Celebrating Manchester Pride all year round

Karen Nolan is Head of Social Impact for Assura plc. Assura is the UK’s leading specialist healthcare property investor and developer. Karen is responsible for developing and implementing programs that positively impact communities across all of Assura’s business operations. With over 20 years of experience of delivering social impact across multiple sectors, Karen has a proven track record of driving change through strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, and building collaborative partnerships.

Cheryl Madden has over 18 years’ experience within a HR generalist background working within the not-for-profit, construction and car industry. Passionate to continuously learn and develop her knowledge and skills, Cheryl has acquired an MSc in Human Resource Management at the University of Salford, is a Chartered member of the CIPD and more recently achieved an ILM level 4 Managing Equality and Diversity in an Organisation award. Cheryl has worked at the Growth Company for 4 years within the Organisational Development and Learning Team to support the design and delivery of a variety of people and organisational development initiatives including EDI, health and wellbeing, performance management, employee engagement and talent management. She is empowered to implement and deliver change such as achieving external accreditations (including the All Equals Charter), managing inclusion and wellbeing campaigns and facilitating knowledge sharing and engagement workshops. Cheryl is currently the Chair of the Health and Wellbeing EDI Network (which includes the Mental Health Champion and Neurodiversity champion subgroups) and a member of the EDI Steering Committee helping to embed activity to educate and enable colleagues to feel a sense of belonging.

Amelia Pulvertaft (she/her) is the Belonging, Equity and Engagement Specialist for Unite Group Plc (who you might know as Unite Students). Unite Group Plc is the largest provider of student accommodation in the UK, providing a home for over 70,000 students across 23 towns and cities. Amelia has worked at Unite Students for over two years to support them on their DEI and employee wellbeing journey and continues to demonstrate her passion for creating a place of belonging for colleagues and residents.

Author of ‘Visible Justice: An LGBTQ+ Inclusivity Handbook,’ Christopher Owen holds a PhD from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, with expertise in intersectional systemic oppression and young people’s contemporary literature and media. They have signed a book deal with Routledge to publish this research. Dr. Owen has also presented at over a dozen conferences internationally and has published articles on intersectionality, cognitive theories of identity, feminist revisionism, the history of social change, and queer resistance. In addition to the wide variety of intersectional liberation programming, training, talks and consultations they have delivered across Greater Manchester and the UK, Christopher provides his inclusivity expertise as a member of both the Advisory Board of Heard Storytelling and the technical panel of the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter.

He works at Manchester Pride as their Inclusivity Development Manager, delivering the All Equals Charter, an intersectional LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion programme.