Speakers
Yemi Jackson
Matthew Potter
Edward Odofin
Dr Kathryn Chapman
Panel Session
The panel will explore the:
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.
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.
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.
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.
