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FOLUKE AKINLOSE MBE |
Director, PRECIOUS Media

Foluke Akinlose is the founder of Precious Online, the leading magazine and network for women of colour. Before launching Precious in 1999, Foluke worked as a journalist and editor, across print and new media for companies such as ITN New Media and Moreover.com, a Reuters backed technology company writing on a diverse range of subjects including business, new media, football, gaming, entertainment and accountancy.

As well as heading up the team at Precious, Foluke also acts as a consultant on editorial and marketing projects for a range of corporate clients. In 2009 Foluke was named in the ‘top 100 ones to watch’ in the Courvoisier The Future 500 a network that celebrates the UK's most innovative business brains and creative talent. Foluke was honoured in the 2010 New Year's Honours List for service to the Creative Industries.

Michael Clarke |
National Diversity Manager at the Environment Agency

Michael Clarke is the National Diversity Manager at the Environment Agency, a government executive agency with the principal aims to protect and improve the environment, and to promote sustainable development. The agency plays a central role in delivering the environmental priorities of UK central goverment, and Michael leads the team with the national role of embedding the diversity priorities of the agency. Prior to returning to the public sector and joining the agency, Michael was the National Campaign Manager at Race for Opportunity, the UK employers forum for race equality, part of Business in the Community.

After leaving the Civil Service in the early 80s, Michael freelanced for 7 years before going into the private sector with the then Lloyds Bank. Whilst there Michael managed and led teams until in May 2000 he founded and became the first Chairperson of the Lloyds TSB GEM Network, the network for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic employees. The membership of the GEM Network rose to over 1,000 members before Michael left the bank in 2006. During which time he had also managed the operational aspects of the bank's race equality strategy, and represented the bank on a number of external organisations, including the CRE Private Sector Advisory Group here in the UK and at the IMS-Entreprendre in Paris, France.

Outside of work, Michael remains immensely proud of, and inspired by, the Windrush generation, those who left their beautiful homelands overseas, settled here and paved the way for his and successive generations. A firm believer that service to others is a great platform to personal and collective success, he has served as a sixth form college governor, and sat on various community committees in his home borough of Lewisham, South London. He is a trustee of The Tabernacle and the very proud father of three equally community-minded and church-focused adult children.

Laxmi Hariharan |
Marketing & Research Director for Emerging Markets EMEA, NBCUniversal

Laxmi Hariharan is the Marketing & Research Director for Emerging Markets EMEA at NBCUniversal one of the world's leading media & entertainment companies.Prior to this she has held senior positions at various organisations including MTV Networks and Western Union FSI. With nearly 20 years experience in the publishing & entertainment industries she is one of the leading international media marketers in the UK.

Laxmi is also the co-founder of JAM, India's first youth magazine and has been listed among the top Asian women in business in the UK. She advises a range of women entrepreneurs on business strategy and as a technophile blogs about the latest e-publishing & digital trends in which she has a personal interest. She is in the process of publishing her first novel.

Heather Melville |
Regional Director, SME London, RBS

Heather Melville is a Regional Director within the Corporate Banking Division, currently leading one of the largest sales teams in GTS Sales. Her team is focused on delivering International propositions using a range of financial tools to service the evolving needs of the SME market.

A graduate of the IBM business school, she’s worked in the financial sector for almost 30 years years and has a wealth of professional and personal experience.

She recognises the challenges faced by many employees today, both men & women, with regards to balancing home life and a successful career. Heather has raised two sons by herself while working full time, and supported them through university – both are now directors of their own successful businesses.

She is also a Justice of the Peace, supports a number of personal development forums for women and mentors a number of young people both within the RBS group and externally.

Her passion for success is complimented by her desire to see others unleash their own potential. This, and the support of an organisation that believes its’ people are its strongest asset, continues to provide Heather with the energy and tenacity to succeed in all areas of her life.

Heather believes that with the right support, you can have it all. To prove this, she’s embraced yet another challenge and launched Focused Women, the RBS’s Group’s first women’s networking forum which has the full support of the Group’s main board.

In June 2010, Heather received the prestigious Women In Banking, Awards for Achievement under the category Champion For Women Achievement.

Sandie Okoro |
General Counsel, Baring Asset Management Limited

Sandie is General Counsel at Baring Asset Management Limited a global asset management company which is part of the MassMutual Financial Group. She manages a team of lawyers that are based in London, Boston and Hong Kong, and she is responsible for the management of Barings legal risk across the globe.

Prior to joining Barings in May 2007, Sandie was Head of Legal for Corporate Services at Schroders and managed the Schroders’ Legal Panel. In her spare time, Sandie is Chair of the CLO (Chief Legal Officers) Programme, a Director of International Lawyers for Africa, a trustee of LawWorks and a Trustee of the Powerlist Foundation. For four years up until 2006, Sandie was a non-executive director of Family Mosaic, a London based housing association and for 5 years she was a Foundation Governor at La Retraite Girls School.

She was one of The Lawyer magazine’s Hot 100 lawyers in 2005. In 2009 she was a shortlisted nominee for In-house Lawyer of the Year at The Lawyer Awards and 2010 she was for shortlisted nominee for Lawyer of the Year at the Legal Business Awards. Sandie mentors young aspiring lawyers by providing bespoke one-off one-to-one mentoring. She is an Ambassador for the Law Society’s Diversity Access Scheme and she is the joint winner of the Minority Lawyers Conference 2011 award for encouraging minority lawyers. She has also been shortlisted for the award of Outstanding Business Woman of the Year at the African Business Awards 2011.

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