Women in the City, Woman of Achievement Award Judging Panel

Prof Susan Vinnicombe

Susan’s research interests are women’s leadership styles, issues involved in women developing their managerial careers and gender diversity on corporate boards. Her Research Centre is unique in the UK and is the UK’s premier research resource on women directors. It publishes the annual Female FTSE 100 Index.

Susan has written 8 books and over 100 articles, reports and conference papers. Recent books include “Managing Workforce Diversity: A Global Challenge” (Pearson 2007, with John Bank) and “Women on Boards - an International Perspective” (Elsevier 2008 with Val Singh et al).

Susan has consulted for organisations across the globe on how best to attract, retain and develop women executives. Regularly interviewed in the media for her expert views on women directors, she is frequently asked to speak at conferences. Susan is a judge for Management Today’s annual “50 Most Powerful Women” and “35 Women Under 35 to Watch”, Asian Women of Achievement Awards, European Women of Achievement Awards, Future Women of Achievement Awards and Women in I.T. Awards. Susan is Vice Patron of Working Families.

Susan was awarded an OBE for her Services to Diversity in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List in 2005.

 

Melissa Carr

Melissa is an independent consultant specialising in leadership and organisational development with a specific interest in the professional services sector. She consults for a number of organisations on the recruitment, retention and development of their senior managers, partners and leadership teams. She also designs and delivers leadership and management development programmes for a number of clients and provides one-to-one coaching to help individuals maximise their performance.  

Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Melissa spent seven years working as a senior faculty member at leading business school Ashridge, where she worked as a progamme director and taught organisational psychology, interpersonal effectiveness and leadership across variety of management programmes. Melissa joined Ashridge from a consultancy where she worked with clients from across the public and private sector in all areas of organisational and leadership development.

A chartered psychologist and member of the British Psychological Society, Melissa holds qualifications in a range of psychometric instruments including the MBTI, FIROB and CPI which she uses regularly to support both team and individual development.

Melissa’s current research interests include senior woman leaders and their professional relationships.

 

Jacey Graham

Jacey Graham is a Director of Brook Graham Limited, a specialist global Diversity & Inclusion firm whose clients are large multi-national companies. Before co-founding the business in 2004, she was head of Diversity Strategy at Shell, and spent 20 years in financial services in the City, holding various corporate HR roles, including head of Executive Succession for Lloyds TSB.

Jacey has particular expertise in building female talent pipelines. She co-directs the UK FTSE 100 Cross Company Mentoring Programme, is co-author of 'A Woman's Place is in the Boardroom' and the successful follow-up book 'The Roadmap’. She is a Visiting Fellow at Cranfield’s Centre for Women in Business, and is a judge on the Opportunity Now awards as well as the Woman of Achievement Award.

Jacey has a BA from Exeter University, is an associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, a member of the British Psychological Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Coopers and a Freeman of the City of London.

 

Karina Robinson

Karina Robinson is a Consultant with headhunting firm Saxton Bamfylde, where she leads the board non-executive practice for the private sector. Formerly, she was Senior Editor of The Banker magazine during an eight year period. Karina’s role at the Financial Times’ monthly banking magazine entailed commissioning and interviewing high profile global figures for her VIP interview column, Karina’s Kolumn, as well as being responsible for Corporate Social Responsibility (CRS) issues, Latin America, and the magazine’s think-tank features.

Throughout 2006-07, she was the International Herald Tribune’s banking commentator, with her column, Banking Matters, appearing twice a month. Karina was formerly Political & Economic Correspondent at Bloomberg/TV and began her career at merchant bank Morgan Grenfell as the Spanish Equity Analyst.

Educated in Madrid, at the Hotchkiss School in the US and at the London School of Economics, Karina is a regular speaker at financial services events and has extensive TV and moderating experience. She is bilingual in English and Spanish and fluent in French and Italian.

She is the Chair of the LSE Alumni Mentoring Committee and sits on the Public Relations Committee of the Worshipful Company of International Bankers, of which she is a Freeman.

 

Hilary Sears

Hilary Sears has both private and public sector experience at senior levels. Recently she completed a 15 month secondment in the Cabinet Office where she headed the Brokerage Unit, which offers career support to senior civil servants across Whitehall, and inputs into the succession planning and talent management programmes.

After a first career in advertising and marketing, Hilary took an MBA at Cranfield before moving into executive search which has given her over 20 years of search and leadership assessment experience, leading assignments for local and global clients across general management, marketing and sales, finance and human resources.

As a professional, she built a reputation for quality, tenacity and strong client relationships. She sits on the Board of the Cranfield Management Association, and is a frequent presenter at business schools. She was elected as Chairman of the Association of MBAs in 2007, and is keen to reach out to both schools and students.

She has also been active in trying to promote women onto boards, speaking at conferences, chairing City Women’s Network, sitting on the boards of International Women’s Forum and UK Forum, and recently chairing their Board Initiative.

 

Cleo Thompson

A graduate of Nottingham University, Cleo has enjoyed  a successful career in communications, IT project management and diversity, acquired through working for a major retail bank followed by eight years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she set up and ran their award winning global diversity function,  creating initiatives to promote and improve the status of women in PwC. She now works at Credit Suisse as a member of the EMEA diversity team.

Her many projects include authoring a toolkit on how to create an in-house networking group; researching and writing the groundbreaking report The Leaking Pipeline: 79 women share their stories; serving as Executive Producer of the film Closing the Gender Gap, showcased at the 2009 World Economic Forum; and founding one of PwC’s most popular blogs,  the Gender Agenda. She has spoken on the topics of women in business and gender diversity in the UK, India, South Africa, Mexico, mainland Europe and the USA.

Cleo now works as a freelance consultant, writer and editor, specialising in all aspects of diversity, networking, employee engagement and global HR. She has been published on websites which include The Glass Hammer, The Australian Business Women’s Network and The Thin Pink Line and in publications such as the Confederation of Indian Industry’s annual report and Strategic HR Review.