Wo+Men’s Leadership Conference 2017

Amanda Mesler is Microsoft’s General Manager for Central and Eastern Europe, covering 33 countries, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania, Uzbekistan, Greece and the Ukraine.

Amanda has worked in consulting technology for most of her career. She is a savvy business and commercial executive with significant P&L responsibility, Amanda has 26 years of extensive international leadership and general management experience at CEO and board level. She has a demonstrable track record of success leading transformations, building start-ups within global businesses, and rapidly growing businesses in several industries. Amanda has held leadership positions across all major business areas, such as CEO, Operations, Strategy, Marketing, Sales, Alliances, Consulting, Supply Chain and Business Units.

After starting her career at General Electric, she worked as a partner for KPMG and ran energy businesses for Electronic Data Systems. She then sat on the executive committee of IT group Logica and also worked for banking technology group Misys before joining Microsoft in 2015.

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.

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.

Rachel is a psychologist, executive coach and founder of Why Women Work, a social enterprise to accelerate gender diverse corporate leadership. She regularly presents and publishes on women and work and 21st century leadership.

Previously, Rachel was a Director at YSC, an international leadership consultancy, where she supported a wide range of FTSE-100 clients to build individual and organisational capability. Rachel works with senior leaders and their teams to enable personal, professional and organisational change. She is collaborative and light touch in her use of psychometric tools and theory, preferring to use her candour and warmth to build trust, unlock insights and support learning than impart expertise. She is a skilled facilitator and an engaging speaker.

Describing herself as a ‘late bloomer’, Rachel originally studied Classics at Oxford and worked in a number of multinational corporates, in communications and HR before discovering her vocation. She retrained at the age of 40, completing a Psychology degree at London Metropolitan University, a post-graduate Counselling Certificate at the University of East London, and an MSc in Organisational Psychology at City University. She gained a national award from the British Psychological Society for her research into age diversity. She was a lead consultant for nearly 10 years at YSC with longstanding relationships with multinational global clients. In addition to her client responsibilities, she led the YSC Online business, and developed YSC’s point of view on diversity and female leadership.

She is a 30% Club Steering Committee member, a Mentor for City University and a Speaker for Schools presenter. She is also a qualified Relate Counsellor. She is a lead author of several research papers into diversity and inclusion published collaboratively with KPMG and the 30% Club. She has appeared on the BBC to talk about the psychology of game-changers, equal pay, and the pros and cons of quotas.

She is married with two grown-up children. When not otherwise occupied, she travels to visit her husband, who runs a micro-finance organisation supporting female entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe.

Victoria is currently Account Technology Strategy Director for Enterprise Partner Group at Microsoft Central and Eastern Europe. She was previously Customer and Partner Experience Director for the same region.

Prior to her roles at Microsoft, Victoria was an Advisor to the Board at Hellascom International, Member of OTE (Hellenic Telecoms Organisation, Deutsche Telekom Group) where she was responsible for the development and implementation of the company’s value-added services strategy across the organisation. She was also an elected Member of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises General Council.

Victoria was a former Postdoctoral Fellow at Rockefeller University, New York, and had affiliations as a Research Fellow with Universities in Greece before making a career shift to business.

Victoria holds a BSc in Biochemistry and Microbiology from King’s College London and is an Associate of King’s College London. She also holds a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge, (Newham College).

Fred is a Partner within EY’s Operational Transaction Services team, focusing on operational aspects of M&A transactions through work across the transaction life cycle with pre-deal due diligence (buy and sell side), integrations and separations. Fred leads the team’s work for Private Equity clients from both a pre and post deal perspective. Prior to joining EY, Fred spent time with Deloitte, GM and served as the CEO for a global medical equipment company with operations in Europe, Australia, and North America. In his time at EY, Fred has worked closely with various blue chip PE firms (e.g. TPG, Hg Capital, KKR, Blackstone, Apollo, Triton and Permira) and corporates, leading operational due diligence projects, developing separation plans and synergy cases and identifying cost reduction/turn-around programmes.

When not working on operating model transitions, synergy identification or large scale integrations, Fred is an avid skier and a father of three.

