Join our Community of Changemakers from over 130 Significant Corporations to Advance Racial and Ethnic Minority Representation

Sophie is a senior executive with experience leading legal, operations and technology functions for complex, systemically important and highly regulated global corporations. She drives large scale transformation projects by leading high performing multicultural teams dispersed in various critical jurisdictions.

Sophie has recently been appointed as the Head of Americas Risk Management and Intelligence for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. Prior to this, Sophie was Global COO of Shared Services and Banking Operations at Morgan Stanley, with responsibility for budget, risk management, vendor management, workforce and location strategy for thousands of staff located in North America, Asia and Europe. Previously, as Head of Group Treasury (Legal) at the Virgin Money Group, she lead capital raising activity in excess of £13bn in four years, including the flotation of Virgin Money as a FTSE 250 on the London Stock Exchange. Prior to this, she was a Senior Associate at global firm Baker McKenzie, advising public companies such as Nike, The Body Shop and Alliance Boots.

Sophie is a recipient of many prestigious industry awards and is often cited in leading press and niche publications. As a campaigner for diversity, equity and inclusion, Sophie is a member of the steering committee of the 30% Club and serves as Chair of the Race Equity Group. She is also a member of The Executive Leadership Council (ELC), Chair and Chief Strategist of The Network of Networks (TNON); and Chair and Executive Founder of the Black British Business Awards (BBBAwards).

Sophie was born and raised in southern Africa and, through various merit-based scholarships, educated in Canada, the US and UK. She is a Rotary International Paul Harris Fellow and has served on several non-profit boards, including Sentebale, founded by Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, to support children affected by HIV/ AIDS in Africa. In 2021, Sophie was honoured by HM Queen Elizabeth II and appointed as a Member of the British Empire (MBE) for services to diversity in business.

Diane founded TNON’s BAME – Multicultural chapter in 2011 to provide a targeted support and accountability group for the mutual benefit of several early pioneers in the employee networks space. The idea arose during her tenure as the Deputy CAO, Europe at the Bank of New York Mellon. Whilst she was largely responsible for developing the corporate governance framework and monitoring adherence amongst 40 regulated entities and 240 board and committee members, her remit also extended to include several responsibilities in the area of diversity and inclusion.

It is rewarding to see how TNON’s chapter has grown since its inception. It has helped successive generations of resource group leaders in over 65 organisations to develop their leadership skills, define best practices, drive change and shape their unique contribution to their organisation’s goals.

Charlene Brown is the Co-founder and Managing Director of Howlett Brown, a company specialising in people intelligence, specifically employee investigations, culture and HR consulting services. Charlene has over a decade of legal and financial services experience, providing strategic employment law advice on a range of contentious and non-contentious employment matters including investigations, harassment and discrimination, whistleblowing, culture, diversity and inclusion, data breaches and training. Her experience includes privacy law, cybersecurity law and corporate governance.

Charlene also counsels on best practice for corporate diversity initiatives, diversity networks, and start-ups. Charlene serves on the UK’s Employment Lawyers Association working party and has contributed to the McGregor-Smith Review and the Ethnicity Pay Gap consultation.

In 2016, Charlene was named the Black British Business Awards Financial Services Rising Star and in 2017 Charlene was named the Legal Diversity Rising Star. In 2017 she was also recognised as a Future Leader by EMpower and the Financial Times (ranked no. 2 out of 30).

Over the past decade, Gillian has partnered with leaders in fast-growing technology-driven companies to help them identify the roles they need to play and the shifts they need to make in order to have a purposeful impact. Dubbed the “architect of the unseen” by her clients, Gillian loves troubleshooting and getting things unstuck by teasing out and solving for the organizational and leadership pain points that come with scaling businesses and teams.

She is the founder and CEO of OverTime Leader a boutique consultancy specializing in progressive leadership development for high-change, fast pace businesses through, leadership team transformation +  execution, management training, cross-functional team development and company culture transformation. Working in partnership with clients like; Google, Spotify, Wetransfer, TechNation, etc.

