Closing the Gender Gap, Embracing Equity and Tackling Unconscious Bias

Baroness (Tanni) Grey-Thompson

Britain’s best known Paralympian, Tanni amassed eleven gold medals in five consecutive Games. She also won six London Marathons and achieved a total of thirty four world records. Since retiring from competitive sport Tanni has taken an active role in the Lords, particularly on campaigns and legislation around disability. She believes that disabled people still face barriers that need to be removed, and calls for more genuine engagement rather than political rhetoric: “Public perceptions are changing.”

Hannah Fry

Having studied fluid dynamics and working briefly in F1, Hannah returned to academia and now lectures in the mathematics of cities. She’s also a science broadcaster, bringing numbers and data to life on TV and radio in programmes including The Joy of Data, City in the Sky, and The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry. She examines how maths underpins almost everything and the world of data: how it’s gathered, what it can (and can’t) tell us, and when to look more closely at its predictions. Hannah also encouraged the public to download the BBC Pandemic app for her look at how a flu-like disease can spread through day-to-day contact in the prescient BBC programme Contag...

Edleen John

With experience in sectors including investment banking, government, and retail, Edleen delivers practical insights into the value and meaning of diversity and inclusion and how cultures can change. Alongside the professional she recounts her personal experience of life from south London comprehensive to Cambridge University to the City to one of sport's most influential governing bodies.

Laura Bates

Laura Bates is the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, a safe space created to document sexism and raise awareness. Her books Misogynation, Men Who Hate Women and Fix the System, Not the Women, explore the institutionalised beliefs rooted within society that leads to everyday discrimination and looks at what we can do to tackle them.

Nelufar Hedayat

Nelufar came to the UK as a refugee from Afghanistan, and has since built her profile as an award-winning journalist dedicated to telling the stories of marginalised people. She is vocal on issues such as food ethics and sustainability, having presented Food Exposed with Nelufar Hedayat, a programme which delves into the way our consumption of food affects the world we inhabit. Her documentaries on human trafficking have been viewed on both sides of the Atlantic on Netflix, Vice, National Geographic and the BBC.