Lee Sears - Lee started his career as a sports coach, developing a specialism in peak performance coaching. Before reading Law at Christ’s College, Cambridge, Lee spent three years as a Metropolitan police officer during which time he set up a coaching programme for members of gangs in Brixton.
In 1987 Lee co-founded Bridge, a consultancy which specialises in leadership development, cultural dynamics and organisational transformation. Lee specialises in supporting senior leaders through major organisational change/mergers, fundamental culture change, and innovation led market breakthroughs. He also works with individuals to develop their personal leadership capacity.
Lee is currently leading a change management and leadership development project, developing a bespoke approach to supporting the leadership of radical innovation within the education community. Lee recently published his first book, “Why Work is Weird”, which explores the way in which organisational cultures impact on their effectiveness.
Since April 2008, Lee has been seconded part-time to the CIPD as Strategic Advisor, and sits on the CIPD Senior Management Team.

Jackie Orme - CIPD Chief Executive 
Jackie has been CEO of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) since April 2008. Jackie has been an HR practitioner for more than 17 years. She has worked across a broad range of sectors and HR specialisms.
Her early years were spent in the Department of Employment and the Institute of Chartered Accountants before moving to work in the steel industry based in South Wales.
For the last 12 years Jackie has worked for PepsiCo – including 7 years leading the UK and Ireland HR function and sitting on both the UK Executive Board of PepsiCo International and the global PepsiCo International HR Council, during a time of impressive business growth and success.
She also sits on the Board of Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity.
Jackie is married with 2 young daughters.

Professor Gareth Jones - Gareth’s career has spanned both the academic and business worlds. He began as a University academic in Economic and Social Studies at the University of East Anglia before moving to the London Business School, where he joined the Organisational Behaviour Group.
During this period he directed the School’s Accelerated Development Programme. At this point the attractions of a “real” job in business proved too great and he joined Polygram, then the worlds largest recorded music company. Appointed as Senior Vice President for Polygram’s global human resources, his responsibilities covered more than thirty countries.
In 1996 he reverted to academia when he became the BT Professor of Organisational Development at Henley where he also served on the Board of Governors. His most recent job was as Director of Human Resources and Internal Communications at the BBC. He is currently Visiting Professor at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid and at INSEAD in Fontainbleu. He is also a Fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School.
Gareth’s research interests are in organisational design, culture, leadership and change. He has published several books, including “The Character of a Corporation: How Your Culture Can Make or Break Your Business” co-authored with Rob Goffee and “Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?”, also with Rob Goffee, and published by Harvard Business School Press in February 2006. This latest leadership title was based on an article of the same name which won the prestigious McKinsey Award for the best article in Harvard Business Review (HBR), in 2001. The theme of authenticity was developed in another HBR article, “Managing Authenticity” which appeared in the December 2005 issue. Their latest article, “Leading Clever People” appeared in the March issue of HBR and deals with the special challenges of leading in the knowledge economy. This was runner-up for the 2008 McKinsey Award. Gareth’s and Rob’s new book “Clever; leading your smartest, most creative people”, published by Harvard Business School Press in September 2009. It deals with the peculiar challenges of leading individuals and teams with the capacity to create disproportionate amounts of value, many of whom are to be found in the knowledge economy. Other articles have appeared in the European Management Journal, in Human Relations and in the Harvard Business Review. Gareth serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of People Management Magazine.
In addition, Gareth is a founding partner of Creative Management Associates (CMA) a consultancy focused on organisations where creativity is a source of competitive strength. He is also a Trustee of The Work Foundation.

Kevin Brady - HR Director for BT Operate. Operate is the division of BT responsible for all of the companies global IT and Network infrasture. The organisation employees over 15,000 employees in 46 countries and is responsible for the service offered to all of BT’s customers throughout the globe. Prior to this role Kevin was Reward and Employee Relations Director for BT Group plc, where he was responsible for the development and execution of BT’s reward strategy. He was also responsible for BT’s relationships with it’s recognised trade unions and works councils. Prior to taking on his role in October 2003, Kevin was the HR Director for BT’s Consumer business and BT Openworld.
Kevin joined BT in 1992 as a graduate recruit and has held a variety of HR generalist and functional roles within BT, including specialising in Reward, People Development and Resourcing. He has worked in a variety of business teams including Systems, BT North America, Consumer, Customer Service and Retail.

 
 
 
 
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