TOP 10 - CHAMPIONS (ALLIES)
David Alrich
David is the Executive Sponsor of the Black Impact Business Resource Group within Moody’s Corporation in EMEA. The mission of the Black Impact BRG is to support the recruitment, retention, empowerment and advancement of black employees as well as to promote and foster allyship to maintain a diverse, inclusive and collaborative culture. At Moody’s he is Managing Director of the EMEA Commercial Group, with responsibility for customer relationships in EMEA, for Fundamental and Structured Finance. David has held senior positions at BNY Mellon, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse and UBS. David studied Economics at the University of Kent and is on the MBA Advisory Board at Bayes Business School at City, University of London.
Louise Bucknole
Louise Bucknole is General Manager and Vice President of Kids & Family for Paramount UK & Ireland. As part of her role, Louise is responsible for all content, strategy, editorial, financial and operational aspects for Nickelodeon UK and Channel 5’s Milkshake! pre-school strand. Through her work, Louise ensures that ethnically diverse talent is recognised, heard and valued, on-screen and off-screen, positively impacting kids’ experience of content in the UK. From the recently launched Reu & Harper’s Wonderworld to established award-winning series such as The World According To Grandpa, Louise is dedicated to commissioning stories that celebrate kids for who they are and reflect the world around them.
Richard Court
A strong advocate of equality, diversity and inclusion and a founding member of Cadent’s ED&I Steering Group, Richard is dedicated to using his awareness of being in a position of privilege as a white male to drive important EDI activity across Cadent. A lead within Cadent’s Anti-Racism Working Group, he devotes significant time to developing an action plan, while role-modelling the behaviours of an inclusive leader and ally. He is currently piloting allyship training across Cadent, raising the profile of why anti-racism is a priority through a podcast series that advocates that it’s the role of those in positions of power and privilege to take positive action in driving a culture where racial equality is a reality.
Liam Cowell
Having joined DLA Piper in 1994, Liam established his career in the infrastructure and project finance including public private partnerships (PPPs).
Since being promoted to partner in 2004, Liam has taken on various leadership roles within the firm, most recently the UK Managing Partner in 2019. In 2020 Liam became the partner sponsor of the firm’s race and ethnicity people group, Mosaic. The combination of the roles facilitates a strong focus on race and ethnicity across the UK business, including in decision making, policy development, training and education, collection and publication of key data and investment. Despite not being an expert or confident on often complex topics, as part of Liam’s role, he speaks openly about race at work; as a senior lawyer in the firm this has helped other leaders to champion changes and shifts in culture.
Hayley Creighton
As Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Programme Manager at National Grid, Hayley Creighton is responsible for changing the direction on DE&I in notoriously difficult areas and challenging leadership to think differently about how they can show up as changemakers and allies. Hayley co-ordinates and organises the UK Development Programmes specifically designed for those who are racially diverse, ensuring the content is relevant, up to date and beneficial for delegates. Hayley delivers training on allyship, privilege, microaggressions and equity vs equality on a regular basis to a variety of audience members, with a firm call out to making allyship active instead of passive.
Simon Croxford
Simon Croxford is UBS’s Legal Head of the Investment Bank and EMEA. As executive sponsor of UBS’s Cultural Awareness Network EMEA and Group Legal’s DE&I Programme, Simon actively promotes DE&I efforts across the firm. He mentors high-potential female and BAME talent and has led several DE&I initiatives, such as the introduction of ethnicity data disclosure and goals in the UK, internships for students from less privileged backgrounds, pro-diversity recruitment and retention practices, and partnerships with minority-owned law firms. He is also sponsoring cultural awareness training rollout at UBS. Before joining UBS, Simon was a lawyer at Barclays and Linklaters and studied law in London and Paris.
Honey Kirtley
Honey Kirtley is co-Chair of IMPACT London, BNY Mellon’s multicultural and ethnic diversity employee business resource group. Honey is a champion ally, who advocates for DE&I and identifies opportunities to elevate the discussion to drive action in the workplace and in the communities in which BNYM operates and serves. She has championed DE&I initiatives, delivered blogs to amplify racial awareness, workshops on anti-racism and mentoring programmes, and engaged in drop-in “safe space cafes” to share perspectives. Honey obtained the approval of the CEO to partner with The World Reimagined, a charity that aims to make racial justice a reality. She helped her children’s school create a diversity, equity and inclusion action plan, which saw them shortlisted for a DEI Innovation award.
Deborah Nutt
Deborah Nutt is a Senior Director at Arcadis, and has spent nearly 30 years working in the construction industry as a Chartered Civil Engineer and Chartered Project Professional. In addition to this, Deborah is Chair of the Arcadis Global Gender Affinity Group. As a Senior Leader, Debs has used her position of privilege to actively support the planning and implementation of the Arcadis Women of Colour (WoC) programme. One of the key objectives identified within the programme is to increase the visibility of women of colour within Arcadis. To do this, Debs launched the Women of Colour role modelling initiative to give visibility to inspiring WoC leaders and role models who can share their experience.
Emily Parker
Simon Tarry
Simon Tarry helped to establish UNITY, the UK, Ireland and Nordics race and ethnicity employee inclusion group at Smith+Nephew, a FTSE 100 MedTech company. He was triggered to act when colleagues approached him as Managing Director to respond to the Black Lives Matter movement. Through starting this journey of storytelling, sharing best practice, and seeing what is possible where leadership steps up to be accountable for the ethnicity agenda, inclusion, equity and diversity at work, Simon was motivated to reflect on his own experiences and start to take action to show demonstrable results. The group has made progress with the Maturity Matrix, building transparent data, recruitment, talent development, training and education.