The Women's Business Forum 2013

Heather is the Founder and Chief Executive of The Women's Business Forum, one of four initiatives from An Inspirational Journey, which seeks to increase the number of skilled women working at the top of corporate Britain.

An Inspirational Journey, launched in May 2011, fuelled by the Royal Bank of Scotland, unites companies, their women and their male business leaders. It aims to mend the leaking pipeline of talented women and and ensure organisations have the best talent to lead them, Regardless of Gender without need for mandatory quotas enforced by legislation.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett is an economist and the founding president of the Center for Talent Innovation (formerly the Center for Work-Life Policy), a Manhattan-based think tank where she chairs the "Task Force for Talent Innovation", a task force of 73 global companies committed to global talent innovation. She also directs the Gender and Policy Program at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Century Association and the World Economic Forum Council on Women's Empowerment.

Emily Lawson is a Partner at McKinsey & Company. She is the leader of global Human Capital practice, and helps companies across the world on all issues related to organisational performance, in particular on issues of talent strategy and management, capability-building and culture change, with a focus on pharmaceutical and financial services.

Emily led McKinsey's 2012 research on diversity, Women Matter: Making the Breakthrough, and heads their work across Europe on helping companies attract, develop and retain their women. Emily holds an MA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, a PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of East Anglia, and an MBA with Distinction from the Said Business School, Oxford.

An 'M&C Saatchi Lifer' Carrie began her career as a Graduate Trainee at Saatchi & Saatchi in 1991 and joined M&C Saatchi when it was founded in 1995. She was promoted to Managing Director in 2007 and Chief Executive in 2011.

Carrie's client responsibilities include Transport for London, Olympic Delivery Authority, Direct Line, Heinz and Vertu. Carrie was recently elected as an IPA Council Member and is also part of their Professional Development Group.

She champions the Saatchi spirit and is a fierce protector of people and talent within M&C Saatchi. Creatively driven, she is associated with much of the agency's strongest work and will be pushing the creative agenda of the future.

Ben Black started his career as a corporate lawyer at Ashurst before joining one of his clients the Club Company. Inspired by the work P&G was undertaking around working mothers Ben and his brother Ollie started a childcare business in 2000, Tinies, which is now the UK's largest supplier of nannies and nursery staff operating from 30 branches across the country. Tinies is part of the My Family Care group which Ben founded in 2005 with the ground breaking emergency childcare service.

My Family Care specialises in providing work and family support to parents and carers at many of the UK's best employers including Barclays, Shell, IBM, Deloitte, KPMG, Freshfields and GSK.

Bob Charlton is the Managing Director for Asia Pacific at DLA Piper. He is based in Hong Kong and leads a team of over 650 lawyers based in five countries across Australia, China, Japan, Singapore and Thailand. Bob is responsible for achieving DLA Piper's vision to be the leading business law firm in the region.

Prior to moving to Hong Kong in May 2012, Bob was responsible for the Finance & Projects practice for the firm. He joined DLA Piper in 2009 from Freshfields where he was a partner acting for a range of banks, principal borrowers and Governments.

Liz is Ernst & Young's Managing Partner for People in the UK & Ireland and sits on the UK firm's Executive Board. Liz is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusiveness and for all 25 years of her career at EY has been determined to create an environment where people from all backgrounds can succeed and flourish.

Under Liz's stewardship EY recently achieved first place in Stonewall's Workplace Equality Index and Liz was recently featured as one of 16 global role models selected by Stonewall to participate in their recent research.

Geraldine Huse joined P&G in 1986 as a graduate in the UK & Ireland sales organisation. Through the 1990s, she managed P&G's Convenience Retail Channel in the UK and then moved into marketing, managing leading laundry brands in Poland. Since then, Geraldine has progressed through a number of senior leadership roles across P&G's global business. She has been responsible for P&G's Skin & Cosmetic business in Europe, the global Personal Cleansing business (focussing on China, NA, Canada and WE), and led the multifunctional business team for J Sainsbury in the UK. Geraldine then became responsible for overall Market Strategy in the UK & Ireland. Following an assignment in Geneva leading P&G's Western European Market Strategy & Planning organisation, Geraldine is now back in the UK as General Manager of Customer Business Development. Geraldine is a Trustee of the Industry charity, Caravan.

Chris Sullivan was appointed Chief Executive of the Corporate Banking Division including SME and the GTS Division in August 2009. These businesses hold market positions of 1st (in the UK) and 5th (globally) respectively. Chris' previous role was as Chief Executive of RBS Insurance. Prior to this, Chris was Chief Executive of Retail and Deputy Chief Executive of Retail Markets.

Chris is the Group sponsor for Gender Diversity and the Focused Womens Network which has seen its membership grow from 500 to currently over 5000 members.

Kirsty is based in London and accountable for leading BP's Organisational Effectiveness function, working closely with the Executive Team of the company to surface the issues that get in the way of, or can unlock better organisational performance. This remit incorporates the focused approach to the company's values & expected behaviours, its Diversity & Inclusion agenda and further developing the company's Organisational Change and Development capability.

She believes deeply that people are the most valuable asset an organisation has, and that enabling and harnessing the sense of belonging, diverse thinking, talent and energy of people across the business is key to sustainable business success.

Allan started his career at Mars Confectionery as a Salesman in 1974. He worked his way up through the company before leaving in 1991. He then joined Pedigree Petfoods where he was Sales Director until his appointment in 1992 to Asda Stores Ltd. He began his career in Asda as Group Marketing Director and was appointed Chief Executive in September 1996. In November 1999 when Wal-Mart bought Asda Allan became the President and CEO of Wal-Mart Europe.

In November 2000 he left Asda and developed a new work ethic - 'Going Plural' - as he took on non-executive positions in a number of companies including lastminute.com, Dyson Ltd, Cannons Group Ltd, BHS Ltd, BSkyB Group plc and Selfridges & Co.

The Women's Business Forum is just one of the programmes delivered by An Inspirational Journey as it seeks to ensure companies support, guide, retain, grow and develop the most balanced, skilled and talented teams of tomorrow to the top of the corporate hierarchy, Regardless of Gender.

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