Yvette currently works as a Governance, Diversity & Inclusion consultant and recently left the Bank of New York Mellon (March 2022) where she worked in the EMEA Regional Change group supporting the EMEA Regulatory Governance and Reporting Programmes (since Nov 2016).   She joined the firm in 2008 shortly after The Bank of New York merged with Mellon. Prior to being a Project Manager she was the Company Secretary where she performed comprehensive company secretarial services to a large portfolio of entities in the UK and EMEA region with responsibilities for compliance with statutory and corporate governance requirements. Yvette has over 25 years of Senior Administration experience in large firms, including Accenture, United Broadcasting Entertainment and previously worked as a Senior Analyst at Goldman Sachs, performing Company Secretarial duties. She remains an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries & Administrators (UK) since 2016. 

Yvette graduated from Fordham University in New York majoring in Sociology and French. She completed her MSc in Corporate Governance (2015) gaining a distinction in her dissertation on women making it to the C-Suite. Alongside her main duties, Yvette was involved in many social awareness activities at BNY Mellon having Co-Chaired EMEA Community Partnership (2013/14); Chair of Business Resource Group, IMPACT Community Affairs sub-committee (2014-2022); and in August 2019 she was appointed as Co-Chair of IMPACT in EMEA where she looked to increase diverse talent pipeline externally and internally. Yvette is a mentor with Inspiring the Future. She is also a Non-Executive Director and Chair who sits on the Board of DigiBridge Community Interest Company, which is a social enterprise providing IT support, recycling, re-use services and activities locally in London and educational support for young people in Africa. She joined CWN in March 2020 as Co-Chair of Inclusion & Belonging Committee. She is a regular panellist or facilitator on topics ranging from Diversity, Inclusion, Courageous Conversations and Hybrid working.

Yvette has a keen interest in the arts having spent her formative years working at the International Centre of Photography and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She is a mother to two teenage boys Chi and Ifa. Fond of yoga and swimming she also occasionally participates in charity runs.

Uma is of Indian heritage and was born in Uganda. She grew up in Leicester and studied in London where she graduated with a degree in Business Studies, Linguistics and Journalism. She is a Non-Executive Director serving on a number of boards both in the private sector and third sector whilst running her own international HR consulting business.

Prior to this, Uma spent over 20 years in senior HR roles across Europe, the Middle East, North America, Asia and Australasia. She has a wealth of directly relevant cross-cultural practitioner experience having worked with the global heads of multiple business lines at ANZ Banking Group Limited, AXA Rosenberg, Deutsche Bank, Cable & Wireless and NatWest. She has operated at C-Suite level dealing with topics including inclusion and belonging, regulatory reform and corporate governance, HR transformation, talent acquisition/development, succession planning and change management.

Uma is a natural connector and uses her wealth of experience, personal background, cultural heritage, and life experiences to transform people/things around her. She is passionate about developing female talent and in particular, supporting women of colour.

She is honoured and privileged (and only the second women of colour) to serve as Chair and President of City Women Network. CWN is one of the longest established independent organisations for professional and business women in the UK, committed to furthering the professional and personal development of female talent in business.

Uma is CIPD accredited, an NLP Practitioner and Strengthscope coach.  Her areas of coaching expertise include:

➢ Inclusive leadership
➢ Cultural sensitivity
➢ Strategy
➢ Performance/Motivation
➢ Inclusion & Belonging
➢ Complex Employee relation matters

Away from the world of work, Uma has a teenage daughter and a gorgeous boy Cavapoo. She is also an ardent Leicester City football fan and is fluent in Hindi and Gujarati.

Patricia is a global HR leader.  Her career has seen her partnering SME boards in the banking, technology and engineering sectors, helping them grow their performance and profit through their people.   

Currently, Patricia heads up Human Resources for London, New York and Tokyo, at international transportation Bank DVB.  During her time there, she’s developed and grown her career to become a trusted advisor to the board - working with those at all levels to smoothly manage complex situations.  

Joining DVB from Forester Research, the renowned and much respected technology research organisation, the UK arm was effectively a start-up when Patricia joined.  Working hand-in-hand with both original founders at the then fledgling business, Patricia helped establish the entire UK operation.  

Patricia holds a BSc Hons in Occupational Psychology and a Master’s in Human Resource Management.  She’s CIPD qualified and an Executive Coach with a niche for helping people in transition.  

A big believer in diversity in every sense of the word (extending to diversity of thought, education, background and teams), Patricia’s a long-time advocate for women in the workplace - how you support them and remove blockers to their growth. Patricia is a non-executive director on the board of the Association of Foreign Banks.

Anne-Marie Balfe is the Global Talent Leader for EY's People Advisory Services and Managed Services businesses.

Anne-Marie joined EY in New York in 2005, and has worked in a variety of Talent related roles within EY in the US, Japan, Hong Kong and London. 

In her more than 15 years of international human resources experience, Anne-Marie has worked in recruitment, learning and development, organisational development, performance management and diversity and inclusiveness.