Prior to founding OverTime Leader, Gillian held senior leadership roles for some of Europe’s most creative scaleups including WeTransfer and ustwo. After directly experiencing the highs and lows of scaling under pressure, she decided to double down on her passion for progressive leadership, in a more scalable fashion, by creating OverTime Leader.

She’s also a published author and recognized expert on progressive leadership development, having written ‘First Time Leader: Foundational Tools to Inspire and Enable Your Team’ in 2014 (Wiley).

Brian has had a long regulatory career in financial services. Brian is part of the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) senior leadership team and has led several departments across the FCA, most recently as the Head of Retail Competition. Brian has undertaken a variety of leadership roles in strategy, crisis management, quality assurance, supervision and change programmes. Brian is currently on secondment to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme as an executive consultant.Alongside his regulatory career, Brian is a successful leadership and career coach working with hundreds of clients to helping them fulfil their potential. Brian is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, leading the Diversity and Inclusion (D&I)working group in his Directorate to drive progress towards a more diverse and inclusive workplace. He is also part of the leadership team of the FCA’s Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME)network. In recognition of his work Brian was included in the 2019 Empower Top 15 Advocate Executives list.

Based in South Africa, Orenna is Managing Director (MD) of a publishing house which develops specialist training materials for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges. She has previously been MD of the southern African business of Heinemann Publishers, the South African schools business of Pearson Education and the African business of City & Guilds UK. She is an executive member of the Publishers Association of South Africa. Experienced in understanding UK, international and local business needs, Orenna has consulted on strategy, communication and education /training to a range of commercial companies and NPOs.

Orenna has for many years supported the Black British Business Awards (BBBAwards) and TNON, providing positioning expertise, strategic advice and languaging skills to ensure that their published words encapsulate the authentic visions, values and achievements of both organisations.

Orenna holds a Master’s degree in English and has a background in the anti-apartheid, pro-democracy movement of South Africa. She subscribes to a leadership style that is strategy-, values- and data-driven.

Sheekha is a Diversity and Inclusion Consultant, and is currently serving as the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Lead for Google’s enterprise (Cloud) business in Asia Pacific. Sheekha’s focus is on partnering with business leaders to maximising the growth opportunity in the region to build a more representative organisation, to ensure equitable outcomes for underrepresented groups, and to foster a culture of inclusion and belonging for all.

Sheekha’s experience spans across multiple regions and industries, including Technology, Professional Services, and Financial Services.  Some of her top career highlights are centred around contributing to the fantastic work driven by the BBBAwards including The Middle Report and the BAME Talent Accelerator. Sheekha is a proud supporter of TNON – she is proud of the incredible impact it has made and will continue to make through the power of employee networks.

Mduduzi Mswabuki (Dudes) is a partner in EY’s UK Financial Services practice focussed on delivering regulatory assurance and advisory services. Dudes moved to the UK after qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in Zimbabwe and has since spent over 15years working with UK financial institutions focussed on firms in the wealth and asset management as well as banking and capital markets sectors.

Dudes co-chairs EY’s UK Diversity & Inclusion and sponsors EY’s Race & Ethnicity Network. He has been very instrumental in driving the diversity and inclusion agenda within the firm, most recently helping to drive EY’s external anti-racism commitments in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Dudes mentors and sponsors many ethnic minority individuals within EY.

Sunny Mann is a Partner in Baker McKenzie’s London office and co-leads the UK Compliance and Investigations Practice, as well as the UK International Commercial and Trade Practice. Both these practices are ranked Tier 1 by Legal 500 UK. He has also worked in our Firm’s Washington DC, New York and Sydney offices. Sunny also advises many clients on risk matters in India. He advises clients (including numerous FTSE 100 and Fortune 100 businesses) on compliance and investigations with respect to export controls, trade sanctions and anti-bribery rules. The Legal 500 ranked Sunny as a “Leading Practitioner”, and as “excellent”, with a ‘calm’ and “very practical” approach. The India Business Law Journal also noted that Sunny is “excellent and has deep experience in India”. He is a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, the leading institute for post-graduate European studies, where he teaches a course on Corporate Compliance.

