WildHearts Talent Leaders Summit

WildHearts is a world-leading social business, founded on the belief that business can be a force for good. 

To enable this, we believe talent leaders must be empowered to play their part. Indeed, with their unique opportunity to inspire and develop people across the workforce, they are uniquely placed to do so.  

WildHearts work with global brands across 35 countries to develop unique, transformational training programmes to over 50,000 participants, helping to instil innovative, entrepreneurial thinking across their organisations. 

The WildHearts Talent Leaders Summit gives us the platform to assemble L&D thought-leaders from across the business landscape, to share their perspectives on current trends, challenges and the technologies influencing the profession. 

Itinerary

Speakers

Hear directly from global heads of HR, DE&I, and L&D as they discuss the key topics influencing the business landscape.

Interviews

Gain insight via exclusive interviews with senior leaders from leading global brands.

Panels

Put your questions to L&D professionals at the cutting-edge of people development.

Networking

Connect and collaborate with peers across a variety of different industries.

This Year's Speakers

Dr Mick Jackson
CEO & Founder
WildHearts Group

Mick Jackson is a serial entrepreneur, author and Ex Chart topping rock singer. He is also the founder of the WildHearts Group – a portfolio of companies committed to creating global social change. To date, WildHearts have transformed over 1.5 million lives globally.

Mick’s work has been recognised globally; he has received numerous honorary doctorates, was EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2016 and was voted Top Scot by the UK public. In 2015 WildHearts was awarded Social Enterprise UK’s People Choice Award. Mick is the second only recipient of the highly prestigious Babson Social Innovation Award from the world’s top school in entrepreneurship. 

Stephen Isherwood
Joint Chief Executive
Institute of Student Employers

Stephen was appointed Chief Executive of the ISE in June 2013 following seven years as Head of UK Student Recruitment at EY. In his role he is now responsible for the ISE’s market intelligence, thought leadership, expertise and analysis, to help stakeholders achieve best practice in early talent recruitment and development.

Stephen is focused on the career development and employment of students, has managed student recruitment and development programmes in both the private public sector, and worked closely with education throughout his career.

 

This Year's Panelists

Victoria Sears
L&D Manager
Mills & Reeve LLP

Victoria started her working life as a lawyer, before moving into the business and operational side of law firms. In those roles, she led on innovation engagement, assembling and managing multi-disciplinary teams to drive strategic initiatives.

Victoria’s journey to L&D Manager arose from her interest in bringing people together to collaborate, share skills and innovate to get the best out of each other and of the team. In her current role, she works with internal and external partners to ensure everyone in the business is equipped to achieve more together through a range of methods to support personal development and radical collaboration.

Emily Payne
Learning Manager UK&I
Siemens

Emily entered into the world of learning and development 16 years ago and has since had experience working for providers as well as an in-house learning professional in local, regional and global organisations, including McLaren and Samsung.

Emily joined Siemens in 2018 as a Learning Partner for the UK&I business, moving on to become Learning Manager UK&I, before transitioning to a Learning & Growth Partner role for EMEA and now Global Learning & Growth Partner, partnering with different countries in the region as well as content owners at a global level. She is passionate about making learning accessible to everyone, supporting others to realise and reach their potential, and generally helping to make life easier for all

Thomas Gaskin
Talent Programme Manager
Ocado Group

For the last two years, Tom has been managing the strategic deployment and development of Emerging Talent at Ocado Group. He is responsible for the graduate, intern and apprentice population that spans from hardware and software engineering to business management and finance. Tom started his career in early career talent acquisition and subsequently moved into a variety of roles across talent development.

Passionate about early careers, Tom created an innovative programme called the Future Leader Programme at Ocado, which focuses on accelerating this population’s early careers through a variety of training, mentoring, masterclasses and individual learning.

Janette Evans-Turner
Head of Commercial and Sustainable Operations
Zurich Insurance

Janette has over 20 years of procurement and strategic transformation experience. She has led multiple operational teams, designing and implementing business transformations, whilst fostering a culture of ethical and transparent business practices. Throughout her career, she has led large cross-functional teams, fostering an environment of continuous learning and development, driving strategic initiatives that align with organisational goals.

In 2021, she was recognised for her work in the industry and awarded ‘Elite Woman of 2021’ which recognised women’s achievements in UK insurance.

Matt Nicholls
Early Careers Program Lead UKIMEA
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Matt joined HPE in 2019 as a sales apprentice, supporting the channel organisation. During his studies, Matt became a Partner Business Manager, enabling growth and supporting opportunities with our partner community.

At the start of 2024, Matt took charge of the Early Career Program at HPE, supporting Talent Development for the apprentices, graduates, and intern community across the UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa.

Sarah Adams
L&D Manager EMEA
Veolia

Sarah started her career in the first-ever cohort of HR Apprentices at IBM, and during this time experienced both generalist and specialist HR roles before merging her passion for early careers with L&D and taking responsibility for the software development university placement and graduate program offering.

More recently, Sarah is the Learning Manager at Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions, leading the EMEA Graduate Program and the Essential Skills learning for all employees in Europe. She particularly enjoys creating customised and memorable learning programs and coaching conversations to help employees reach their full potential.

