Returners & Career Changers: Best practices in adapting to a changing workforce and attracting untapped talent

Dr Clem Herman

Director of eSTEeM (OU Centre for STEM Pedagogy), The Open University

Dr Clem Herman is Director of eSTEeM, the Open University’s Centre for STEM Pedagogy and chair of the university’s STEM Gender Equality Group. Throughout her career Clem has led on a range of projects to support the participation and progression of women in STEM, and her research on the impact of career breaks and women returners to STEM has been widely published. Her current ESRC funded research project, is a comparative study of Gender, Skilled Migration and IT in India and the UK. She is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Gender Science and Technology.

Anouska Ladds

VP Airlines, Hotels and OTA’s, European Business Development, Mastercard

Anouska Ladds leads the Travel sector MasterCard, managing airline, hotel and OTA accounts across Europe and Globally. Her extensive experience covers a range of disciplines, including Business Development, Customer Experience, Business Strategy and Sponsorship Development.

Anouska joined MasterCard in 2007 where she worked in Sydney Australia leading the Customer Marketing division, driving engagement across Issuers and merchants within Australasia. Key achievements focused on the Airline and Retail sector, including the launch of Air New Zealand’s FlyBe product, numerous Qantas credit card programmes and Woolworth’s/Qantas reward platform.

Anouska joined the UK&I division of MasterCard in 2011, leading the Core Business Development function across the market. In 2012 Anouska was assigned the responsibility of leading the highly important sector of Travel, Transit and Leisure, particularly assuming commercial responsibility for innovation solutions such as TfL.

Anouska’ previous experience includes 5 years at Barclaycard, where she specialised in Strategy Development for the Commercial and Acquiring division, Barclaycard Business, and finished her tenure leading the Customer Experience, Communications and Strategy division.

Away from work Anouska has a keen interest in the arts, sport and keeping fit. She is also the author of www.wonderworkingwomen.co.uk

Conrad Langworthy

Academy Leader, Group Technology, Sky

Conrad Langworthy is the Head of Software Engineering Academy at Sky and Sky’s ‘Get into Tech’ programme. Conrad started his career as a software developer, predominately software development for small organisations, publishing houses or consultancies. Conrad joined Sky as a Business Analyst, and after following a successful career, in 2011 was asked to Head up Software Engineering Academy. Conrad was selected for this role because of the strong mentoring and management skills exhibited during his time at Sky. He has always been passionate about helping young people find a career in software development like he did. Conrad noticed that the number of women applying for the Software Engineering Academy was very low, and as a result, decided to do something to address the problem. As a result, he designed and created Sky’s Get Into Tech programme, which he now manages for the UK.

Vicki Marshall

Associate Software Developer, Sky

Vicki started on the Software Academy in July, having completed Sky’s Get Into Tech free training course. She previously worked in HR. Get Into Tech really stretched Vicki but at the end of it she felt confident that she had the right skills and technical expertise to make that jump and apply for software developer roles. Vicki applied for Sky’s Software Academy scheme, which is open to all candidates, including those who have taken a degree in software. After completing the assessment centre, Vicki was selected to join the Academy and started at Sky in July.

Julie Thornton

Head of Human Resources, Tideway

Julie joined Tideway in October 2013. Her corporate career started over 25 years ago with IBM, where she was Head HR for Global Services in the UK, before moving to Citibank Private Bank, where she was VP for HR in EMEA in Geneva and London.