Prior to relocating to London, Anne-Marie was the Co-Chair of the Women of Influence committee and a Board member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. 
Anne-Marie lives in Hampstead with her husband Shaun and their two children Cillian and Sophie.

In her spare time, she is a keen runner and cyclist, and loves exploring new countries and cities with her family. 

Barbara Cremer is Director, Senior Relationship Management at RBC, one of the largest banks in Canada.  She covers UK and European banks for RBC’s capital markets business and is responsible for managing the firm’s overall relationship with its financial institution clients. She joined RBC in 2020.

Prior to this, she was an Executive Director at Nomura, an Asian based global investment bank, as Head of Relationship Management in the treasury department.  She was also responsible for debt investor relations in the region. Barbara joined Nomura in 2009.

Prior to her role at Nomura, she worked for a number of investment banks including Merrill Lynch & Co, where she was a Director in the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper group in investment banking in both New York and London.  She has worked in finance for over 25 years with roles in legal and regulatory policy as well as banking. 

Barbara graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada majoring in Politics and Economics.  She also has a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the New York University Stern School of Business in New York City with a major in Finance.

Charlotte is a London based leadership and wellbeing consultant, known for her work in the field of CEO wellbeing and mental fitness.

She came to this work as a result of her own journey, overcoming chronic stress and anxiety while working in the fashion industry. Her experience of being a leader in this fast-paced industry made her realise that more needed to be done to support senior team members in the workplace to manage their own wellbeing. She subsequently returned to study an MSc, completed her MBCT trainer certification and MHFA England trainer qualifications to enable her to offer that to future leaders. Her latest research has focused on CEO burnout, exploring key factors that contribute to or mitigate risks of leaders experiencing this stress-related syndrome.

Working with clients such as Accenture, Soho House and Audible, Charlotte now combines her scientific foundation and on-going research, with personal experience to embed positive leadership and wellbeing into the culture of organisations. She is an advisor for The Leaders Council, a member of the British Psychological Society and a workplace advisory board member for MQ Mental Health research charity. She has been featured in the Journal of Public Mental Health and continues to speak worldwide on the topic of organisational wellbeing.

When Charlotte is not working, she is usually found outside, whether that be on a ski slope, in the ocean, or hiking near her childhood home in Derbyshire.

Geraldine is CEO of the Executive Coaching Consultancy which she started in 1994 and now has over 60 coaches internationally serving a wide range of industries. The Consultancy has a particular specialism in the female journey and has coached over 10,000 individuals through key transitions in their careers. 

Geraldine speaks regularly on the subject of "More women at the top" and "The Future of Gender Diversity" and is a great believer in the benefit of diverse teams.

Geraldine has been a CWN member and member of Events Strategy committee for some time. She is also a founding sponsor of ECC's not for profit The Good Business Initiative that works with organisations to help them build their leadership capacity and unlock their potential for a positive impact. 

She is a Master Coach with the Association for Coaching and her company ECC is a founding member of the AC. 

Her board experience encompasses 16 years (two separate terms) as a NED for Morgan Sindall plc where she chaired the REMco and Sustainability committees. She spent 4 years on the women’s development committee of MicroLoan, a charity which provides small business loans to female entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan countries. She has recently been appointed as an adviser to Real Estate Balance with the express aim of improving the gender diversity of the property business. 

Imogen is a seasoned Sales Enablement and Operations leader and draws on her 15 years’ experience in the profession to partner clients to understand the ‘business of sales’: How to orchestrate outcomes across Marketing, Sales and Customer success to accelerate profitable growth.

 As Co-Founder of &Grow.io, Imogen works with companies, or their investors, to accelerate and prioritise initiatives for sales success, and support them with the right metrics to be able to identify and proactively respond to client and market dynamics. She has been part of delivering over $1B in market valuation improvements since 2016.

Prior to founding &Grow.io, Imogen worked in house with Argus Media, a global Price Reporting Agency, and prior to that Forrester Research, a renowned technology research company. In both organisations, she built Global Sales Enablement, Operations and Training departments; aligned to, or re-focussing company growth strategies, and delivering successful transformations to their commercial organisation.

Imogen believes that simple, consistent, and inclusive communication is the backbone to delivering business outcomes.

Imogen is a passionate advocate for Sales Enablement, co-founding the Sales Enablement Society in the UK in 2016 (currently 8000 members worldwide) and is a regular panellist, speaker and guest on leading industry podcasts.

To engage with and support her other passion, the agenda of diversity and belonging in the workplace, she has worked with #yesshecan; 30%club and #InspiringtheFuture, and provides pro bono mentoring to women starting out in Sales Operations or Enablement.

Imogen has a BA (Hons) in Archaeology from U.C.L., was a keen oarswoman and Henley Finalist, and now lives near Stamford in Lincolnshire with her husband, 3 children and ever-expanding menagerie of children’s pets.

Kate has worked for over 20 years in the charity sector, in both international and national organisations, predominantly with a focus on enabling children and young people to thrive.  Kate is currently Director of Business Development & Programmes at the leading kinship care charity, Kinship, where she has led the development of a business model for commissioning from local authorities and built this into a solid income stream to enable the charity to grow significantly over the past five years.  Kate's team was highly commended at the Third Sector Awards in September 2021 for their response to supporting kinship families during the pandemic.  