Ambily Banerjee has a Ph.D in Molecular Biology. She began her career as a post-doctoral scientist, spending almost a decade in academia at Imperial College and University College London (UCL). She moved to the pharmaceutical sector in 2007.

Within GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) she has held increasingly senior roles in Global Regulatory Affairs, Audit and Assurance and Compliance. In her current role as Director, Therapeutic Group within Global Regulatory Affairs, she is accountable for governance activities for the HIV (ViiV) portfolio. Since Sept 2019 she has co-led the Embrace Employee Resource Group at GSK and has worked with senior leaders including the Chief Executive Team to highlight the challenges faced by Black, Asian and minority ethnic colleagues. Embrace activities have driven significant initiatives, including mandatory inclusion training for almost 100,000 GSK employees, the roll-out of ethnic minority sponsorship programmes and aspirational target-setting for senior levels of the organisation. Embrace membership has grown 500% under her leadership.

Ambily serves on the boards of the not-for-profit Microbit Educational Foundation, which was founded by the BBC and Microsoft, and local charity Slough Council for Voluntary Services. She is a mentor for the Brunel University Widening Participation Scheme. She is passionate about ensuring the next generation has equal access to opportunities, and set up a Dr How Career Advice YouTube channel to provide mentoring advice to young people who lack contacts in the corporate world.

Ambily was recognised in the 2021 (ranked 3) and 2020 (ranked 57) Empower Ethnic Minority Future Leader Lists and was nominated by GSK as the 2021 Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Rising Star.

Yvonne Kunihira-Davidson is an Executive Director within IHS Markit’s Platforms and Regulatory Compliance division. She combines her roles as the EMEA Commercial Lead for Tax Products and Global Tax Consulting Lead with roles which contribute to an inclusive and equitable culture within the firm. Prior to joining IHS Markit, Yvonne worked for Burt, Staples & Maner, LLP, a US tax specialist law firm and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Yvonne is a member of the OECD’s AEOI Business Advisory Group and the US Digital Chamber of Commerce’s Tax Taskforce. She is a regular speaker at various industry events on QI, FATCA, and CRS in both Europe and the US. Yvonne is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA).

Yvonne’s heritage is African and European. Through her lived experience as a proud member of an extended family that spans the globe and pursuing a career which has opened up opportunities to work and travel on five different continents, she finds life is richer and more rewarding when we learn and appreciate other cultures and try and absorb or adopt the best parts of them all.

Yvonne is involved in Diversity and Inclusion initiatives both inside and outside of IHS Markit. She co-leads the CEO Advisory Board on Diversity and Inclusion, is a co-founder of two Employee Resource Groups – EMpower London (for Black and minority ethnic colleagues) and Enable (for differently abled colleagues) – and is a steering committee member of EMpower London and the Wellbeing Network. In addition, she mentors young women through the Women in Tech programme and participates in various charitable activities. Yvonne is keen to open up opportunities for under-represented groups to enter the workforce and is involved with SEO London and #10000BlackInterns.

Isabella Mascarenhas has forged a successful career in developing young people from diverse backgrounds to realise their full potential and achieve their ambitions. She is Vice-President, Grass Roots Education at Electrocomponents Plc where her team works with young engineers and technologists all over the world to develop community opportunities, competitions, events and initiatives to enhance their technical skills, employability skills and career prospects.

In June 2020 Isabella started the Embrace network with a small group of passionate, like-minded colleagues. Together they have created a movement to forward the race inclusion agenda through targeted initiatives to attract, retain, support and develop global majority talent and to give back to ethnically diverse communities.

Isabella is south Indian and spent her childhood in Zambia before settling in the UK. She has two children with her Jamaican husband and is fascinated by different cultures and their traditions.

Vincent Egunlae graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2017 with an undergraduate degree in Politics and a Master’s degree in International Relations. He joined Grant Thornton as an Auditor in 2018.

At Grant Thornton, Vincent is co-founder of the Ethnicity Network, which aims to reduce the ethnicity pay gap and increase representation at senior management level. In this capacity he developed the firm’s response to government’s Ethnicity Pay Gap consultation. Outside of work, Vincent is a director for and Diversity Champion of The Chartered Accountants Student Society for London, a not-for-profit which looks after the wellbeing of all students under the umbrella of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales umbrella (ICAEW).

