that attract and retain the best people. Alongside this, she supports people in private coaching as they navigate through the mental blocks and barriers that hold them back in life such as fear, self-doubt and insecurities to enable them to start living happier and more fulfilling lives.

Donna Nelham is is also known to some as an Inspiration Strategist and a cross-pollinator. With 30 years experience, she helps individuals and organizations across sectors reframe their ‘why,’ tackle the tough challenges and thrive on new, regenerative ways of working and being. Balancing hard science with messy humanness and always learning, she draws from multidisciplinary perspectives and integrative systems thinking to navigate through complexity and uncertainty. Her work as Co-founder of Unstitution is focused on building binding coalitions across sectors. At Omnirama, Donna is a Global Pollinator and will be poised to reach people at the intersections of multi-disciplines within the world of work, workplace and the built environment. As Chief Strategy Officer at Fractal, she is co-creating a vibrant live-work-play community in a smaller Canadian city. In her roles at Fractal, Omnirama, Unstitution and in her private practice, she helps translate broad-brush strategy into a grounded working narrative. She researches globally, travelling down rabbit holes and building bridges between disciplines, industries and sectors. An abundance mindset guides her moral compass and helps her communicate meaningfully with varied stakeholders.

As Director of Talent Development, Danielle O’Hare drives talent strategy and planning for employees across ILM's global studios in San Francisco, London, Vancouver, Singapore and Sydney. O’Hare focuses her work on all aspects of the Talent Pipeline from University Internships to Artistic and Technical Training to Professional Development programming for senior staff. O’Hare is a champion of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging and partners with leaders to drive the company’s initiatives in this space. She partners with teams across the globe as well as with counterparts at The Walt Disney Company. O’Hare joined Industrial Light & Magic in 2001 in the Technical Training Department. O’Hare is from Berkeley, California. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Macalester College. O’Hare currently resides in San Francisco, California with her husband and two children.

Mr. Geoffrey W.S. Okamoto was appointed First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund on March 12, 2020 and he assumed his position on March 19, 2020. Before joining the IMF, Mr. Okamoto was Acting Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Finance and Development in the United States government. In this role, he oversaw global financial markets, coordination with the G-7, G-20, and the Financial Stability Board, regional and bilateral economic issues, and international financial institutions. Previously, he served as the U.S. Treasury’s Acting Under Secretary for International Affairs. Prior to joining the Treasury, Mr. Okamoto held prominent positions in the U.S. Senate, such as Majority Staff Director for the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection, and Policy Director for the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade. Mr. Okamoto was the Chairman of the Board for Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, an Atlantik-Brücke Young Leader, and a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations Congressional Study Group. He earned a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., with a concentration in Banking, Fiscal, and Monetary Policy, and a Bachelor of Science from California State Polytechnic University.

Kevin Olp is a DWG research associate, freelance consultant and business owner in the financial services industry. He has specialty in digital adoption, sustainability and change leadership. Kevin worked previously as a Digital Workplace executive at Northwestern Mutual, where he sponsored the development and implementation of the company’s current intranet. Kevin is passionate about the integration of diverse digital tools into a single, seamless experience for users, without constraints of time or location. Kevin lives with his wife Cheri in Milwaukee, WI, US.

Annie is a startup ecosystem and community leader having built multiple startup programs around the world for brands like Microsoft, Telefonica and Telstra. In her role within the Microsoft for Startups team Annie leads all the Equity and Inclusion initiatives globally ensuring that under-represented founders get the help, networks and spotlight they need to succeed. A firm believer in the importance of paying everything forward, Annie is an active advisor and investor, she also supports programs that grow the broader startup community.  In 2014 she co-founded Code Club Australia which teaches kids coding skills.  In 2015 she co-founded Techfugees Australia a program connecting the technology ecosystem together with newly arrived refugees to help solve problems they face. When not in the startup community, Annie can usually be found hiking with her little dog Fred, or with her friends sampling gin and eating cheese.