Prior to joining Kinship, Kate worked at Mentor UK, developing programmes for young people to build resilience and prevent substance misuse.  She spent 11 years at Save the Children UK, mainly focused on humanitarian capacity building and child protection, including prevention of child sexual exploitation, recruitment of children into armed forces, child labour and reunification of separated children following a humanitarian emergency.  Kate was part of the senior team that set up the £50m Humanitarian Leadership Academy, a charitable subsidiary of Save the Children UK and previously worked for Cancer Research UK securing corporate sponsorship for events such as Race for Life. 

Kate studied International Studies with French at the University of Birmingham, where she spent a year living in Belgium and worked at the European Parliament in Brussels.  Kate also speaks Spanish, is a keen runner and netballer and has travelled the globe extensively.  She has two children who also speak Spanish with lessons from their Colombian grandmother! Kate has raised over £30,000 for charity personally, through events such as the London Marathon and the Moonwalk. 

Mel currently works as a Governance Professional for schools, providing advice & support to governors in maintained schools and academies, including Academy Trust Boards. Mel began working in the sector following a seven-year career break to focus on her four children. Before this, she had retrained as a solicitor in the City, qualifying into employment, after working in the conference and the travel industries. This included three years working in Italy, inspired by Mel’s love of languages which had led to her studying Italian & French at the University of Oxford.

Outside of work, Mel is a parent governor at her children’s primary school. She enjoys walking, travel (when permitted) and family life with three cats.

Milly Sutton is the Director at My London Event Ltd.  Drawing on her 20-year career in events, Milly specialises in working with the London office of international firms that often are not large enough to have a dedicated events team in-house but want to deliver high-end events for their clients and staff.  She draws on her extensive knowledge of London venues and the best suppliers to make each event bespoke and memorable.

Milly recently worked at Cityparents, another membership organisation, growing and enhancing their membership events calendar.  Prior to that, she was the Events Manager at White & Case for 14 years managing their events team and busy events diary.

Outside of work, she has two young girls and is also a leader at their local Rainbows unit.

Milly has a postgraduate Diploma of Marketing from London Metropolitan University, and an undergraduate degree in Marketing and HR from the University of Canterbury, NZ.

Rhonda started her career working in the media on graduating, working for a variety of PR, marketing and top 20 advertising agencies in key account manager roles culminating in heads of new business positions.

Since then, Rhonda has worked for a range of global professional services firms including KPMG, Allen & Overy, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales (ICAEW) the Centre for Creative Leadership, a global executive education provider, as Regional Director for UK, Ireland & Nordics. Rhonda currently works for Mentore Consulting, a leadership development business specialising in mentoring to accelerate career development of senior leaders.

Having been recognised by Opportunity Now and The Women of the Future awards schemes, Rhonda’s expertise includes gender diversity with credentials including having set up and managed two award-winning programmes to support the advancement of women. The programmes included launching a UK and SE Asian Women in Leadership mentoring and development programme, a returners-to- work for women and men, and a Women on Boards programme for aspiring board members.

Rhonda has just stepped down as Board Member and Mentoring Chair for a not-for-profit women’s network, WICT UK (Women in Cable Telecommunications) where she set up and managed their mentoring programme for middle and senior level women to help prepare them for senior and executive roles.

In her spare time, Rhonda watches live music and comedy, attempts to learn DIY and likes getting out of London at weekends exploring wild countryside.

Sandy joined Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS) as HR Director in February 2017 and was promoted to Chief People Officer and Director of Operations in September 2019. She sits on the Global Diversity & Inclusion Board.

Prior to joining AMS, Sandy had a 23-year career at General Electric Company (GE) spanning both consumer and commercial finance where she successfully developed her career in marketing, sales, operational excellence, quality and business management. Her most recent position at GE was Chief Operating Officer for Capital UK where she headed up the Operations, IT, Sourcing, Business Continuity and Strategic Projects functions. She is a certified GE Quality Leader.

Sandy has championed gender diversity throughout her career: she co-led the EMEA community of the GE Women’s Network which spanned 35 countries and has volunteered with CWN for over 10 years previously being co-chair Membership Committee, President and President Emeritus.

Wendy has been providing communications advice to private and public sector clients for over 22 years and now jointly heads communications consultancy JTRB Communications, focusing on infrastructure projects for clients such as EDF Energy, Gatwick Airport and others. She is a strong believer in empowering all levels of an organisation to support business objectives and corporate reputation. 

Prior to setting up JTRB, Wendy worked for small and large communications consultancies, including Pagefield, Hill Knowlton, Open Road and Fishburn Hedges. She also worked in-house for Ernst & Young and spent some time at the UK Ministry of Justice and TfL after kicking off her communications career at the Parliament of NSW in Australia. 

After more than two decades in the UK – and with a British husband and daughter - Wendy considers herself almost equal parts Australian and Londoner.