Event Information

Sophia is a Head of Advocacy and Communications and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Consultant/Trainer, as well as a multi-award winning campaigner. Sophia has spent the past decade working in policy-driven advocacy with a focus on tackling inequality. Featured in Sky News, Channel 4, The Guardian, Grazia UK, the Telegraph, VICE, BBC World Service, Woman’s Hour and Radio 5 Live amongst other news outlets. She has a blended background in journalism, qualitative research and diversity, equity and inclusion consulting. As a result of my dynamic path, she is highly skilled in campaigns, press communications, project management, partnership building, stakeholder management, and building public will. Outside of work, she is a keen volunteer at both a grassroots and board level.

Sue is a partner within our charities and social economy team at Wrigleys

Sue advises charities and other not for profit, voluntary and community organisations and social enterprises on all aspects of employment law including strategic issues involving TUPE and restructuring.

Sue has experience of advising on severance packages and on senior executive service agreements. She also represents employers throughout the Employment Tribunal process.

She manages Wrigleys HR Response, our telephone and email employment law helpline for charities including academies and independent schools.

Lauren is currently the CEO of Women of a Certain Stage. She is an entrepreneur, passionate about supporting people to successfully navigate menopause. She is also a global keynote speaker, trainer & coach on executive women's wellbeing.

She left her senior role in financial services, in her early 40's believing that she was suffering from early-onset dementia. Imagine her surprise when her doctor informed her she had 'just' been through menopause?!

Today she educates employers on why being menopause supportive is business savvy and supports high performing women to navigate the changes and challenges of all things hormonal, from monthly cycle to menopause.

As a trusted expert, Lauren has helped thousands of executives, celebrities and athletes globally. She is qualified in psychology, mental health, nutrition, coaching, personal training and more.

Lauren shares her knowledge and stimulates the debate on what being well means, at all stages of life, with insightful directness, commercial pragmatism and absolute passion for ensuring optimum wellbeing and resilience.

Lauren’s goal is to transform global attitudes to menopause, helping organisations to support their teams through this transformation successfully and to empower women to retain their vitality and presence through all their hormonal changes and life stages.

Robert Still FCIPD founded STILLHR in January 2007 following on from a successful HR career in the charity sector. A Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and Fellow of the Institute of Consultants. STILLHR’s services enable their clients to create happier workplaces. Robert leads on projects involving respect, diversity and inclusion, enabling organisational change and individual transformation. He is a qualified workplace mediator and one of only a few Accredited Team Mediators. Robert also works on a voluntary basis with the Todmorden Town Deal Inclusion Advisory Subgroup, and with an organisation called TalkingWorks, a charity dedicated to training sixth-form students in mediation skills.

Robin White is a Barrister at Old Square Chambers. She became the first barrister to transition from male to female in practice at the discrimination bar in 2011. She practices in all aspects of employment and discrimination law and lectures regularly on the area, including transgender rights, in which she has appeared in a number of notable cases, and she acts for employers and employees. Chambers & Partners has described her as ‘the go to lawyer for trans cases’. She has published ‘A practical guide to transgender law’ in May 2021, written jointly with Nicola Newbegin of Old Square Chambers. In September 2020 Robin was named ‘Barrister of the Week’ by The Lawyer Magazine for her work on the Taylor v Jaguar Land Rover case. She was shortlisted for two Chambers UK Bar Awards this year - for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Diversity & Inclusion’ and ‘Employment Junior of the Year’.

Alacoque is a partner in our charities and social economy team.

Alacoque specialises in working with third sector and education sector clients on all aspects of employment law. She advises on complex employee relations issues, employment status, policies and procedures, employment contracts, settlement agreements and the defence of tribunal claims, including holiday pay, discrimination, whistle-blowing and trade union related claims. Alacoque also advises on redundancy and restructure projects and on TUPE transfers, including the requirements of collective consultation.

She has a particular interest in equality law and has considerable experience of the realities of managing staff and resources within the education and public sectors.

Alacoque edits Wrigleys’ monthly Employment Law Bulletin and regularly speaks on employment law and HR topics.

Rachel Koivunen is the CEO at People in Action (Yorkshire) and joined the organisation in April 2019. They are a proud learning disability and autism charity, with a history of supporting people across Leeds for the past 25 years. She has worked in the Leeds' Third Sector since 2009 and have a background in social care contracting and commissioning and project management.

She works with Leigh-Ann to implement our strategic plan and make sure that our policies and procedures are implemented in a way that upholds our values of being Person Centred, Inclusive, Empowering and delivering Quality.

As a disability charity we believe that disabled people should have positions of influence across society, and in our organisation. To make this meaningful we are working on making our HR and people processes more accessible.

Leigh-Ann Hays is a HR Officer, working in the Third Sector in Leeds. She has worked in HR since 2011 in a variety of roles in the hospice and retail sectors, and since 2018 she has been employed by People in Action (Yorkshire) in her current role. People in Action are a charity based in Leeds who provide support to individuals with Learning Disabilities, Autism and Asperger’s. She is responsible for the HR support to their workforce of up to 100 staff, many of whom work remotely out in the community.

Her main goal is to keep a strong balance in recognising, and meeting, the organisation's needs as well as those of our employees. She has recently gained her Level 5 in HR Management with CIPD. She hopes this can leverage her career within HR to best support her organisation.

As the stand alone HR professional in the organisation she liaises with Alacoque at Wrigleys to gain an external perspective and legal guidance when implementing new ways of working.

Leigh-Ann is passionate about staff wellbeing and has introduced new policies and initiatives to do this. As part of the Senior Management Team at People in Action she has proactively sought to offer flexible and timely support to our dispersed workforce, quite recently with an approach directed to EDI.

Michael is an associate within our charities and social economy team at Wrigleys Solicitors LLP.

Michael has experience working with employer clients across the charity, third, education and private sectors on a variety of employment matters from boardroom disputes and senior terminations to advising on the employment aspects of mergers and restructures and helping clients navigate employment tribunal claims and internal investigations.

Michael has experience helping organisations to grow by advising on draft contracts as well as assisting with the development of robust internal policies and procedures and also has experience advising clients on how to deal with Data Subject Access Requests.

A regular speaker at Wrigleys’ Employment Law Brunch Briefings, Michael aims to orientate listeners so that they can navigate complex topics, with a focus on helping to identify problem areas and the key issues so that appropriate advice can be taken at the right time.

Chris has over 25 years' experience of advising charities and social enterprises and leads the employment team at Wrigleys

Chris is a member of the Charity Law Association, Education Law Association and the Employment Lawyers Association. 

Chris advises on a wide range of issues including governance, contracts, data protection and employment matters. His particular work at present focuses on education charities, including schools and academies.

Chris is an academy governor at an outstanding secondary school and a trustee of a local charity looking to build a new community sports and social club.