The Judging Panel
As in previous years, our judging panels will convene to review the Shortlisted Nominee evidence submissions and select the winners for each category.
Our distinguished panel of judges will receive evidence submission packs for each of the Shortlisted Nominee evidence submissions within specific categories. After reviewing and deliberating independently, judges will submit their decisions. Subsequently, all judges are invited to a meeting to finalise the winners and discuss any categories where a consensus has not been reached. Judges with affiliations to any nominated category are excluded from deliberations on that category and must leave the room during those discussions.
The judging panel comprises business leaders and diversity specialists, all of whom are deeply committed to issues of ethnicity and the Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) agenda, both in the workplace and the broader community. The panel is responsible for deciding the winners in corporate categories. Winners in public categories are determined through a general public nomination & voting process.
Please enquire if you would like to receive more information on judging criteria or the nomination process.
2025 Judging Panel
Andrea Metherell
Capgemini UK
Andrea’s professional HR career has spanned several industries (primarily Tech, Energy and Financial Services) as well as several specialist areas (Talent Management & Strategy, Organisational Development, Leadership and L&D.) Over the last 7 years, Andrea has led the DEI & Wellbeing agenda for 3 large UK organisations.
Bundna Jaswal
L&G
Bundna Jaswal is a seasoned Programme Manager based in London, known for delivering complex, high-impact initiatives across diverse sectors. Currently at Legal & General Asset Management, where she has led the firm’s ethnicity employee resource network and now she co leads overseeing all the employee resource networks. Bundna champions the importance of representation, equity, and cultural celebration. Her commitment to recognising and uplifting ethnic minority voices stems from a deep belief that diversity is not only a strength but a catalyst for innovation and progress.
Cordelia Osewa-Ediae
Cordelia is an authentic and impactful Leadership and Inclusion Consultant with almost two decades of experience driving equity in organisations and communities. She has delivered measurable change across organisations including BT Group, Tesco, National Grid, NSPCC, and the Ministry of Justice.
At BT Group, Cordelia spearheaded the organisation’s first group-wide reverse mentoring programme, engaging 300+ ethnic minority changemakers and senior leaders. She also led the development of BT’s inaugural Ethnicity Pay Gap Report and representation goals, earning BT Group’s Race Equity Award. At National Grid, she designed a breakthrough leadership programme, and at Tesco, she led an inclusion-focused redesign of the early careers strategy. Her national review of NSPCC’s services significantly enhanced their children’s services.
Beyond consulting, Cordelia volunteers regularly and supports several youth and social mobility charities. She has served as a Trustee for a Multi-Academy Trust, and mentored built environment leaders through Future of London since 2019. Her recognitions include the Baton Awards Thought Leader of the Year 2023, Novi Inspiring Mentor of the Year 2024, and a nomination for the NDA Positive Role Model Award 2024.
A keynote speaker, Cordelia doesn’t just talk about inclusion, she does the work needed to lead and embed positive change. Her evidence based and collaborative approach transforms systems, empowers people, and delivers lasting impact.
Dorothy Oduguwa
VodafoneThree
Dorothy Oduguwa is an award-winning Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) leader, speaker and coach. She has experience in working with leaders and employees to transform the way they think about DE&I and social impact, to create inclusive workplaces that also encourage better business performance. Dorothy is responsible for building cultures that create the best experience for all people, no matter their background or expertise. With experience leading Grants, Fundraising and Partnerships within a digital inclusion NGO called U-TOUCH, she also looks to tackle the digital divide and drive meaningful change. For her work she was named Diversity and Inclusion Champion of the year in the inaugural Women in Green Business Awards 2024.
John Hung
BP
John is a Fellow to the Institute of Chemical Engineers and a Chartered Environmentalist with over 35 years of experience in FMCG and Oil & Gas industries. Throughout his career, he has held diverse positions with six companies (including bp, Shell, and P&G) across over 20 countries, focusing on Manufacturing, Trading, and Procurement.
As Senior Director, John oversees global category strategies, supplier relationships, and major contracts involving catalysts, additives, chemicals, waste, HSSE, Remediations and related services across bp businesses.
John is the first Chinese leader in two decades to head bp’s BRG Positive Ethnicity Network. A long-time advocate for intersectional equity, John has mentored women and ethnic minority engineers through IChemE and supports inclusive youth football initiatives via the FA and UEFA. John was named on the 2025 empower Future Leader Role Model Top 33 List and has received multiple accolades including the IChemE Global Award 2024 for “Equality, Diversity & Inclusion” acknowledging his 25 years of dedication championing gender diversity, social mobility, and representation of female and ethnic engineers.
