Covid-19 employer webinar: what to do this week - 23rd April 2020

Elizabeth is director of research and a founding co-director at Business Forums International. She is responsible for all programme content and writing, and researches current areas of interest for senior HR professionals in large organisations. BFI is the UK’s leading HR risk specialist conference and training provider, delivering key and timely information to over 3,000 delegates a year both through public and in-house training courses.

Before founding BFI in 1996, Elizabeth specialised in researching corporate financial programmes in Asia and the Middle East, based in Dubai. She also worked in advertising and publishing in the Middle East and London.

Elizabeth was educated in the West Indies, Saudi Arabia and Belgium before reading Modern Languages at Durham University.

Peter Wright is a truly global executive experienced in leading HR functions for some of the world’s best-known companies.

He has held senior positions in companies as diverse as Zurich Insurance, AIG, Estee Lauder, Merrill Lynch, BP, Allied Domecq and Unilever. He has travelled extensively and worked on every continent. He is highly skilled in leading organizations and executive teams through significant growth, crisis and business transformation, including mergers and acquisitions divestitures, restructuring, organizational transformation and public offerings.

At the beginning of 2014 Peter took his many years of experience and applied it to the founding of his own consultancy Acorn Strategy Consulting. This boutique consultancy will specialize in helping companies improve their Organizational Effectiveness and Change Management capabilities as well as advising on all aspects of Talent Management. Subsequently, Peter became a partner in Leadership Forum Inc., merging Acorn Strategy Consulting with Leadership Forum Inc.

In addition to his corporate experience, Peter is a business entrepreneur. In 2007 he co-founded Global Energy Talent, a business dedicated to the recruitment and deployment of people for oil and energy companies. He continues to serve as an advisor to the company.

Born in London into a military family he grew up travelling around the world before attending the British Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and St John’s College Cambridge where he earned a Masters Degree in History. He served the first twelve years of his adult life as an army officer in the British Army.

Peter has a unique lens on the realities of global leadership and change management. A true citizen of the world he is frequently invited to write, teach, speak and consult for businesses, executive education schools and non-profit organizations.

He has a highly entertaining, provocative and motivational style and is respected for delivering sound and workable end results.

Derek Luckhurst has been the Training & Development Director of the IPA (Involvement And Participation Association) since December 2000 responsible for consultancy services. Previously he was the Manufacturing, Science And Finance Union’s National Secretary for Legal & General since 1996. He was instrumental in the establishment of a breakthrough partnership agreement, which was signed at L&G in 1997.

At IPA he has developed partnership workshops for the Inland Revenue, the Audit Commission, Royal Fleet Auxiliary, Aintree NHS Trust, Bolton NHS Trust and Santander. In conjunction with the workshop, he has written a partnership induction programme specifically tailored for people working on partnership initiatives.

He is the author of “A Practitioner’s Guide To Sustaining Industrial Partnership” published by the IPA with DTI support in 2004, updated and re-published in 2011. He also wrote a Staff Representatives’ Handbook, which has been commissioned by Sanctuary Housing, Halfords, BP, Coral Racing and Avon Cosmetics.

He has worked with many organisations helping them with employee relations including United Welsh Housing Association, Steria, Standard Life, Santander, Norwich Union, Royal College Of Surgeons, The General Medical Council, The Prince’s Trust, Egg, Blue Arrow, Royal National Institute For Deaf People, Bank Of Ireland UK Financial Services, The Independent Police Complaints Commission, The Healthcare Commission, Avon Cosmetics, The Royal Fleet Auxiliary, The National Asthma Campaign, National Grid, Peabody Trust, British Bakeries, The Employers Organisation, Pizza Express, The Communication Workers Union, The Post Office, De La Rue Cash Systems, Peabody Housing, Corps of Commissionaires, The Cancer Research Campaign, South East Water, Inland Revenue, Eurotunnel, Siemens, Pfizer, Terrence Higgins Trust, Electoral Reform Services, Opportunity Links, Kelloggs, the CBI, Skandia, AOL Broadband, Vodafone, Kimberley Clark and BP, Pearson, City & Guilds and HCL.

Derek has also introduced the option-based consultation model for the effective involvement of the representatives of employees, be they union or non-union in identifying opinions and influencing the decision making process at a strategic level within organisations. Described by Keith Sisson, Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations at Warwick Business School as a ‘landmark in UK industrial relations’, Derek has been busy training managers and employee representatives in option-based consultation in organisations like the Healthcare Commission, Standard Life, Bank Of Ireland, United Welsh Housing and many others.
Derek leads the IPA’s influential Best Practice Network and, with them, developed the “15 Strategic Questions” that have proved popular with representatives and senior managers alike. He is also the author of “The 5 Key Steps To Employee Engagement”, published in 2007, which explores the unique role representatives can play in ensuring staff lose the cynicism that blocks engagement.

He was a key player in developing a framework for flexible working in Legal & General and was responsible for the training of both managers and union representatives in how the concept should work in practice. A new anti-harassment and bullying procedure was established during his term of office together with improved grievance and disciplinary processes.

Tom's role focuses on lobbying key Government and EU officials on a range of employment and labour market issues. The work also involves highlighting REC initiatives to promote industry standards, including enforcement of a Code of Professional Practice, audit schemes and the launched Diversity Pledge.

Before joining the REC, Tom Hadley spent six years at the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) and previously worked for the London-based recruitment and economic development consultancy MBA Training Research & Development. Previous roles included a traineeship within the European Commission and work within the in-house legal department of the French multi-national Vivendi.

Tom has a Masters in International and European Law from Assas University in Paris and a BA Law Degree from Sussex University. Tom is also a national league rugby player and a collector of fine wines.

Crisis and Issues management, Crisis communications and corporate security expert

Mark is Blindside’s Lead Crisis Consultant responsible for ensuring Blindside’s clients are correctly serviced throughout the Crisis and Issues Management cycle from identification and preparation, prevention through planning and training, to response and recovery. Blindside’s crisis management preparedness and response services enable our clients to face situations and events of a challenging nature, throughout the world.

Over the last 24 years, Mark has worked at the forefront of crisis management and crisis communications internationally. Mark has held senior positions with leading consultancies in crisis management with Control Risks, and crisis communications and issues management with Burson-Marsteller.