In his role, Giovanni leads the ongoing transformation, consolidation and modernization of Library Services, Operations and Scientific Intelligence. After acquiring a degree in Computer Science, Giovanni launched his career in Italy working for various consulting groupsincluding Andersen Consulting’s Milan Office and later transitioning to Andersen’s World Headquarters in Chicago. Giovanni then served in Earnst & Young’s Center for Business Knowledge, as the Global Director for the KWeb program, responsible for all aspects of E&Y’s knowledge sharing environment, tools, processes, procedures, applications and technologies. Under his leadership, Ernst & Young won the MAKE (Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise) Award for 12 years in a row. In 2011 Giovanni joined Johnson & Johnson, as the Global Head of Information and Knowledge, concentrating his efforts in defining the I&KM strategy and global implementation. In the fall of 2016, Giovanni returned to his professional services roots and joined KPMG as the Global Director of Collaboration and Knowledge, from which he transitioned to the role of Global Head of Knowledge Management and Digital Workplace services with Incedo Inc., prior to joining Takeda. Giovanni lives with his wife in Arlington, Virginia where they enjoy walks in the nearby parks, attending the Washington Nationals and the Washington Capitals games, numerous other cultural events, and tend not to share with others the fact they met while refereeing at a football (soccer) tournament.

In his previous role as Innovation Lead at Vodafone Global Enterprise, David developed a passion for collaborative workshops. Witnessing their power to tap into cognitive diversity, create new cutting-edge solutions, solve problems, align people and ultimately deliver transformative outcomes. In his role, David discovered that whilst workshops are a fantastic tool, many fail due to a lack of a structured approach. David created the POISED® methodology that ensures workshops move teams and organisations forward.  The methodology has been proven to deliver transformed experiences and outcomes in over two hundred face-to-face and online workshops. David believes life is too short for meetings and workshops that fail to move teams forward, alienate people or leave people feeling drained. Outside of work, David loves tropical style gardening, cooking for friends, dance exercise classes and cycling.

Claire is CEO and one of the founders of MHIB - and her vision is to lead a global shift in mental health in the workplace. She is passionate about helping to effect change, break down taboos and open up the conversation about mental health. Aside from the work that she does in MHIB, she is a prolific speaker - speaking candidly about her own experiences with mental illness, and suicide; and giving powerful key notes on mental health and resilience. She continues to be a committed volunteer, giving much of her time to her local Samaritans branch. Claire has had a long-standing career in the insurance industry - she has been leading insurance businesses for over 20 years and brings this valuable business and industry experience to the work that she and her team does with their many corporate clients.

Rob Ryan has spent his career solving complex business challenges within Fortune 500 organizations and highly regulated environments. An expert in digital transformation and employee experience, Rob’s award-winning program strategies and organizational change plans have helped shape the intranets, extranets, digital workplaces, and digital employee experiences for some of the world's most recognized organizations and brands. As Workgrid’s Director of Product Marketing and Business Value, Rob leads product marketing direction, thought leadership, analyst relations, and industry insights.

Karlee’s passion is to inspire businesses to think differently about the employee experience, and how organisations can leverage this to transform. In her role at Microsoft she shares stories of how collaboration insights have informed change both internally at Microsoft and with our customers across the world.  With a career that started in recruitment/HR, she inspires people teams to explore strategic insights to understand how people work to achieve business outcomes. When not storytelling, you can usually find Karlee in her garden or kitchen.  Oh, watch out - she has a real life black belt too with a 1st dan in Taekwondo.

Paul has practised Yoga for over 13 years and studied in London and India. Yoga certification of over 800 hours includes: Ashtanga, Power, Advanced adjustments, Yin, Meditation, Pranayama, Kriya, Mantra and Anatomy. Paul teaches at all levels from beginner, wheelchair user to athlete. His teaching style is diverse ranging from Dynamic Yoga for strength building and alignment, Meditative Yin for strength building and alignment, Meditative Yin Yoga for calm & flexibility and Gentle Chair Yoga for the less mobile.

