Wo+Men’s Leadership Conference 2016

Professor Christoph H Loch is the Director (Dean) of Cambridge Judge Business School (CJBS). Since 2011, Cambridge Judge has progressed as one of the top 20 business schools in the world, with a high evaluation of its research by the UK government (REF) and with research centres that successfully combine the creation of research output of the highest academic quality with a tangible impact on business practice and society.

CJBS actively supports the Cambridge Cluster, helping entrepreneurial talent development and commercialisation of new ideas; enhancing management development, enabling growth, and sharing thought-leadership.

Professor Loch’s research focuses on the management of innovation processes, and project management more broadly; including innovation strategy; projects under high uncertainty; the emotional aspect to the motivation of professional project workers, and project supervision and governance.

Before coming to CJBS in 2011, Professor Loch was Chaired Professor of Technology and Operations Management at INSEAD, where he also served as Dean of the PhD program and as the director of the INSEAD Israel Research Center. He served as department editor and Associate Editor of Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and Production and Operations Management, and as chair of the Behavioral Operations Section of INFORMS.

Professor Loch holds a PhD from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, an MBA from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and a Diplom-Wirtschaftsingenieur degree from the Darmstadt Institute of Technology in Germany.

In 2012, Professor Loch was identified in a benchmarking study as one of the top ten innovation researchers world-wide. He serves on the supervisory board of an educational software start-up company and is a member of the Cambridge United Football Club board of directors.

Jane is Head of Eastern Region Corporate Banking Division, one of the largest regional divisions in Corporate Banking Globally. Jane and her team support businesses across the East of England to enable them to achieve their growth aspirations.

Jane was appointed as Director of the Media Team in 2005 and progressed quickly to lead the Retail and Wholesale mid-corporate team, the largest in the UK. In 2007 she was appointed Head of Professional Services for the UK and US, leading a global team through the most challenging decade. Jane was instrumental in repositioning the Barclays brand in the industry to become the chosen bank within the sector. During this time Jane was a board member for the Managing Partners Forum. Jane was a finalist for the Women of the Year Awards in 2010 in recognition of this work both internally and externally.

Prior to her time in the Corporate Banking Division, Jane led teams in both Retail and Wealth divisions and is known for her ability to lead businesses through change in a highly regulated environment.

Jane is also a member for the Barclays Diversity & Inclusion Global Council and co-head of the External Reach Network, supporting clients in embedding their diversity strategies. Jane frequently speaks alongside CEOs and board members on this topic.

In addition to her main role at Barclays Jane is the successor Chairman for the CBI East of England, a member of the newly created Finance Taskforce for New Anglia, an Advisory board member for The Cambridge Science Centre, a Trustee for Founders4Schools and Governor of Redborne Upper School and Community College – all focused on inspiring the next generation.

Anna has recently been appointed Head of Large Corporate Banking for the East. Anna and her team support large businesses across the East of England to enable them to achieve their growth aspirations. Previously, Anna led the Higher Education specialism for the East providing funding and operational banking to Higher and Further Education Institutions throughout the region. She was co-founder of the Cambridge Women’s Forum, which has recently merged with Impact Women Network and now sits on their steering committee. Before moving to Cambridge, Anna worked in Investment Banking specialising in global syndicated debt at Barclays Capital, Societe Generale and BNP Paribas. She is married with three children and loves running, cycling and chilling out with her family.

Shaun Grady is Vice President of Business Development Operations at Astra Zeneca; leading the company’s transaction execution, due diligence and Alliance and Integration Management function including early and late stage and on-market licensing and partnering, M&A, and divestments.

During his career he has worked in roles for ICI, Zeneca, AstraZeneca in Corporate, Pharmaceuticals and US Legal departments, HR and Business Development.

Major projects Shaun has been involved in include the AstraZeneca merger, creation of Avecia and Syngenta, acquisition of CAT, MedImmune and Amylin, and the spin out of Albireo.

Outside of work, his interests include rugby, football, soccer and sports writing.

Emily Lawson is Deputy Chair of the 30% Club.

Previously Emily was Chief People Officer at Kingfisher, Group HR Director at Wm Morrison Supermarkets and a Partner at McKinsey & Company where she held various roles including leading the Human Capital Practice.

During her time at Wm Morrison Supermarkets, Emily worked with the leadership team to bring the business reality closer to the challenging UK grocery market situation. This included initiating HR transformation across all core areas, and business-wide improvement programmes in areas including HRIS, cultural transformation, engagement, diversity, and reward.