Vincent is an ambassador for One Young World, a pre-eminent forum for future leaders. Linked to this role, Vincent is a project lead within the FinBiz 2030 Taskforce, which aims to unite the finance and business community to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

Vincent is co-founder of The Open Private School, a not-for-profit which aims to team mentors at the top of professional services with young adults from low socio-economic groups.

Simone Coultress is a Treasury Manager at Johnson Matthey plc (JM), a FTSE 100 global leader in sustainable technologies. She has a BA degree in Accounting and Management from the University of Essex and is an associate member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers (AMCT).

Her first involvement in Employee Resource Groups was at the London Borough of Lewisham where, as a fresh graduate, she got to see first-hand the benefits and success of celebrating diversity. There she gained invaluable experience as the treasurer of the Black Staff Forum.

Simone launched a Black Employee Network at JM in December 2018, with the aim of improving the recruitment, retention and development of Black employees and promoting JM as a diverse employer through community work in schools and universities. Although still in its infancy, this global resource group has had great initial success, running speed networking events and on-site work experience with a local community organisation in the UK, and organising networking events in the US, including participating in an annual Martin Luther King Junior parade.

Vannessa Whitehead is a Technical Manager within Risk and Compliance (R&C) at Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA), after originally joining as the Global Head of Compliance Monitoring. Vannessa began her career in financial services following a two-week work experience opportunity at the age of 15 at Citibank. By the end of the two weeks, Vannessa had secured herself a job and has been in financial services ever since! She has over 15 years of experience in compliance.

A passionate inclusion advocate, Vannessa has been a representative on SLA’s Global Inclusion Committee and co-chair of the Unity Network focused on ethnicity and multi-culturalism, where she has championed the voices of under-represented groups.  Vannessa is a member of the Organisational Development Committee (ODC) of The Children’s Society, a charity that fights for the hope and happiness of young people, where she hopes to help shape and influence policy and so ensure improved outcomes for youth.

Vannessa is the daughter of a Black Grenadian mother and White Irish father, sister to two younger brothers, wife to an inspiring and brilliant radio DJ and mother to three wonderful daughters.

Richard Kuti is a Project Manager and Analytics lead for outsourcing company Serco. He is responsible for a team of analysts who provide management information (MI) reporting for Serco’s Environmental Services business, whilst delivering transformation projects at individual contracts.

In 2019 Richard became the founding chair of Serco Embrace, Serco’s multicultural staff network in its UK and Europe division. As the chair, Richard leads on strategic direction, stakeholder management and leadership of the committee. Under Richard’s leadership, Serco Embrace grew to over 180 members within one year.  Prior to his career at Serco, Richard was involved in various national inclusion initiatives and also led a small not-for-profit that specialised in BAME youth engagement and progression. Richard continues to mentor young people in various capacities.

Shoku Amirani is a bilingual producer and journalist in the BBC World Service Radio Arts Unit with over 19 years’ experience across a wide range of BBC content, including flagship Radio 4 programmes such as Woman’s Hour, Last Word and documentaries.

Alongside her programme-making, she has developed a passion for diversity and inclusion, culture and Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) as agents of change.  Since 2018 Shoku has led Embrace, the BBC’s award-winning BAME staff network which she has helped to rebrand and revitalise. Under her leadership, the network’s membership has doubled in size and increased its strategic impact on the organisation. She helped to shape industry-leading recommendations for BAME progression which now form part of the BBC’s D&I strategy to accelerate BAME representation at leadership level. Previously, she ran the Global Women in News (GWIN) employee network, which now has almost two thousand members.

Shoku has taken part in various external panels on D&I and served on the judging panel for the 2019 UK Diversity Legal Awards. She is one of the founding members of the Creative Industries Alliance which seeks to drive the representation of diverse talent at all levels of the creative industries.

Maheen Choonara graduated from the University of Southampton with a BA in English Literature and a Master’s degree in English Literary Studies.

