Liz is Head of Digital & Innovation at EY North West and leads EY Absolute North – a new innovation focussed venture providing finance and tax managed services to ambitious businesses. Liz has extensive experience working with company founders and boards (from start-ups through to listed groups) to support them in achieving their strategic aims. Alongside her day-job Liz has had a long standing involvement in D&I strategy and action at EY. Including having been involved in the origination of the UK&I D&I strategy; the establishment and ongoing leadership of the North West EY Women’s Network; and driving the inaugural EY Black Network Chairman’s Sponsorship Group.

Rob has spent the last 15 years of his career in various senior leadership roles, focusing on unlocking the potential of businesses and communities through the power of people and technology.  That theme now continues in his role at the helm of EveryCloud, an independent cloud security consultancy that helps businesses implement their digital transformation strategies, safely and confidently taking advantage of all that the cloud has to offer.

An influential player in the Northern Powerhouse agenda, Rob is a regular speaker on matters relating to diversity and inclusion, technology and the future of work – and has won a string of awards including the Women In Sales Awards “Best Male Mentor” category in December 2017 and the Northern Power Women “Agent of Change” award in March 2018.  He also appeared in the Financial Times EMpower Top 100 Ethnic Minority Executive list in May 2018, the Financial Times HERoes Top 50 Male Champions of Women In Business list in September 2018 and the Top 100 BAME Leaders In Business list in October 2018.

Rob is also a Trustee on the board of GreaterSport, a charity passionate about changing lives through sport and physical activity.

Paul Sesay is the Founder/CEO of The National Diversity Awards, The Inclusive Companies Awards, The Inclusive Top 50 UK Employers List and The Diversity Group. Paul’s business acumen has mainly been with a social focus.

With over twelve years’ worth of experience within the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion sector, Paul has worked with some of the largest organisations in the world on their diversity and inclusion profiles. He has also worked within local communities to help people from various backgrounds to achieve and empower disadvantaged groups throughout the UK.

I am currently Head of Young People Services at EY Foundation, focussed on giving disadvantaged young people a great start to their working lives. I have worked predominantly in the third sector for the past 15 years supporting young people from a broad range of backgrounds with their transition into employment. I am passionate about developing the employability skills of young people with a particular focus on employer led/supported initiatives.

Jackie Myburgh was Controller of Business for BBC Children’s until March this year. There she was responsible for the day-to-day management of the CBBC and CBeebies channels and the children’s digital platforms. During her time at the BBC, as a long-term champion of diversity and inclusion, Jackie represented the broadcaster on Project Diamond, the project to launch the first-of-its-kind diversity monitoring system for the broadcasting industry. During her summer off, she’s been working on a social mobility project to try to provide more opportunities for people from socially disadvantages backgrounds to work in the media.
Previously, she was also Head of Production for BBC Sport, where she ran the project to move the Sport department to Salford and led production management and Technology teams in delivery of all BBC Sport output including major Sport events including London 2012. Prior to joining BBC in 2010 Jackie had worked as a Head of Production in the independent sector across a variety of genres for over ten years.