With over 30 years in the technology space, Ed is a frequent speaker on the subject of data analytics as it relates to adoption and change management and organizational behavior. He was a member of the Microsoft Partner Advisory Council on Business Intelligence for 5 years and is CEO and Co-Founder of the company that makes the award winning tyGraph Analytics for Microsoft 365 solution.

Justin Shee is CEO & Co-Founder of CitizenG, which provides alternative living solutions to older adults. Their in-home technology platform allows older residents to access all of the same services that are offered in retirement homes, but to live within multi-generational communities where their neighbours may be 1 or 101. They have their first three properties launched in London and are excited to see the mutual benefits of intergenerational living flourish.

Matthew Shribman is a science communicator and environmentalist specialising on impact outside the echo chamber. He has appeared across the BBC, spoken for TedX and is an aadvisor for the world congress of science and factual producers. He is a co-founder of AimHi Earth and is currently in Glasgow at COP26 preparing to deliver a live education lesson to over 2000 schools in the UK about the climate and nature crisis.

Manisha Singh serves as Vice President, Employee Experience, People Analytics and Digital HR at Astrazeneca where she works on enabling the People Strategy through data driven actionable insights and transforming Workforce Experience empowered by digital. Working at the intersection of people, process and technology her endeavour is to get the business and employees Future ready and deliver the growth through innovation. ​ Manisha has held Global leadership roles in managing –Strategic business Initiatives, Corporate transformation, People Strategy and Talent Management working with CXO’s and Board to enable business growth. She is certified Business Assessor, Executive Coach and Talent Strategist. She has led Talent and People Strategy enabling Digital transformation and Future of Work at Schneider Electric as well as now at Astrazeneca.Last 10+ years she has worked with CEO, CDO, CHROs to build sustainable organisation and portfolio of people initiatives to enable fair and equitable growth for all. Her mission is to design the future that loves us all and we have a responsibility to create inclusive practices and tech so that it can accelerate opportunities for all. ​ She is appointed research affiliate for MIT office of Digital Learning, MIT Future of Work taskforce and is also active fellow in AI for Humanity , creatin advocacy for adoption of higher ethical standards in our digital future.She is a leading voice in HR technology and EX and also a senior faculty at Josh Bersin Academy which is top boutique consulting firm for CHROs to consult for strategic HR issues.​ Manisha has pioneered the Talent agility in organisation design through Open Talent Marketplace launch, Employee Experience and continuous listening, Learning Experience and Ecosystem transformation and Higher performing Analytics ecosystem design.​ Manisha is a systems thinker and a futurist who believes that HR is the conscience keeper of the business, human capital is the key differentiator and that the future is human! She passionately champions diversity, ethical governance and vocational education for youth.​

Edward has been working in the digital industry for more than 10 years and brings experience of working with many clients around the world. As Executive Director at DWG, Edward is part of the leadership team and is focused on helping to grow the business and develop our existing services. He works closely with the DWG member community to support them in meeting their objectives through our consulting practice. More recently he has taken the lead on the DWG Institute, our latest offering, that brings together technology providers and digital workplace practitioners. The DWG Institute will enable learning and encourage sharing about technologies and trends in the digital workplace.  

As Chief People Officer at Stella McCartney, I define and implement the people strategy, bringing the ethical, sustainable and responsible elements of what the brand stands for into our people and culture agenda. As a breaker of tired outdated HR ‘rules’ I operate with the values of trust, respect, integrity and compassion to create a heart centred global community.

Abigail Wilmore, together with Lucy Colclough, from WorkWILD, have also been guests on our Nature of Work podcast, entitled 'Embracing heart and soul at iconic fashion brand Stella McCartney' - listen to the episode here.