Maheen is the Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Manager at HarperCollins, where she works to amplify the voices of under-represented communities and create systemic change. She operates across the business to drive HarperCollins’ strategy, working closely with the People team and senior executives. Maheen is part of Runneymede Trust’s Reframing Race Programme, working with other activists to reframe the public conversation around race, racism and racial equality.

Maheen was formerly Diversity and Inclusion Adviser at Cancer Research UK (CRUK), where she gained experience in creating training programmes, supporting employee networks, championing ethnic minority progression and crafting inclusive internal and external communications. She relaunched and co-chaired the Race Network at CRUK, focusing on empowering ethnic minority staff and driving better representation at leadership level.

Laith Gharib is a Government Client Partner at Atos, supporting public sector clients with their critical IT infrastructure. His key specialism is digitally transforming legacy systems, supplementing old practices with new methodology to ensure business goals are met more securely and in a more agile manner than previously.

Key clients have included HMRC, Post Office, Welsh Government, Defra and the Ministry of Justice. Client issues that Laith has tackled have ranged from national infrastructure and identity to satellite imagery for the benefit of the environment.

Laith co-chairs the Atos Together (multi-cultural) Network. The team has worked to understand how culturally diverse people feel within Atos, whilst proactively implementing a set of initiatives to help foster cultural diversity. Laith has been recognised as a leader within Atos and has joined the network of top 100 leaders focused on tackling wider corporate strategy.

At the end of 2020 Harvinder Channa transferred to the Diversity and Inclusion team at AlixPartners, a new venture after delivering high profile e-discovery work for law firms, high net worth individuals, banks and corporates. Harvinder holds sixteen years of project/programme management experience in the not-for-profit and corporate sector. As the co-global lead for the ALIGN (Asian) Employee Resource Group (ERG), she has been instrumental in advancing AlixPartners’ Diversity and Inclusion strategy And in partnership with the EMEA leaders of other BAME (Black and Hispanic professionals) ERGs, Harvinder focused on the accretive impact we can have through collaboration across all the ERGs, the HR team and the market. Outside of work, she mentors BAME students and undergraduates through Generation Success.

Dawn Whyte is the Director of Business and Advancement Strategy, leading the business’ client advisory offering with an emphasis and talent advancement. She is responsible for business development and client success, product ownership, planning and successful end-to-end delivery of the business’ advancement portfolio which includes offerings for ethnic minority professionals, network leaders and the wider organisational ecosystem. In previous roles, Dawn has led the strategic execution of in-house Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (‘DEI’) programmes within financial services, legal and higher education.

Within her current role, Dawn has partnered with global clients across various sectors and geographies to create high-impact offerings to target the employee lifecycle of ethnic minority professionals as well as the wider ecosystem. Promoting deeper partnerships with current and new clients, Dawn’s work enables organisations to progress their journey to creating lasting cultural change.

Dawn has a Bachelor of Science degree in Geography. She is passionate about sustainability and educating others on the impact of global climate change, particularly in the Arctic, Africa, the Caribbean, small islands and Asian mega deltas. Committed to supporting the next generation of professionals, Dawn is an active mentor for students and recent graduates on strategic career planning, network mapping and leadership.

Rose Qian is Head of Advisory Services and Corporate Partnerships for TNON and sister organisation, the BBBAwards. Rose obtained her BA in Psychology and Physiology from the University of Oxford. She worked in market research with Kantar-owned firm Millward Brown, before branching into medical technology where she played a crucial role in the commercialisation of a novel medical device for the non-invasive treatment of tinnitus and managed a US-based Phase III Clinical Trial. Rose was a mentor of early-stage biotech start-ups with Oxford’s Panacea Stars accelerator for two years. She is passionate about inclusion and has since 2018 worked on advancing the representation of women and visible ethnic minorities in the workplace.

Rose oversees external strategic partnerships for the BBBAwards and TNON. She developed TNON’s digital capabilities and oversaw the launch of TNON 2.0. She is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Roehampton.

Ethel Tambudzai is the Head of External Engagement and Impact. She is responsible for the community management of TNON HIVE, TNON’s digital community launching in late 2021. Ethel’s focus is on TNON’s positioning and raising awareness of the TNON portfolio of products. She engages stakeholders at community, strategic and policy level.

