Be the Change 2025 event – The Reimagining of DEI – Delivering Economic Benefit and Closing the Skills Gap

Jesimiel Akinsuyi

Youth Advisory Council , Homerton College

I am an ambitious third-year undergraduate in the field of Natural Sciences, specializing in Chemistry. My academic pursuits are deeply intertwined with a profound passion for advancing Sustainability systems and harnessing scientific insights to catalyze positive transformations across diverse domains. The intrinsic drive to instigate meaningful change in every sphere has led me to assume the role of a Changemakers ambassador. I aspire to cultivate fertile grounds for personal and collective growth, while also nurturing a dynamic space for my own continuous evolution, fostering genuine smiles, and orchestrating impactful change. In my spare time, I run a youtube channel where I dissect books and current topics that interest me.

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Garat Chandigere Uria

Youth Advisory Council : Vice President , Homerton College

4^th Year Geography with Management Studies Undergraduate at The University of Cambridge, Previous Experience in Asset Management and Venture Capital with a specific interest on impact investing moving forward.

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Dr Kathryn Chapman

Executive Director, Innovate Cambridge

A molecular bioscientist, Kathryn has had a distinguished career in diverse leadership and strategic roles across the public and private sectors.

Following a successful research career at the University of Manchester, Harvard Medical School, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and GlaxoSmithKline, Kathryn has played a pivotal role in shaping inclusive innovation landscapes, building cross-disciplinary virtual and physical communities and creating novel models to remove barriers to success.

This includes a decade building and leading the innovation strategy for NC3Rs, a UKRI Research Council where Kathryn founded and directed a new challenge-led open innovation platform, CRACK IT which increases cross-discipline and cross-sector industry/academic partnerships in applied research. Kathryn also co-established the Milner Therapeutics Institute at the University of Cambridge, providing a physical hub for translational science and collaboration between industry and academia. The Institute is a centre of excellence for target validation through artificial intelligence, machine-learning, functional genomics and tool compound analyses. Most recently, prior to joining Innovate Cambridge, Kathryn directed the innovation strategy at the Babraham Research Campus, launching LiveLabs incubator space and leading the Campus accelerator, entrepreneurship and innovation activities.

Throughout these roles. Chapman’s focus has been on spearheading initiatives that propel startups, entrepreneurs and businesses towards success and driving meaningful change at a national and international level.

Kathryn has 50+ research publications and has been on a wide-range of national and international review panels (Innovate UK, Innovative Medicines Initiative and BBSRC). She holds an honorary professorship at the University of Coventry where she sits on the Vice Chancellor’s advisory group.

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Lee Cortez

Head of Global Benefits , Block

Lee Cortez, SHRM-SCP, CDE®, LMSW, is the head of global benefits at Block (formerly Square), overseeing US and non-US employee benefits, well-being, leave policies, immigration and global mobility. He occasionally teaches “Workers and the Workplace” at the Columbia University School of Social Work. Cortez’s experience includes roles at Google, Aon and Mercer. He’s an Executive MBA degree candidate at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, where he is the inaugural recipient of the Dean’s Diversity Scholarship and elected EDI representative. Cortez holds degrees from Columbia University (MSc) and the University of California, Berkeley (BA).

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Neil Dickins

Chairman, UKESF

As the founder of Europe’s most industry-focussed ‘deep tech’ recruitment company, Neil has always been committed to ensuring the health of the UK skills ecosystem. This had led to his chairmanship of UKESF, the only organisation focussed exclusively on encouraging students to enter the electronics industry. It behoves us all to come together to ensure that diverse young people, particularly from underprivileged regions, gain access to technology education and careers.

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Yemi Jackson

Founder & CEO, Engage Transform

Yemi Jackson is a visionary leader and the Founder & CEO of Engage Transform, a talent acquisition and development company dedicated to increasing the representation of women and Global Majority (often referred to as Ethnic Minority in the West) talent in senior positions, including the board level. With a deep expertise spanning over 20 years in Finance, IT, and executive leadership, Yemi’s mission is to foster inclusive work environments that drive innovation and growth through diverse leadership in Technology, Marketing, and Finance.

Prior to founding Engage Transform, Yemi held senior executive roles in Finance and IT, where she witnessed the need for a more diverse and engaged workplace. Her passion for promoting inclusion led her to create Engage Transform, addressing the critical need to elevate underrepresented talent in leadership roles. A highly qualified professional, Yemi is a Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA) and completed her MBA at Warwick Business School in 2018, where her final dissertation focused on implementing effective diversity strategies in the workplace.

Beyond Engage Transform, Yemi founded Building Inclusive Boards (BIB), a pioneering talent incubator and accelerator program designed to equip underrepresented groups with the skills and opportunities to secure board positions. In addition, Yemi actively serves as a member of the Be The Business Advisory Board, contributes to the IOD Glass Ceiling Group Committee, and is a member of the International Women’s Forum, where she advocates for gender and racial equity.

