DAY 1 – TUESDAY 9 NOVEMBER

CHAIR

Naomi Jones, Chart.PR FCIPR,
Communications and Marketing Director, SUEZ recycling and recovery UK


headshot Naomi Jones
Having started her career in agency life specialising in public affairs and crisis management, Naomi became the SUEZ group’s youngest ever department head at 28 years old in 2009. An ESG and sustainability communications expert, Naomi has been instrumental in numerous achievements over her 12 years at SUEZ, including increasing SUEZ’s media share of voice in the waste management sector from fifth to first position and joint managing the employee engagement programme with HR resulting in the company being awarded the Sunday Times Best Companies’ ‘Best 25 Big Companies to Work For’ accolade in 2018 and again in 2020, for a predominantly operational and dispersed workforce.  
Learn More about Naomi Jones' work



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Ian Anderson, Executive Chairman,
Cicero/AMO


Ian Anderson 

At Cicero/AMO, Iain has driven mentoring and support for LGBT+ people in and now supports across HAVAS in the UK. Over the last two years, the business has been shortlisted for the LGBT Awards for its impact. As part of HAVAS and he supports the Diversity and Inclusion Group - ALL IN. He is a Stonewall Ambassador and a Trustee of global LGBT+ Charity GiveOUT. He chaired the Government Equalities Office IDAHOT global business event in and the UK Government's first-ever LGBT+ event focused on SMEs in March 2021. He has recently become the UK Government's first-ever LGBT+ Business Champion with a remit to improve the workplace for LGBT+ people, develop solutions to workplace discrimination and champion LGBT+ rights.

Sarah Binnie,
Head of Climate Change, Public Policy, NatWest Group


Sarah Binnie 

Sarah Binnie has 15 years of experience working in both internal and external comms at NatWest Group.  She started her career in internal communications, before moving to the bank’s press office, taking on roles including issues management, the Group’s financial reporting, and heading up the Personal and Commercial banking media teams.  After maternity leave, she became Head of Planning in internal communications, leading the launch for the bank’s new Purpose in 2020. Over the last year, Sarah has taken on the role as Head of Climate Change in the bank’s Public Policy team, being responsible for the bank’s role as a Principal Partner of COP26. 

Fiona Blair, Director of Marketing, Communication and Engagement
University of Reading


Fiona Blair 

Fiona has worked in higher education marketing and communications for more than for 15 years. Fiona joined the University of Reading in January 2009 as a senior member of the External Affairs team responsible for the institution’s corporate relations and events. As Head of Engagement and External Relations, she led the transformation of the University’s prospective student experience. Continuing her career at Reading, Fiona was recruited to the post of Head of Marketing Operations, ahead of being appointed as the University’s Director of Marketing, Communication and Engagement, and member of the University’s Leadership Group Team in 2017

Anthony Bullick chart.PR, MCIPR,
Managing Director, Outwrite PR


Anthony Bullick 

Anthony is the owner and managing director of Outwrite PR, a PR agency in North Wales. One of Outwrite’s sector specialisms is green and renewable energy, with the firm’s base in North Wales ideal for the region’s burgeoning and innovative renewables activity. Its clients include Jones Bros Civil Engineering UK, which has constructed multiple wind farms across the UK and is presently delivering works at the Dogger Bank and Sofia offshore wind farms. Anthony is one of only circa 400 chartered PR practitioners in the UK, is a regular commentator in the media on PR and communications and is chair of the CIPR North West region. He has been shortlisted for multiple individual PR awards as well as young director of the year at the Institute of Directors (IoD) Wales awards in 2017.

Rod Cartwright MCIPR,
Special Advisor


Rod Cartwright 

Rod Cartwright is a Special Advisor to the CIPR’s Crisis Communication Network and chairs the EACD’s Crisis & Risk Communication Expert Group.  He is the Principal of Rod Cartwright Consulting, a strategic communication consulting firm with a mission to enhance human preparedness, organisational resilience and business performance.  

Rod has advised major corporations and brands and his extensive frontline crisis experience includes advising Malaysia Airlines in the months following the disappearance of Flight MH370.  He has 25+ years of consulting experience, including board-level roles at GCI, Hill + Knowlton Strategies and Ketchum. He was a Partner and Global Corporate Practice Director at Ketchum, before becoming EMEA Regional Director at Text100 (now Archetype). 

Kelly Hunstone,
CEO at Social Change UK


Kelly Hunstone

Kelly is Chief Executive at Social Change UK – an award winning behaviour change agency dedicated to taking on society’s biggest issues such as obesity, climate change, knife crime and child sexual exploitation. 
 
Kelly works with UK government, businesses and brands to design solutions and deliver campaigns and programmes that focus on positively changing people’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. Her research and marketing over the last two decades has influenced policy and changes in the law, and her campaigns have helped to save society millions.  Kelly was a TedX speaker in 2017, is a regular university and conference speaker and guest on BBC radio.

Dex Hunter-Torricke,
Head of Communications, Facebook Oversight Board


Dex Hunter-Torricke 

With more than a decade working at the heart of the technology industry, Dex Hunter-Torricke has managed communications for some of the most influential and admired Silicon Valley leaders and corporations of our day. From 2012-2016, he led the executive communications team at Facebook and served as personal speechwriter for Mark Zuckerberg. He then went on to join SpaceX as senior director of communications. In May 2020 he became head of communications for Oversight Board, the independent body making decisions on Facebook and Instagram’s most challenging content issues.

