Building a Better Workplace: Good Employment Week 2024

Bev became Leader of Manchester City Council on 1st December 2021.

First elected in 2011 as a Burnage Councillor she held a range of responsibilities on Manchester City Council including as Executive Member for Adult Social Care and Health and Deputy Leader.

Since becoming Leader her focus has been on Manchester’s ambitious plans to build a more inclusive and sustainable economy, increasing investment into neighbourhoods across the city, better outcomes for children and young people, tackling inequalities, building more housing and working to meet Manchester’s net zero ambitions.

Bev is a Deputy Chair of the Local Government Association and Chair of Core Cities UK. In Greater Manchester she holds a range of responsibilities on behalf of the city including leading on the Economy, Business, and International Portfolio for the Combined Authority.

Originally from Belfast, she moved to Manchester in 2003 for university. After graduating from the University of Manchester she began her career in Local Government, before working in higher education and then a national trade union leading on social care. She holds postgraduate degrees from Warwick Business School and the University of Manchester. Outside of politics she enjoys sports and being outdoors, music, culture and enjoying all that Manchester has to offer.

I’m Tamsin Danby, I lead the Community Impact team at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.  I am a passionate sustainability professional with over ten years’ leadership experience in the law, finance and consultancy sectors.  Within my current role, my focus is on promoting access to opportunity, particularly through social mobility and racial equity.  This is achieved in the UK through two flagship access to opportunity programmes, Freshfields Stephen Lawrence Scholarship Scheme and Freshfields Aspiring Professionals Programme.  I am the Chair of the social mobility group within the pro-manchester EDI committee and sit on the social mobility network within Freshfields where I’ve had the privilege to put together events with leading thinkers in social mobility such as Professor Lee Elliott Major and Professor Sam Friedman.

Jan is Chair of Smart Works Greater Manchester, an independent charity that supports, inspires and empowers unemployed women living in socially disadvantaged and minority communities to succeed at their upcoming job interviews, securing a route towards financial independence. At Smart Works we believe in the ethos of #fashionasaforceforgood, the transformative experience our clients undergo in the wardrobe where the finding the right interview outfit instills a sense of confidence and empowerment, and followed with the power of focussed interview training to build skills and professional competencies.

Aside from Smart Works, Jan supports entrepreneurial SaaS platform businesses as an Investor/NED. Her whole career was in business development with 10 years large corporate IT, 10 years BPO in UK and North America, then almost 10 years running her own consultancy / interim business supporting private equity owned companies. In 2015, Jan went “back on the payroll” for 2 years joining Utiligroup, a fast growing, highly entrepreneurial SaaS provider to independent UK energy suppliers backed by North Edge Capital (PE). In April ’17, Jan and her board colleagues were recognised by the BVCA (Private Equity) as Best Management Team of the Year (Mid Market).

Kate trained in biological anthropology at University of Cambridge, nutritional sciences at Cornell University and epidemiology at UC-Berkeley. She is currently Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Health Sciences, where she leads the Public Health & Society research group and Associate Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, all at the University of York. She is an academic co-director of Health Equity North.

Kate is a Fellow of the RSA and of the UK Faculty of Public Health and the Academy of Social Sciences. She is co-author, with Richard Wilkinson, of the award-winning and best-selling The Spirit Level (2009) and The Inner Level (2018).

Sonia Watson-Fowler (she/her) is a consultant, coach, writer and performer. Founder of Inclusive Communication Consultancy (ICC), she provides a range of executive, creative and education Equitable Practice and People Centred Leadership workshops, mentoring, conflict mediation services and coaching, as well as creative writing sessions to UK and international clients.
She is currently Factory International’s Equity & Representation Manager and a Relationship Manager at Black Lives in Music. Sonia has worked extensively with a range of educational, arts establishments and businesses focused on addressing issues of inclusiveness and equitable practice. Her initial primary focus was on anti-racism following the 2020 resurgence of the BLM movement. Sonia is a Trustee of Bird College Conservatoire for Dance and Musical Theatre and was Director of Culture & Creativity at ALRA – Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, prior to its sudden closure.