Yemi is a staunch believer in resilience, using every rejection as a stepping stone to success. Her personal journey is a testament to overcoming gender and race inequity through focus and determination. Today, her mission is to help organisations unlock the power of diversity by identifying and placing high-caliber talent from underrepresented groups into leadership and board positions, transforming workplaces into environments where diversity drives innovation and success.

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Sarah Minor-Massy

Workforce Transformation Director , PwC

Sarah is a Director in PwC's workforce consulting business. She is a trained behavioural scientist, with deep expertise in diversity, equity and inclusion. She advises clients on workforce related issues cross industry, in both Europe and the US. 

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Edward Odofin

Business Resilience Leader, BBC

A modern day leader in business and personal resilience, Edward is a multi-award winning professional and DEI advocate with over 10 years’ experience, driving and leading inclusive initiatives across the world’s largest and most influential media organisations.

Edward’s desire for a more inclusive society, where no career aspiration is too big or unrealistic regards of your race has led to him leading a consortium of over 80 race diversity/black employee networks who met regularly to look at how they can drive collective action for black employees regards of industry and prolong the conversation against corporate racial discrimination beyond October (UK Black History Month).

In his day to day role, Edward currently leads the Business Resilience team at the BBC, managing a number of specialists that oversee and support the organisation’s incident and crisis management across their international portfolio, domestic portfolio and third party supply chain.

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Olu Orugboh

Chair, Cambridge Wireless

Olu is the CEO and Founder of Synergy Solutions, a specialist management consultancy practice, focussed on helping companies stay at the forefront of evolving technology and the ever-changing world of customer expectations, whilst remaining resilient and futureproofing their business.
As a senior leader and seasoned professional with over 20 years’ experience, leading businesses through change, transformation and migration into digital environments, Olu has assisted a range of companies from start-ups, through to high growth scale ups to FTSE listed companies both in the UK and Internationally to embrace digital technology, safely, whilst remaining resilient and responsive to the rapidly changing environment. Olu has deep international experience, assisting enterprises to turnaround their failing operations through to putting in place infrastructures to support growth initiatives and introduce digital innovation. She has extensive business experience having had the opportunity, through both her own business and other executive level positions to shape the strategy for a wide array of businesses and introduce digital technology, providing a range of companies with the opportunity to speed up response and enhance the quality of that response, which she believes to be vital in the delivery of an agile business.
Olu is highly committed to assisting organisations to become resilient and future proofed. In addition to running a business, Olu is a mother to two wonderful children and is passionate about growing the impact of digital technology in underserved communities.

: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olu-orugboh-7a9ba9/

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Matthew Potter

Partner , Howes Percival LLP

Matthew heads the employment law practice in East Anglia for Howes Percival.

Matthew has a wealth of experience in all areas of employment law both litigation and advisory in the Employment Tribunal and the High Court. He has over 30 years of experience in employment tribunal litigation, most of those cases involving issues of equality both pre and post the Equality Act 2010.

Matthew writes and presents frequently on employment law issues providing updates and training to clients and organisations.

He is recognised by both Chambers and the Legal 500 as a leader in his field.

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Alison Wood

Academic Director, Homerton Changemakers

Dr Alison Wood is founding Academic Director of Homerton Changemakers, a co-curricular, pioneering programme equipping Cambridge students to be wise change-agents amidst complexity and challenge. The programme focuses on global citizenship; leadership; enterprise; self-hood; narratives of changemaking; adaptive mindsets; & regenerative thinking in the era of climate crisis and geo-political instability.

Alison also teaches and writes on the philosophy of education; the history and future of Universities; the future educated self; and the deep questions of what universities are really for. Her work combines two decades of experience building cross-sector and cross-disciplinary research initiatives (from healthy ageing to nineteenth-century studies and research leadership) with a research career in the history of intellectual institutions and changemaking. She’s also worked in 7 different disciplines, including medicine; spent 10 years working as a musician; and is what might be called a serial intrapreneur.

Before joining Homerton Alison was the Mellon/Newton Interdisciplinary Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at CRASSH (Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) at Cambridge (2013-2018); and a Research Associate in the Faculties of English and Divinity, also at Cambridge (2011-2013). She read English and History at the University of Adelaide and worked as a musician before undertaking doctoral work in nineteenth-century intellectual culture (King's College London).

At Cambridge she’s served as a member of the University's Researcher Development Committee, the Pro-Vice Chancellor’s Working Group on Postdoctoral Affairs, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) Research Careers and Training Advisory Group; co-convened the CRASSH Postdoctoral Forum (2014-17); established and led the CRASSH ‘Becoming a Research Leader’ Programme (2014-2018); and taught in Divinity and English. She also works regularly with the University's School of Arts and Humanities, the Careers Service,  the Centre for Teaching and Learning, and the Researcher Development Programme. And currently supervises undergraduates for the Faculty of Education. 

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