Anwer Ismail, Director of Marketing, Head of Customer Success,
Signal AI


Anwer Ismail 

Anwer is Head of Customer Success at Signal AI, with a career starting 20 years ago with the Financial Times, Anwer was a founding employee at the game-changing media intelligence tool Gorkana, before moving to Signal AI. In this time, Anwer has worked with 17 of the top 20 Fortune companies and many of the world's largest NFP's and Government Agencies.

Rachel Lawrence,
Community Engagement Manager, SSE Renewables


Rachel Lawrence 

Rachel began her career in local newspaper journalism, before gaining experience in PR and public affairs in a local authority press office. She later became a passionate advocate for the UK and European steel industry working for Corus, Tata Steel and later British Steel in a variety of media and public-facing roles. Her desire to influence environmental change drove Rachel to join leading renewable electricity generator and developer, SSE, in 2020.  Rachel is community engagement manager for the world's largest offshore wind farm project, and works with a broad range of stakeholders to support the growth of this hugely important sector.

Claire-Marie Mason MCIPR,
Senior Media Engagement Management, RNLI



Claire-Marie Mason,

Currently Senior Media Engagement Management at the RNLI, Claire-Marie has spent the last 15 years working in public relations, in both public and voluntary sectors.  She started her career at Dorset Fire & Rescue Service before joining the Royal National Lifeboat institution to lead on the communications for the national rollout of the beach lifeguard service. With experience in leading teams through change to deliver results that enhance brand and reputation, Claire-Marie now heads up the Media Engagement Team to raise awareness and relevance of the lifesaving charity.

Victoria Pearson MCIPR,
Head of Corporate Communications University of Reading


Victoria Pearson 

Vicky is the Head of Corporate Communications at the University of Reading. She has more than a decade’s experience in communications and PR spanning strategic communications planning, internal communications, staff engagement, crisis handling and stakeholder relations across education, central and local government. Her previous roles have included Senior Communications Planning Manager at the University of Oxford, with a particular focus on research and innovation, and Internal Communications Manager at the Oxfordshire County Council.

Jo Roberts, Communications Director,
Heathrow Airport


Jo Roberts 

As Communications Director at Heathrow Airport, Jo oversees internal, policy, government affairs and media programmes. Even before the pandemic, no day was ever the same, but these days activity and priorities can be even more unpredictable.

Ruth Shulver,
Deputy Director of Media and Communication, Metropolitan Police Service


Ruth Shulver

Ruth is the Deputy Director of Media and Communication for the Metropolitan Police Service, providing senior communication advice to Management Board members and leading the communication response to a range of complex and challenging issues such as campaigns to reduce violence and improve the diversity of our police officer recruitment; responding to terrorist attacks and their subsequent judicial processes; communicating the murder of her colleague Police Sergeant Matt Ratana; maintaining public trust and confidence as the role of policing changed when COVID legislation was introduced; the kidnap, murder and rape of Sarah Everard by a Metropolitan Police officer; and a range of protest and public order operations including those of Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter. She has been leading on the Met’s diversity, equality and inclusion commitment to increase engagement with the public to further improve trust and confidence. 

Ruth is Co-Chair of the Association of Police Communicators and she represents communications for London responders on the London Resilience Forum.  Prior to re-joining the Metropolitan Police Service she was Head of Communications for Surrey Police.

Chris Tucker MCIPR,
CHair, CIPR Crisis Communications Network


Chris Tucker 

Chris has spent the past 25 plus years in public relations working in the voluntary, public and private sectors.  She worked for Barclays Bank, joining as Head of PR for Barclaycard and then proceeding to hold several PR positions across the bank looking after areas as diverse as business-to-business, international, CSR and IT before finally taking up the position of PR Director for the global Barclays Group.  

Chris now manages her own PR consultancy working in several sectors – from the aid sector to fintech and she provides media and crisis communications training, lecturing and mentoring.  Chris chairs the CIPR’s Crisis Communications Network, is a course leader for the CIPR Diploma and developed and leads the CIPR’s Crisis Communications Diploma.

Aaron Uddin,
Managing Partner, ERM


Aaron Uddin,

Aaron is Managing Partner for Transformation & Engagement, a global group of people-oriented consultants at ERM, the largest global pure-play sustainability consultancy. ERM partners with the world’s leading organisations, creating innovative solutions to sustainability challenges and unlocking commercial opportunities that meet the needs of today while preserving opportunity for future generations.

Aaron’s work involves helping clients humanize their transformation – integrating behavioural science with business value to drive ESG performance.  In the face of increasing stakeholder pressure inside and outside of organisations, ERM leads with a holistic approach to shifting employee mindsets and behaviours in a way that enables resiliency in the face of continuous change.

Georgie Weedon,
Head of Communications, Signal AI


Georgie Weedon 

Georgie heads up global communications at technology firm Signal AI. Previously she was the third member of the launch team of Al Jazeera English, working as a journalist and executive producer, and developed the daily global current affairs programme, Witness. She has advised the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a communications strategist and partnered both the Prince of Wales’ Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change and British Antarctic Survey, as well as several UK government departments. Georgie ran her own communications agency Gingerwink Media for over a decade with tech and blockchain clients as well as making films for the BBC.

Charlotte West,
Executive Director, Lenovo


Charlotte West 

Charlotte is a corporate reputation and integrated communications leader focused on protecting and promoting the reputation of complex global businesses across diverse markets and audiences. Her experience spans both agency and in-house, including everything from global crisis management, international policy, ESG comms strategy, and executive and investor communications to integrated communications campaigns designed to connect with hearts and minds around the world. She is currently Executive Director, Global Corporate Communications for Lenovo, a $60 billion global technology powerhouse, listed in Hong Kong and operating in 180 markets worldwide.

CONFERENCE INFORMATION

View general conference information, prices and dates
View the full conference programme 
View the conference chairs