Tim has over 20 years experience in the banking industry, managing global businesses for most of that time. In his career he has lived in Singapore, Japan, Toronto and New York and in addition he has managed businesses across the globe including China, India, Brazil, Russia as well as across Africa and Asia. He has worked in a breadth of institutions from Standard Chartered Bank to Merrill Lynch. Having been in Canada through the financial crisis he joined RBS in 2010 as part of the financial, structural and cultural rebuild. When he retired from banking in 2015 he was Global head of Foreign Exchange, Local markets and Short Term markets. Since his retirement he has acted as an expert witness in cases of financial derivatives and has also advised on culture, diversity and finance on a pro bono basis to small businesses and academic institutions.

Jaideep Prabhu is a Professor of Marketing, Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business & Enterprise and Director of the Centre for India & Global Business at Cambridge Judge Business School and a Fellow of Clare College.

His research interests lie in cross-national issues concerning the antecedents and consequences of radical innovation in high-technology contexts such as banking, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology; the role of firm culture in driving innovation in firms across nations; how multinational firms organise their innovation activities worldwide; the forces that drive R&D location decisions and the factors that influence the performance implications of these decisions; the internationalisation of firms from emerging markets; and innovation in emerging markets.

Jaideep has consulted with or taught executives from ABN Amro, Bertelsmann AG, British Telecom, the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry, IBM, ING Bank, the NHS, Nokia, Philips, Roche, Shell, Vodafone and Xerox among other organisations in Colombia, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, UK and US. He has been interviewed by or has had his work profiled on BBC News 24, The New York Times, MIT Sloan Management Review, BusinessWeek, US News & World Report, The Financial Times, Le Monde, The Times, The Times of India, The Economic Times, and elsewhere.

Lionel Paolella is a Professor of Social Sciences and Organisation
at Cambridge Judge Business School, and an Affiliated Faculty at Harvard Law School (Center on Legal Profession). He graduated from Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan (ENS) in France, after which he took a MA in Sociology at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), a MS in Management and Organization Science (University Paris X), and a PhD in Strategy (HEC Paris).

Before joining the University of Cambridge, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago (Booth Graduate School of Business) in 2011, and a Chazen visiting scholar at Columbia University (Graduate School of Business) between September 2012 and December 2013.

His research lies at the intersection of economic sociology, organisation theory and social psychology. He is studying market categorisations and how they affect social evaluation and performance of organisations, specifically in international legal services. His work has appeared in Academy of Management Journal, and Journal of Management Studies. He received the Cambridge Judge Teaching Award in 2017, the MBA Faculty of the Year Award in 2018, and he has been listed among the Best 40 under 40 Professors by Poets and Quants in 2019.

In his free time, Lionel’s interests centre around photography and the art of watch making.

Shima is an entrepreneur, director and academic obsessed with making the world a better place. She is the director of two enterprise and entrepreneurship programmes, at the University of Cambridge, supporting the development of technology entrepreneurs and the commercialisation of technology from within the University and its partners. She is Director of EnterpriseWISE as well as Director of ETECH Projects at the Entrepreneuship Centre at Cambridge Judge Business School.

An engineer by training to postgraduate level, she also has an MBA and a PhD in Management focusing on corporate strategy and the natural environment. She has spent two decades helping companies, governments and international funding agencies improve their performance in an environmentally and socially sensitive manner. As an entrepreneur, Shima is one of the founders and a Director of Value in Enterprise, the responsible business consultancy company. She was also one the founders of Nahdet El Mahrousa (the most successful social enterprise incubator in the Middle East) and the Egyptian Junior Business Association (EJB) in Egypt and the Global Communities Initiative (GCI) in the US which she chaired the board of for a number of years. Shima is interested in critically studying entrepreneurship practice to explore the implications on people and the planet. Currently, she has a particular interest in gender influences.

Director of Corporate Communications and Marketing Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Director of the Wo+Men’s Leadership Centre
Tracey is passionate about improving gender diversity, through dialogue and action, and is a founding member of Cambridge Judge Business School’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee.

Tracey is a member of the senior leadership team, with responsibility for overseeing
externally facing communications and corporate marketing. She is also a member of the European
Foundation for Management Steering Committee and a mentor to students at her alma mater, the University of St. Andrews. Tracey’s background is in outreach, engagement, and PR.

