Eleanor O’Keeffe

Eleanor O'Keeffe is Senior Director, Corporate Sustainability, EMEA at Edelman. Previously she worked in the UK Government’s COP26 Unit. A key member of the COP26 Communications team, she helped develop the communications strategy for COP and was the principal lead for communications around the public facing Green Zone. In addition, she led on partnerships with influencers and civil society working with global organisations and celebrities including Leonardo Di Caprio, Idris Elba and Sir David Attenborough.

Prior to joining the Cabinet Office, she was Editorial Director of the AI, technology and leadership festival CogX. From 2008-19, she was CEO and co-founder of one of London's leading events companies, 5x15, working with World Bank, Google, UBS and Jaguar Land Rover amongst others. Eleanor holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. 

Priya Sarma

Priya joined Unilever in February 2008 as the Corporate Communication Manager for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and is based in Jebel Ali, Dubai which is the regional Unilever headquarter. In January 2012 she was assigned the additional responsibility for Employee Engagement across the countries of MENA, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In 2019 she was promoted as Sr. Sustainability Head for MENA, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus & Turkey and in 2021 the additional remit of MENA Corporate Affairs was added to her portfolio.

In 2016, she led the formation of the Advertising Business Group (ABG) and has been its Board Member since 2016. The ABG is GCC’s largest advertising and marketing self-regulatory body with over 60 members who account for over 70% of the MENA’s advertising spend. Since 2018 she has been representing the Multinational Companies Business Group (MCBG) in the FCSC led Private Sector Advisory Council on the SDG’s. In Nov 2020, Priya led the launch of the UAE Chapter of the Unstereotype Alliance (UA) in partnership with UN Women and was recognized by Campaign Middle East as a “Marketing Game Changer – 2020”. The UA is a thought and action platform that seeks to eradicate harmful gender-based stereotypes in media and advertising.

Priya has a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA). She is an Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) having successfully completed a course from the International Association for Business Communicators in 2010 and a Circular Economy Master class from the University of Exeter Business School in 2020.

Angus Blair: CEO, Signet Institute

With a long and award-winning career in investment banking and financial services in the City of London and in emerging markets, including being a No 1 Institutional Investor analyst and Global Finance magazine’s, “Emerging Markets Superstar”, Angus has covered developed and developing markets and economies. Angus also brings expertise in starting/running mainly financial services businesses in London and emerging markets and has worked with and advised the boards, executive management and risk committees of major multinationals, and also with SMEs, in a number of jurisdictions. He has been a market strategist at Barings and subsequently head of Mediterranean and the Middle East and North Africa at Barings and ABN AMRO, before becoming an MD in private equity (Safron) and then head of asset management/product development at Al Rajhi Bank in Saudi Arabia, and subsequently at the MENA region investment banks, Beltone (partner, corporate development & research) and COO at Pharos. He has recently been the CIB Professor of Practice at the business school, American University of Cairo, teaching corporate finance, corporate governance, ESG, managerial finance and economics.