Previous Speakers

Mark Coleman-Allan
Head of DE&I for COO (New York)
Barclays

Mark leads Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategy and program management for Barclays Chief Operating Office (Operations and Technology) – a global group of over 55,000 colleagues. Mark’s work focuses on our 2025 DEI ambitions, predominantly focused on gender diversity and under-represented ethnicities.

Mark leads a team responsible for driving initiatives to attract, retain, include, develop and advance diverse colleagues, through programs such as career accelerators, mentoring, sponsorship and leadership training. The team also partners with HR on a variety of programs, including inclusive leadership upskilling, talent acquisition and colleague development.

Paul Steadman
HR Director
Nestlé UK & Ireland

Paul was appointed to the position of Group HR Director for Nestle UK & Ireland on 1st April 2018.

He has strategic people responsibility for the Nestle group of companies in the UK and Ireland, which encompasses the UK wide network of manufacturing operations across Consumer, Pet Care, Health Science, Nutrition and Wellness.

Current areas of focus include transformation of the organisation to meet the opportunities of the digital customer and consumer reality, evolving culture to support our Inclusion and Belonging ambition to fully reflect our communities and development of leaders to create the inclusive and innovation led workplace of the future.

Previous Panelists

Robin Sundaram
Community Regeneration Lead
Nestlé UK & Ireland

Robin joined Nestlé UK in 1995 to lead the Customer Service Development team, helping set up and drive Nestlé UK’s supply chain collaboration programme with several key retailers.

Robin moved to the Nestlé UK & Ireland Procurement team in 2011 and until recently he led the market-level implementation of Nestlé’s global commitment to engage all suppliers in its Responsible Sourcing Guidelines and approach.

Alice Povey
Head of UK Talent Acquisition
PepsiCo

Alice is currently the UK Head of Talent Acquisition at PepsiCo with a team responsible for all hiring, attraction, engagement and assessment across frontline, professional and early careers.

Having joined PepsiCo in 2017, Alice has worked in a variety of roles across a local, European and Global scope with experiences across Executive hiring, talent management and learning & development. Alice is also a trained coach and passion about providing safe yet stretching learning environments to help other recognise their full potential.

Ben Izzett
People Development Leader
Veolia

Ben is the Talent Management & Engagement Leader for Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions in EMEA.  Ben started his career in operational HR roles and has experience of navigating a wide variety of people-related challenges in both large multinationals and SMEs.

In more recent years, Ben has moved into dedicated L&D positions, enabling him to focus on his true passion of people development.  He particularly enjoys using his creativity to develop memorable and impactful learning experiences.

Caroline Caddick
People Development Manager
Zurich Insurance

Caroline has worked in HR for over 30 years in a variety of different roles – from HR Business Partner, Talent Manager, Leadership Development, through to L and D specialist and has now  been in her current role of People Development Manager for the UK for 4 years.

Caroline works with a small team of learning and development experts and their focus is all about developing others to meet their potential so that they can deliver success for their business.

Sarah Mountford
L&D Specialist
Nestlé UK & Ireland

Sarah has enjoyed a long career with Nestlé, initially as a Finance Graduate, where she had the opportunity to work in many different roles in Finance. These include supporting Operational and Commercial teams across many household brands before making the decision to move across to the HR Learning & Development team around 10 years ago. 

Passionate about helping others reach their full potential, Sarah is responsible for Early Careers development at Nestlé UK, enjoying working with interns, placement students, apprentices and graduates, helping them transition into the business and develop across their schemes. 

Maninder Randhawa
Business Strategy Manager
Hewlett Packard Enterprise​

Maninder joined HPE in 2013 as Lead Consultant for Infrastructure Decommissioning and Disposals where he had a complete holistic view from selling the project in Pre-Sales through to delivering this to the customer.

In more recent years, Maninder has taken charge of Talent Development looking after the early careers community of apprentices, graduates and interns across the UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa. Helping them develop their skills to progress through their careers.

Lisa Todd-White
Finance & Commercial Talent Manager
Siemens

Lisa started with Siemens in 2008 as an HR administrator. Her first 7 years in Siemens were heavily based in HR Admin, HR Systems and Process Improvement.

Lisa has been Finance and Commercial Talent Manager for 8 years now.  A big part of Lisa’s role is to manage the Finance Graduates and the School Leavers Academy program. Lisa is passionate about everyone seeking new opportunities, whether that’s in their next role, self-improvement through learning, or expanding their network.

Aidan Friend
Managing Director
Coventry University Apprenticeships

Aidan is Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Coventry University and Managing Director of CU Apprenticeships, one of the University Group’s educational companies.  Aidan manages the delivery of the group’s higher and degree apprenticeship portfolio across the country, overseeing the teaching of nearly 4000 students across more than 40 programmes.

Aidan is also a qualified Executive Coach and company director  working with many companies in the UK and overseas.

WildHearts Talent Partners

  • Zurich
  • Nestle
  • Veolia
  • HPE
  • Barclays
  • Sopra Steria
  • Rentokil Initial
  • DWS
  • Siemens
  • Pepsico
  • Zurich
  • Nestle
  • Veolia
  • HPE
  • Barclays
  • Sopra Steria
  • Rentokil Initial
  • DWS
  • Siemens
  • Pepsico