In her early career, she project-managed the creation, operational running and marketing of museums, including the Museum of Rugby and Twickenham Experience Tours at England Rugby, Twickenham. She developed engagement and
partnership programmes as Director of Outreach for the NASA Specialised Center of Research and Training in the Research Triangle, North Carolina and for ScottishTelecom, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Tracey holds degrees from the University of St Andrews and the University of Aberdeen, has
completed the Executive Education Cambridge General Management Programme, at Cambridge Judge, and is now embarking on an Executive MBA at the Business School. In her spare time, she runs marathons.

Sue was appointed Permanent Secretary for Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on 4 September 2013 and is responsible for the overall management of the department.

The Permanent Secretary leads DCMS civil servants that are responsible for the contribution of the arts, sport, tourism, creative industries and media to economic growth and wellbeing, as well as promoting equality and diversity in society. This includes implementation of Gay Marriage legislation, delivery of major projects such as broadband rollout, ensuring a long-lasting legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and organising a fitting series of events to mark the First World War centenary.

In July 2014 Sue became the Civil Service LGB&T Champion.

Her career highlights include:

• Director General of Strategy, Department for Work and Pensions, 2011-2013
• Director General, Welfare and Wellbeing, Department for Work and Pensions, 2009-2011
• Director General for Corporate Performance, Department for International Development, 2006-2009
• Director, EMU Policy, Euro Preparations and Debt Management, HM Treasury, 2002-2005
• Counsellor Economic, British Embassy Washington, 1999-2002
• Adviser on family policy, Number 10 Policy Unit, 1998-99
• Assistant secretary EU Coordination & Strategy, HM Treasury, 1995-1998
• Economic adviser posts at HM Treasury (macro forecast, labour market, Germany), 1989-1995
• Research fellow then lecturer in economics, University College Cardiff, 1978-88

Maggie Berry is Executive Director for Europe for WEConnect International, a global organisation supporting supplier diversity in procurement and helping majority owned women businesses to connect into the corporate supply chain. She has lead responsibility for the management, leadership and development of WEConnect International’s activity in Europe and her role involves developing corporate and public sector support as well as growing a network of majority owned women’s businesses across the UK and Europe.

Prior to joining WEConnect International, she ran Women in Technology – an online job board, recruitment and networking forum for women working in the technology profession in the UK. She was involved from Women in Technology’s inception in the autumn of 2004 and managed all aspects of the website and the networking activities Women in Technology organised. Maggie continues to run the Women in Technology Network on an informal basis.

Helen began her private equity career in 1989, investing directly in small companies on behalf of a major Canadian bank in Montréal. She then joined the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, a Canadian pension fund manager, before moving to Paris to head up Russell Investment Group’s European private equity investment activities. In 2004, Helen moved to Pantheon, a global private equity fund investor, where she is head of European Primary Investment and a member of the International Investment Committee. In addition to her responsibilities at Pantheon, Helen is a member of EVCA’s LP Council, and represents LPs on EVCA’s Board.

Helen originally trained as an engineer in the UK, completed an apprenticeship with GEC-Marconi and worked in industry before hanging up her arc-welding gear. She holds a BA and MA in Engineering from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the University of Western Ontario. Her Canadian experience has led to a passion for skiing, hiking and cycling, all of which she enjoys with her husband and three children, while her time in France resulted in an appreciation for great food. Fortunately one balances out the other.

Dr Jill Armstrong is a Bye Fellow at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. Jill leads the College’s ‘Collaborating with Men’ research project that aims to change workplace culture to be more inclusive for women. Jill is presenting the research to many organisations and supporting workplace trials of the ideas for behavioural change suggested by the male and female research participants. Prior to her PhD, Jill led two successful commercial market research companies.

Belinda has worked in a variety of technical and IT management roles in large corporations in Cambridge for the last twenty years. She has progressed from end user and backend systems technical support through to building and developing large teams to deliver substantial IT and business change.

Belinda is an honours graduate with postgraduate qualifications in IT and has a very collaborative and inclusive approach when working with others. Belinda aims to deliver change without alienating people and is happy to connect and discuss IT delivery, scaling agile, product ownership, business change and women in tech.

