Wellbeing Champions Lunch 2024

As a former GB Para-Athlete and current award-winning business owner, Claire is responsible for creating a range of disability awareness courses, delivering programmes to schools, and has recently created the Xplore DisAbility app.
Claire is the founder of both Ability Consultancy (NW) Ltd – a disability awareness training and consultancy organisation, and Ability Digital Ltd – a technology company that created a disability awareness app.
Claire covers all aspects of running the organisations, supported by her skilled team and volunteers. Her knowledge and lived experiences bring every course, project, and feature of the services she provides to life. The work is all backed by Claire’s passion to break down the barriers regarding disability and make a positive change, so that every disabled person can live, learn, and earn like the rest of society.

Lorna Culpin is the Co-Chair of the newly launched EY Social Mobility Network. She comes from a career in DE&I most recently working in EY’s neuro-diverse centre if excellence. Having previously spent 7 years with Teach First, a Social Mobility focused charity she is passionate about Social Mobility and supporting those within the work place from all backgrounds.

As a joint venture between EY and the EY Foundation the Network aims to provide a belonging and wellbeing space to those who identify from a lower Socio-Economic background at EY and for allies to learn. In doing so EY have taken an important step forward for their DE&I agenda and well being agenda. Already we are seeing a number of important topics being addressed including accent bias, cost of living and career progression.

Joanna was born and raised in Sheffield and moved to Manchester to study a Social Science degree at Manchester Polytechnic. Initially she worked for Manchester City Council Homelessness teams. After completing a PGCE she then worked as a Psychology tutor for 20 years in a sixth form college (including 10 years as Head of Department).

She was elected to the council in May 2012 as member for Chorlton Park.

As an Assistant Executive Joanna worked in health and then housing. As lead member for Mental Health for several years, Joanna worked hard to ensure that mental health issues were raised across the council to create greater awareness and reduce stigma, she has been Chair of the Manchester Suicide Prevention Partnership for 5 years overseeing the development and implementation of the local suicide prevention plan.

Joanna became Executive Member for Health and Care in May 2021 and was appointed Deputy Leader in December 2021. Her portfolio includes Homelessness, Domestic Abuse and promoting the Safety of Women and Girls, Asylum Seekers and Refugees, the Voluntary and Community Sector, Anti-Poverty work and tackling Inequalities. Joanna is co-chair of the Making Manchester Fairer Programme Board.

She is involved in many local community groups and is currently a Trustee of Chorlton and Didsbury Foodbank, Chair of Barlow Moor Community Association based on the Merseybank estate and a school governor at Chorlton Park Primary School.

 Louise Rogers is a partner at Clarke Willmott LLP, specialising in Employment. She has over 16 years’ experience, 10 of which were spent in London, advising both employers and senior executives regarding all aspects of employment law, to include everything from the implementation of contracts and policies, training, support with complex grievances procedures, performance management and disciplinary issues, negotiated exits and representation across all employment claims with particular a particular specialism in discrimination and dismissal. Louise provides her clients with pragmatic, straight forward and commercial advice. She is a Legal 500 Recommended Lawyer for Employment. Client testimonials describe her as “the epitome of professionalism”, “thorough”, “extremely talented”, “very impressive” and “academic, well versed in law with first class industry knowledge”. She is further commended for providing “a first class service”, having a “no-nonsense, straightforward approach”, for always going the “extra mile” and being “a safe pair of hands” in times of crisis.

Dr Ram Raghavan MBA, PhD, F.APS is the founder of My Wellbeing Index, a UK WellTech scale up business that helps organisations and wellbeing providers navigate the complex world of employee wellbeing.

Over a 33-year career he has developed numerous consulting and business analysis tools as well as authoring three books on customer service and employee experience. His latest tool, the KAYA Wellbeing Index, has been used across 55 countries and in 33 different languages. Embedded in a Wellbeing Insight Platform KAYA helps organisations improve performance and employee productivity by measuring the employee wellbeing experience and providing leaders with a wellbeing roadmap.

Ram started his career in India as an R&D engineer before moving to the UK to complete his MBA and PhD studies at Alliance Manchester Business School. He has consulted with large global companies such as Centrica, Dyson, Volvo and Hilton Hotels, and helped 100’s of SMEs in the UK and India. In his spare time, he designs and creates systems to automate his home and has a collection of over 1600 films.

Erika Brodnock, MBE, is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur, philanthropist, and angel investor. She is an MBA, a Fellow at Exeter University and KCL, and a PhD at the LSE. Erika is the author of Diversity Beyond Gender, TRANSPARENT Framework, and Better Venture.

Erika is a Co-founder at Extend Ventures, The Black Funding Network, and Kinhub, which provides data-driven coaching and personalised employee support. She is one of 16 UK Black women who have raised £1m in funding. Erika is also a Non-Executive Director of The Good Play Guide; and serves on the APPG for Entrepreneurship advisory board.

Afiya is co-founder of She Leads For Legacy – a social enterprise, co-founded with her mother Sharon, to champion the acceleration of Black female professionals to reach senior leadership and Board level roles within the workplace and across their communities.

In her work with community groups she has seen how many of her black female peers face barriers that limit their access to so many opportunities. Her aim is to reduce those barriers and to better advance the equality agenda and create more diverse and inclusive workplaces. Afiya completed the Postgraduate Course for Barristers and started her pupillage in October 2022. She is now a barrister at No5 Barristers Chambers.

Philip has a business career which has spanned over 30 years and a broad range of sectors. Whatever the business sector his focus has always been people, identifying the barriers to personal growth and development and how these impact on organisational aspirations and ambition.

Whilst Philip’s experience extends to international businesses, his passion lies with owner managed businesses; often referred to as the backbone of the British economy.

Philip was the first Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Central Lancashire and held an Honorary Teaching Fellow position at Lancaster University Management School and is a regular presenter on the topic of wellbeing; having seen too many negative examples of the impact of running your own business – excessive stress; lack of time – his emphasis is on self-care to improve personal wellbeing and quality of life. If you feel good, you perform better; be that at home or work! In response to an overwhelming need, Philip founded Healthy Leaders in 2018 – focusing on wellbeing coaching to increase productivity and performance followed by Healthy Leaders Academy in 2021; an on-demand online proposition, accessible to multiple users.

Philip is a former Black Belt in Karate and British Karate Champion (1977); making physical wellbeing a lifestyle choice, his most recent competitive endeavours were in the international sport of indoor rowing, achieving runner up in the European Championships in January 2019, and a credible 5th place in the World Championships in California – February 2019, and archery, reaching the quarterfinals of the European Masters Games in 2023.

Favourite quote:
‘We are what we repeatedly do; then excellence is not an act but a habit’- Aristotle