Additionally, John has actively promoted cultural and inclusion events, supporting initiatives such as Chinese New Year celebrations, Nowruz, Ramadhan, Eid and End of Racism Day.”
Karen Marie Geddes
The Thin Black Line
Karen Geddes QPM is a respected leader, strategist, and public speaker with over 30 years of experience in policing and institutional change. Joining West Midlands Police in 1992 as one of the few Black women, she broke barriers to become its first Black female Superintendent.
Karen built a reputation as a champion for change, shaping police responses to critical incidents affecting Black communities, advocating for Black talent, and promoting inclusive, accountable policing. Her work has earned her the Queen’s Police Medal (QPM), the West Midlands Police Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award, and a National Ethnicity Leadership Award.
She is the founder of The Thin Black Line and co-founder of Women in the Shade, organisations committed to creating inclusive spaces and stronger institutions. She also created SAFE (Shaping Active Futures for Empowerment), a reflective PSHE programme empowering young people—particularly Black youth—to explore their relationship with policing, build confidence, and challenge harmful narratives.
Karen has led high-profile reviews into systemic racism, including a 30-year retrospective in a UK fire service, producing bold recommendations for reform. Now recognised as a DEI expert and accomplished event strategist, her Women in the Shade conference is a pioneering national platform for Black women in uniformed services.
A sought-after speaker, Karen continues to inspire cross-sector change through leadership, lived experience, and storytelling.
Olivia Grant
Reed Smith LLP
Olivia is an award-winning finance lawyer, with experience working across a broad range of structured product transactions including securitisations, capital markets trades, and humanitarian finance. Olivia has been recognised as a ‘Future Leader’ by INvolve, and ‘One to Watch’ by Brummell Magazine – in recognition of her numerous achievements as one of London’s most promising rising stars working with financial services.
Richard Blackmore
National Grid
Richard Blackmore has held various Diversity, Equity & inclusion (DEI) roles across the defence and utilities sectors, the most recent being the National Grid Ventures and Group Functions DEI Business Partner for National Grid. He has been responsible, in these areas, for overseeing and accelerating efforts to create an inclusive environment where everyone can feel a sense of belonging.
Richard qualified in Law at University and has always had a passion for helping others. He has worked within FMCG and more recently within Defence through various Commercial and DE&I roles. Inclusion and belonging, especially Disability, are all very personal to him as he is partially sighted. This has driven him to support others and create environments where everyone can bring their whole selves to work.
Richard’s transition from Commercial to DE&I came in the need for more mental health support and awareness in a previous business. He designed and delivered a UK wide mental health awareness programme and most importantly led the embedding of this to ensure long lasting change. He has always been driven by the impact he makes and is very aware of the opportunity to change the lives of those he works with, their colleagues, families and friends.
Samantha Owo
Lloyds Banking Group
Sam is a Senior Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Lead at Lloyds Banking Group, the first FTSE company to establish a gender and ethnicity goals to improve the representation of women, Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic colleagues in senior positions, also the first UK Bank committed to double colleagues with disabilities in senior roles by 2025, to reflect the society we serve.
Appointed to the Board of the HM treasury Women in Finance Charter in January 2023, she is also Chair of Governors at Meadow Primary School, a large primary school in Surrey. Sam is an advocate and ally of the LGBT+ communities as she is passionate about equitable practices and opportunities for all.
Sam’s experience in financial services spans over two decades in Human Resources, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Learning & Development, developing and implementing strategies, enhancing leaders, their teams and organisational culture.
Sam loves spending family time with her husband, daughter, and cat Jade, balancing it with her demanding and fulfilling career which gives her the opportunity to make a difference for others.
Seleeta Walker
Computacenter
Seleeta Walker is the UK Inclusion Lead at Computacenter, partnering with teams, colleagues, customers, and partners to support and implement diversity and inclusion strategies across the organisation. She champions people-centred programmes that develop under-represented talent and foster a genuine culture of belonging. With over 20 years’ experience across the IT, finance, and airline sectors, she brings deep industry insight to every initiative. As a judge for the Investing in Ethnicity Awards, Seleeta applies her expertise in inclusive workplace approaches to recognise and celebrate initiatives and people who uplift diverse communities.
Shailen Bhat
HSBC UK
Shailen is a Senior Performance Manager within HSBC’s Group External Communications Function, with over a decade of experience within large corporate financial services organisations. Shailen is a fully Chartered Accountant and served as an elected member of the North London ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) Panel.