Ethel has strong experience supporting small business to build their services and launch offices across the UK and Europe. She has also worked in investment in renewable energy and infrastructure.

Ethel is pursuing her MSc in Corporate Governance and Business Ethics at Birkbeck College, University of London (2021). She holds a BA (Honours) in International Relations and Development Studies from the University of Westminster (2018).

Ethel has received and been shortlisted for several awards, including:

London Mayor’s Entrepreneur 2020, Smart Cities Award (semi-finalist)

Santander Emerging Entrepreneur’s Award 2020 (shortlisted)

Recent Graduate Award Winner 2020

Brummell Magazine 30 Ones to Watch 2019 (nominee)

Zimbabwean Young Achiever’s Awards 2018 (finalist)

Sheila Gbolonyo is the Business Operations and Project Management Office (PMO) Manager with over 10 years of PMO experience across different sectors. She is responsible for the successful running of the core business operations with a particular focus on risk assessment, process efficiency and automation and new technologies.

Sheila is certified in Practitioner Level Prince2 and has a Bachelor’s degree in Science, Psychology and Sociology from Brunel University, as well as an MSc in Occupational Psychology from Birkbeck University.

She was previously Operations Associate in the Shared Services and Banking Operations Division at Morgan Stanley, as part of the Global COO team based in London.

Prior to her role at Morgan Stanley, Sheila was a PMO Analyst within IT Projects and Analysis at the Financial Ombudsman, where she assumed project portfolio oversight of reporting, logistics of transformation and change delivery capacities. She has also worked for non-profit organisation Action on Addiction, the only addiction treatment facility in London for women.

Sheila is interested in talent and leadership development within the D&I space. She has successfully project managed and executed the Employee Network Leader Series, designed and led by TNON with speakers from tier one companies such as Morgan Stanley, J.P Morgan, Baker McKenzie and the FCA.

Kezia Mbonye is the Talent Development and Research intern working with the Mid-Career Talent Accelerator delivery team under the BBBAwards. Kezia’s role includes assisting with project planning, management and the end-to-end delivery of both cross-company and in-house Talent Accelerator programmes. She has contributed to research projects and competitor analysis for the launch of TNON 2.0.

She is a final-year Psychology student at Durham University, focusing on Quantitative Social Psychology. She is also President of the Durham People of Colour Association, a student union liberation group which aims to represent all students that identify as a Person of Colour by promoting their needs, interests and welfare. In this role, Kezia has organised and participated in educational workshops on race, facilitating greater racial dialogue on campus. Kezia has also worked closely with local schools and county councillors in her area to campaign for better gender-related policy to empower and safeguard girls in schools.

Libby Thorman is a Talent Development and Research intern at the BBBAwards and TNON. Libby has project managed the TNON 2.0 Transformation Team and the launch of digital community HIVE, in addition to supporting the communications strategy for TNON 2.0. Her role has now evolved to focus on HIVE’s community management and the TNON membership office.

Prior to joining BBBAwards and TNON, Libby completed an Industrial Placement year at GlaxoSmithKline as a Global Communications intern. Her key areas of focus were sustainability, thought leadership pieces with a D&I lens and communications support for leadership teams, including the Consumer Healthcare CEO. During this placement, Libby joined Embrace, an Employee Resource Group (ERG) at GSK where she became a communications lead and editor of the monthly newsletter.

Libby is an undergraduate student at Loughborough University, studying Politics and International Relations. Her academic areas of interest are conflict, development and policy with a regional focus on the Middle East.

Leila Lawrence is a Talent Development and Research intern at the BBBAwards and has helped devise the social media strategy and engagement for the launch of TNON 2.0. She has also led on competitor analysis and supporting the organisation of the monthly ENL events.

Leila is a final-year student at the University of Cambridge where she is studying Human, Social and Political Sciences, with a focus on Politics and International Relations. She is actively involved in campus life, writing and editing for the University of Cambridge’s student news network ‘The Tab’, which has over three million readers and thousands of student reporters. Leila is also the Junior Common Room Treasurer for Downing College where she is responsible for budget allocation and planning across the College’s student societies.