Josiah Famurewa is a Senior Business Analyst and Product Owner with Digital Bananas Technology; a digital media company that builds apps, software, games, web and mobile sites. Recent projects have extended and focused on Digital Transformation, Machine Learning, Big Data, 3rd Platform Technologies, Open APIs, CRM system optimisation and integration.

He moved over to the UK in 1999 after his University education where he studied Estate Management at the University of Lagos and started working with Williams Lea from 1999 to 2009; a business process outsourcing company where he provided document solution and worked on projects for multinationals within financial services, legal and pharmaceutical companies. He then moved on to join GlaxoSmithKline’s Corporate Finance Department as a Financial Trade Route Analyst from 2009 to 2011.

He joined Digital Bananas Technology in 2012 and has worked on various digital projects and roles ranging from Business Analyst role to Scrum Master and Project Manager. He is currently a Senior Business Analyst and Product Owner.

He is a man of many hobbies. A good cook, wine specialist, DJ, keyboardist, bassist, make-up artist, loves traveling, music and intrigued by technology. He is married, a family man and blessed with two kids.

He believes that the future will be digital, automation driven and most high-rise office buildings in central business districts around the world today will be mixed use/residential properties in future as most people will be working from home and on the move.

Sucheta’s primary research interests include strategic leadership with a special focus on female rise to corporate boards and executive leadership positions. She has published extensively in leading academic journals in management. She is an associate editor of Academy of Management Journal and Journal of Management. She also sits on the editorial of four other leading academic journals.

She has worked on research projects and grants with companies such as Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, Newton Asset Management, BNY Mellon and 30% club. Her research on female rise to boardrooms has been featured in global media outlets including New York Times, Forbes, CNBC, Huffington Post, Reuters, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Scotsman, Economic Times, Times of India, Herald Tribune, Borsen, O Globo, The Times (Kuwait), Business Standard and Folha De Sao Paulo.

Dr Jane Davies is Director of the Cambridge MBA, Senior Faculty in Management Practice and Deputy Director of the Centre for Process Excellence and Innovation at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School. Jane teaches the value of delivering operational excellence through courses in Operations Management, Operations Strategy, Lean Six Sigma Process Improvement and Project Management to undergraduates, graduates and executives. She received the CJBS faculty teaching award in 2013 and 2015.

Jane conducts industry focused research on the operations’ strategies of organisations. Specifically, she aims to understand the impact of operational decisions and the role of operational excellence in driving organisation value and growth. Her work is published in Production & Operations Management Journal, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management and Journal of Business Venturing.

Before her academic career, Jane spent ten years consulting to companies in the finance, telecoms and public sectors on operational excellence initiatives and technology change projects. She holds a Master’s degree in Operational Research from the London School of Economics, a Master’s in Business Administration from Babson College and a Doctorate in Business Administration from Boston University. She is a Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College.

Jochem Kroezen is an Assistant Professor in International Business at Cambridge Judge Business School and a Fellow of Homerton College.

His research interests lie in industry evolution, entrepreneurship, social movements, institutions and institutional change, organisational identity formation and change and international business.

Prior to joining Cambridge Judge Business School, Jochem was an ERIM PhD Candidate at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.

Dr Lilia Giugni completed a PhD in Politics at the University of Cambridge in 2017. Her thesis analysed the role that ideas and discourse played in the organisational changes of European left-wing parties after the 1980s. She has published on various academic journals, commenting on different aspects of Italian politics, and collaborated with think tanks and editorial projects such as Renewal, the Fondation Jean-Jaurès and the LSE Politics & Policy blog. She has also taught Comparative Politics at Cambridge and in several summer schools.

Previously, Lilia had studied and conducted research at LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Strasbourg, the London School of Economics, the European University Institute and the Library of Congress in Washington DC. She has worked as a MEP assistant, volunteered in a Vietnamese NGO, and served as managing editor of the academic blog Politics In Spires.

Lilia is also a young social entrepreneur and is in the process of creating a think tank, Gen Pol (Gender & Policy Insights), which will provide research, evidence-based policy proposals as well as training and consulting services on matters of gender. She is deeply interested in the way gender affects representation, policy-making, and the way we understand social problems, including, especially, organised crime and migration. Lilia is currently the chair of an Italian non-profit organisation promoting gender equality and has spoken on matters of gender at several public events.