In additional to his role, Shailen serves as Co-Chair of UK Embrace, HSBC’s Race and Ethnicity ERG, with the aim to build a more inclusive organisation where the sharing of cultures and traditions is celebrated. He has played a key role in promoting inclusivity and creating pathways for ethnic minority talent and has been active as a speaker at cultural events for World Day for Cultural Diversity, South Asian Heritage Month, and Black History Month. Embrace has partnered with external non-profit organisations, large corporates, and other ERGs to facilitate the organisation of over 30 inclusive events, attracting 1,000+ attendees in the last 12 months.
Additionally, he was honoured to be featured as a Top 100 Future Leader Role Model 2025 Empower List . Through his leadership, advocacy and commitment to collective progress, Shailen continues to drive meaningful change in the equity and inclusion space.
Tara Forde
Experian UKI
Tara is currently Chief People Officer of the Experian UKI business, having previously operated as the Head of Executive Business partnering and organizational effectiveness as well as leading DEI. Tara is a seasoned tech industry HR leader, spending years prior to Experian at Agilent Technologies and ThermoFisher in global HR leadership roles. Here, she worked with senior Executive teams to build multi-geography people strategies, implementing significant op model shifts with innovation and growth agendas at the core. Tara is passionate about building people strategies that deliver palpable business success, as well as creating work environments in which people of all backgrounds can truly thrive. Tara has a degree in English from the University of Leicester and has continued to train throughout her career in psychometrics, executive coaching and business psychology. Tara lives close to Loughborough with her husband and two daughters and is a lover of being outdoors, traveling and reading.
Corporate Categories – Winner chosen by judges scoring submissions
Where stated, 12 months indicates from March 2024 to February 2025
Champion Ally
This award recognises allies that are passionately committed to promoting inclusion, diversity and belonging for diverse ethnic groups, both within and outside the workplace. The individual should not identify as being from an ethnic minority background, and should have used their position to support and actively participate or initiate activities that progress this agenda, both in their own company and the wider world, with a focus on work carried out within the last 12 months.
Past Winners Include: Mat Moakes – OVO, Honey Kirtley – BNY Mellon, Paul Plewman – Macquarie
Exceptional Inclusion
This award recognises a person who works within a diversity, inclusion, people & talent or HR role. The winner of this award should be able to demonstrate that they regularly go above and beyond their day job to ensure that initiatives they implement are innovative and create lasting change within inclusion, diversity and belonging for diverse ethnic groups. Nominees should be able to provide examples within the last 12 months, and should identify as being from any ethnic minority background.
Past Winners Include: Jacquline Alcindor – LGIM, Nicole Williams – Ashurst, Ade Rawcliffe – ITV
Future Leader
This award recognises a future leader who has shown great future potential within their career and field of work. The future leader will be between the beginning to middle of their career, and will be able to show that they are keen to role model leadership qualities. Additionally, the nominee will be able to demonstrate that they have contributed to furthering inclusion, diversity and belonging for diverse ethnic groups. This individual must be able to show evidence of raising the profile or pushing the boundaries of this agenda within the last 12 months. Nominees for this award should identify as being from any ethnic minority background.
Past Winners Include: Olivia Grant – Reed Smith LLP, Cecilia Adjei-Sarpong – Essence Mediacom, Rachel Henry – Boots
Inspirational Leader
This award recognises a business leader (specifically someone in a Senior Management role), who has used their influence to effect positive change within inclusion, diversity and belonging for diverse ethnic groups. The nominee should be able to demonstrate they have been a positive role model and has had a strong influence within and outside of their workplace within the last 12 months. Nominees for this award should identify as being from any ethnic minority background.
Past Winners Include: Geoffrey Williams – Burberry, Oli O’Donoghue – HSBC, Leon Donald – Tesco
Network Group
This award recognises a network group that can demonstrate that they are active, innovative, and supportive of their diverse ethnic staff. The group must demonstrate that they have gone above and beyond in helping to positively impact inclusion, diversity and belonging for diverse ethnic groups over the last 12 months. Judges will be measuring the value of the network group’s initiatives and engagement relative to their maturity and network size.
Past Winners Include: Black Employee Network – Amazon, BT Ethnic Diversity Network – BT Group, Race Together – Nationwide Building Society
Workplace Hero
This award recognises a diversity champion who has pushed the boundaries when it comes to ethnicity, inclusion within their company and beyond. The nominee can be at any stage of their career, and must have ethnic inclusion and wider diversity initiatives at the core of everything they do: they should be able to provide examples from within the last 12 months. Nominees for this award should identify as being from any diverse ethnic background. The nominee should not be working in a DEI role, please nominate in the Exceptional Inclusion category.
Past Winners Include: Annmarie Holligan – BT Group, Seleeta Watson – Computacenter, Tolu Falade – BP