During Emily’s 15 years at McKinsey she worked across sectors including pharmaceuticals, telecoms, banking, and energy, with a focus on leading multi-year performance transformation programmes for major global institutions which included work in lean operations, cultural transformation, talent strategy and management, diversity strategy and corporate affairs. She was responsible for the firm’s work on diversity including the 2012 Women Matter publication – Making the Breakthrough.

Emily joined the steering committee of the 30% Club in 2012 as she led the research on women in professional service firms as part of the McKinsey/30% Club collaboration. She focused her role in the 30% Club on managing the research and international parts of the club’s remit.

Emily has a MBA with distinction from the University of Oxford, a PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of East Anglia and a Masters in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

Harriet Minter is a writer, journalist and speaker. Currently the editor of the Guardian’s Women in Leadership section, she writes extensively on a variety of issues relating to women and the workplace and has interviewed a range of leading women from MPs to entrepreneurs and celebrities. Prior to her current role she worked as a commissioning editor for a range of sections on the Guardian and also ran the engagement and social media strategy for the Guardian’s Professional Networks. She started her journalistic career at RollOnFriday.com, the leading community site for lawyers and as a consequence knows far too much about the private lives of the City’s highest paid litigators. She is a regular speaker on women’s rights, organisational change, the future of work and just getting stuff done.

Darrin is a parallel entrepreneur, angel investor and enterprise champion. He has been involved in the start-up and growth of numerous business ventures securing over $300 million business financing from grant, angel, corporate, venture capital and public market sources as well as closing over $450 million of product, service, licensing and M&A deals.

He is currently the CEO and President of Horizon Discovery Group, a company he led from a $275 thousand seed funding in March 2008 to a $113 million IPO exactly six years later. The funds raised by the IPO set a new record for a life science company on the AIM market and were the second largest by any research tools company in a London listing.

In 2012, he was named Business Leader of the Year at the European Life Science Awards, in 2014 was named biotech and pharma Executive of the Year by Scrip and in 2015 was named UK Quoted Company Entrepreneur of the Year, Cambridge Business Person of the Year and one of the 175 Faces of Chemistry by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Darrin supports education, entrepreneurship and mentoring programs in the UK via the Professor Christopher R Lowe Carpe Diem Enterprise Fund and has backed over 30 start-up life science, technology and social enterprises. This led to him recently being conferred with an individual Queens Award for Enterprise Promotion in the 2016 birthday honours list.

He is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Cambridge Judge Business School and Enterprise Fellow at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Institute of Biotechnology, both at the University of Cambridge. He is currently Chairman and co-founder of GeoSpock, Chairman of Desktop Genetics, Director and co-founder of Avvinity Therapeutics, Director of Cell Therapy, Board Member of the UK Bioindustry Association, Regional Council Member of the Confederation of British Industry and serves on the advisory boards of Axol Bioscience Ltd, GeneAdviser, HealX3, Cambridge Ahead, the Cambridge Phenomenon, the Cambridge Science Centre and Biotech and Money as well as working with national and international bodies aimed at promoting the thriving UK life science industry.

Jennifer started working in the private equity industry in 1994. She is the Partner heading the Fund Investor Relations team at 3i. Prior to this, Jennifer was a Partner in the UK Buyouts team and Head of Consumer for the UK where she was responsible for investments in Mayborn, Agent Provocateur and Telecity.

Prior to joining 3i in 2005, Jennifer spent nine years at Terra Firma Capital Partners and Nomura’s Principal Finance Group (PFG), where she was Managing Director and was responsible for many transactions across a variety of sectors, most particularly in passenger rolling stock and pubs. Jennifer started her career as a solicitor for Allen, Allen & Hemsley in Sydney and London. She holds a BA degree and LLB from the University of Sydney.

She loves travelling and sport and spends many hours on (freezing) pitches supporting her children and any visiting Australian team. She is also a trustee of the Fred Hollows Foundation (UK).

Boni Sones has worked in the media for 40 years in Print radio TV and now Web journalism. She specialises in broadcasting through the web in Cambridge and one day a week with women in Parliament. In 2009 she was awarded an OBE for services to broadcasting and in 2008 she was nominated as one of the most influential women in Britain by public policy magazine. In 2005 her book on women in Parliament was nominated for the Orwell Prize in journalism. Last year her parliamentaryradio.com for women won an international award from The International Association of Women in Radio and TV. The only UK winner.

Professor Eilís Ferran is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional and International Relations, responsible for the University’s human resources policy and strategy as well as oversight and development of the University’s international engagement. She is also Professor of Company and Securities Law in the Faculty of Law, a University JM Keynes Fellow in Financial Economics and a Professorial Fellow at St Catharine’s College. She served as Chair of the Faculty of Law from 2012 to 2015. Her main research interests are corporate finance law, financial regulation and general company law.