Women in the City Symposium Panel and Chair 2009

The Chair – Mrs Moneypenny

Mrs Moneypenny graduated from Newcastle University in the early 1980s and then worked in advertising and financial PR before joining an Anglo/Australian public company for five years doing their corporate communications and corporate finance. While there she got married, had the first of three children and studied for her MBA at the London Business School. Upon graduation she joined a prominent European investment bank as a securities analyst and worked, over an eight year period, in London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.

In October 1999 she was a launch columnist of The Business, the weekly magazine published in the UK with the Weekend Financial Times. Following the closure of the magazine in July 2002 her column moved to the Financial News until September 2004, and after a well earned year off has reappeared in the FT.

After finding herself in Mexico City in May 2000 during half term week she decided it was time to re-introduce herself to her husband and children, retiring from the City and buying into a small but profitable business in the West End, where she was the youngest and worst-groomed of four owner-directors. She has subsequently led a management buyout and is now the majority owner.

Mrs M’s link with the City of London continue. She holds a PhD from the University of Hong Kong, on the subject of how human capital drives the competitive advantage of investment banks. She has written features for a variety of the financial and marketing press since 1984. Currently, Mrs M is the Contributing Editor for Bazaar Business, the twice-yearly supplement that appears with Harpers Bazaar From 2002 until 2005 she penned the Mrs Moneybags column in the Times property section, and during 2005 wrote the Micromanager column in the Times personal finance section. She also writes features in the Spectator and several of the UK broadsheets.

Despite this proliferation of columns she managed to find time to publish Mrs Moneypenny: Survival in the City in 2003, Mrs Moneypenny: Email from Tokyo in 2006, and Mrs Moneypenny Returns in 2008.

Mrs M is also a trustee of a major educational charity, a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of International Bankers, and a visiting professor at Cass Business School.

Our Panelists

Alison Gill

CEO Crelos Ltd, MA Psychology, FABP, FRSA

Ali is the co-founder and CEO of Crelos Ltd and Getfeedback Ltd. Ali's passion and expertise is talent management. She believes that sustainable change within an organisation can only be delivered through its people. Over the past fifteen years and across various consulting assignments, Ali has witnessed the way in which psychology, when applied precisely during a change process, helps leaders accelerate change in a way that positively affects people.

Clients report that Ali demonstrates a real depth of insight into their business - and she combines this with the creation of a solution that is both pragmatic and innovative. Ali is interested in 'intelligent action' - where good thinking discipline optimises the way people relate to, and get the best from, each other ensuring that clever strategy can be defined and applied intelligently, quickly, and very effectively. This now forms the bedrock of the approach to client work across Crelos.

After graduating from Oxford University in Psychology, Ali developed her particular interest and expertise in the psychology of change and performance both through her professional career as a business psychologist and in her personal life - she is an entrepreneur, an adventurer and a triple Olympian in rowing.

Ali is an author and a frequent and sought after contributor in the media with recent contributions in Sunday Times Careers, Talent Review, Personnel Today, and on Woman's Hour. Ali is invited to speak on a range of topics including, most recently, Talent and Innovation, The Psychology of the High Performer and The Psychology of Change. She has been included in the Top 100 Most Influential in HR - a survey which considers those who are seen to have made the greatest difference to the world of work.

Claire Cater

Group Director, Bell Pottinger Group

Claire is Group Director of the Bell Pottinger Group and leads its crisis communications and health practices. She has eighteen years experience of corporate communication in both the public and private sectors and specialises in working with organisations which require an understanding of the interplay between media and politics at a local, national and international level.

Claire managed one of Britain’s biggest health scares in The Kent & Canterbury Smear Test issue, which involved 100,000 women, and also has experience high profile tribunals, medical negligence and corporate reputation challenges such as The Microsoft ‘Anti Trust case’. She also put teenage couch potatoes and childhood obesity on the media agenda six years ago. Other organisations she has worked for include The Home Office – Criminal Justice Reform, Menatep (Russia), Raytheon, Hong Kong TDC, The Energy Retail Association, Women of The Year, The Food and Drink Federation, the DoH and numerous NHS Trusts.

Prior to joining Chime, Claire was Head of Corporate Communications for The BUPA Group, where she ran a 24 hour PR service and was responsible for increasing press coverage by 800% in three years (thus moving its favourability from number four among its peers to the number one slot). Prior to BUPA she ran her own consultancy, which floated on NASDAQ in 1998.

Dr Paul Davies

Risk Management, Lloyd’s Register

Paul is the Global Business Manager for Risk Management Services at Lloyd’s Register, a non-profit distributing organisation whose mission is to enhance the safety of life and property at sea, on land and in the air. He has over 20 years experience in helping industry and regulators evaluate and communicate risks to workers and the public. This has covered risks associated with offshore platforms, refineries, pipelines, railways, chemical plants, quarries, and aircraft.

Paul began his career in ‘risk’ by determining the risks to the public from the transport of munitions for the Ministry of Defence. This was undertaken during his research tenure at Loughborough University where he was awarded his doctorate in quantitative risk assessment. His many other projects have included setting risk-based public safety zones around airports, advising on land-use around major industrial hazards and providing evidence for public inquiries and appeals. Paul lists his assistance following Europe’s largest peacetime fire at Buncefield fuel depot in December 2005 as one of his most testing - helping the operator, regulator and police enter and retrieve evidence from the damaged control room, and the unloading of flammables from damaged storage tanks.

Currently, by invite of the Health & Safety Executive, Paul is advising government on societal risks around non-nuclear major hazard installations. He is also developing a new website for sharing the views of leading experts on major hazard risks, and he continues to add to his many publications and presentations on risk-related matters.