Jo Gilroy is a Sustainability Professional specialised in working in the corporate sector. She is passionate about the potential for business to ‘do well by doing good’.
In her former role as Head of Sustainability for the Bunzl Group, she created and led their Sustainable Future Programme. She worked closely with Government and key customers in the hospitality and retail sectors to address ocean pollution from single use plastics.
Today she is Head of Sustainability and Environment for Kier Group, responsible for the group’s strategic direction on ESG and for leading Kier’s new sustainable framework, ‘Building for a Sustainable World’.
Jo has an international background having worked for SAB Miller in India, IKEA in Sweden, and the mining sector in Australia and New Zealand. In recognition of her work within the corporate sector she won the Business Green Sustainability Executive award in 2017 and the Rising Star award 2016 at the Packaging Industry Awards.
Andrew Pick has lived and worked in the South West his whole life and has worked for KPMG in Bristol for the last 15 years. Andy is a director in the tax team and leads a team specialising in tax advice to the public and charitable sectors, with clients ranging from NHS Trusts, councils, housing associations, universities and various charities.
Andy’s main focus is supporting his clients to manage their tax affairs in an efficient manner, and he has advised on projects including large university student accommodation developments, new hospital developments, and mergers across the housing and charity sectors.
Andy is a Chartered Tax Advisor and Chartered Accountant. He graduated from Cardiff University with a BSc in Economics and MSc in Economics & Public Policy.
Andy has led KPMG’s Bristol office social committee for the last few years and has just taken on the role as the local corporate responsibility champion for the Bristol office. He is chair of governors at a local primary school in South Gloucestershire and a member of the advisory committee for the Bristol City Centre Business Improvement District (BID).
When Andy is not at work, he is either chasing around after his two young boys with his wife, training for his next half marathon, or trying to find time for a round of golf with his mates.
Dr Alex Hope is Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor, Faculty of Business and Law and Associate Professor of Business Ethics at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University. He is responsible for the strategic leadership of the department and undertakes teaching, research and consultancy across topics such as responsible business, sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, energy policy and business ethics. He holds a PhD in Sustainable development, an MA in Academic Practice and BSc (Hons) in Environmental Management.
Alongside his work at Newcastle Business School, Alex is Vice-Chair of the UK and Ireland Chapter of the United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education (UN PRME) initiative and Co-Chair of the UN PRME Climate Change and Environment working group. In these roles he leads on the integration of the sustainable development goals (SDGs or Global Goals) in business and management education and assisting organisations in understanding climate change and becoming carbon literate.
Prior to his academic career Alex worked in retail, managing HMV superstores, before transitioning to a career in sustainability first with North Tyneside Council as a Sustainable Energy Systems Officer. He then went on to run his own sustainability consultancy, One Planet Management.
Outside of work, Alex is a married father of three which keeps him busy enough, but he also enjoys running and cycling along the North East Coast where he lives.
Rachelle Mahapatra qualified as a Solicitor in 1993 and specialises in Medical Negligence. She joined Irwin Mitchell in November 2002 as an Associate in the Leeds office. She was formerly Lead partner of the Medical Negligence team in Leeds, but stepped down last year when she was promoted to be the Regional Managing Partner of the Leeds office.
Professional accreditation includes being a member of the Law Society Clinical Negligence Panel, a Panel solicitor for the Charity Action against Medical Accidents and a Fellow of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. She has represented hundreds of clients in claims against hospitals for negligent treatment and is particularly known for claims involving birth injuries, spinal injuries and maternal injuries. She was also appointed as the Solicitor representing patients who alleged abuse by psychiatrists, Doctors Kerr and Haslam, and went on to run the group of civil claims that followed.
She is a past honorary legal secretary of the Leeds and West Riding Medico Legal Society. In 1997 she was appointed to the Board of the then National Canine Defence League which became Dogs Trust. An appointment she held for 17 years.
She has worked with the Leeds Playhouse on their access partnership who have pushed the boundaries of access to theatre and inclusive theatre casting. Following the redevelopment of the theatre in 2019, the theatre is now fully accessible and went on to be recognised at the Stage awards.
She believes in the need for business to support the voluntary sector and be actively promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR) which is why she is very excited about the invitation to join Business in the Community’s (BITC) Yorkshire and Humber Leadership Board.
Dal currently leads on The FA’s equality, diversity and inclusion strategy across national Football in England which includes the England national teams, grassroots football and bespoke programmes such as Asian inclusion and faith in football as well as anti-discrimination activities across the game.
The FA is one of the largest national governing bodies in sport covering 100,000 grassroots teams, 14 million participants and over 30 million spectators. Dal is a dynamic senior business professional with deep skills in business change management, programme management, diversity and inclusion and all aspects of ‘people’ and operational excellence to drive change and deliver outcomes across a variety of business contexts. He is a former Management Consultant having spent 14 years in the consulting industry primarily with PwC. Dal is also an executive committee board member at the Asian Business Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) and Head of Sport Development and PR Strategy for the UK’s first ever Sikh Games in 2022.
On 1 January 2019, Simon Boss had the great honour of becoming the Chief Executive of Shoosmiths.
It is his responsibility to drive the operations, management and implementation of the organisation’s strategy and ensure the firm’s business plan is delivered. In practical terms this means leading the Main Board, working closely with the company’s Chairman, Peter Duff, the Partnership Council, the Divisional Heads and the Directors, engaging with the Partners and employees and importantly, ensuring that the business, its successes and progress is well understood by its’ clients, intermediaries and its’ markets.
Simon joined Shoosmiths in 2005 as a real estate partner based in Birmingham. He led the Birmingham real estate team from 2006 to 20012, and was elected on to the company’s Partnership Council in 2009 and was the national Real Estate PGH (Division Head) from 2012 until 2018. Simon qualified in 1988 becoming a partner at Edge Ellison in 1995 before joining Eversheds in 2001.
As Vice President and General Manager for the Southwest Group, Brian Swallow oversees all aspects of the Enterprise business throughout the region, which comprises more than 80 daily rental branches, five sizeable Flex-E-Rent depots and in excess of 20,000 vehicles.
In his nearly 20 years with Enterprise, Brian has made a significant contribution to the company’s development, both in the US and internationally, and now serves as one of the most senior officers in the UK.
Brian joined Enterprise as a Management Trainee in Long Island, New York in 2001. He held various positions before moving to work for Enterprise in the UK in 2007. He has since worked in roles in their European Head Office and in the Southeast Group. In June 2020, Brian was promoted to his current position to lead the Southwest Group.
Brian served on the BVRLA (the UK trade body for companies engaged in vehicle rental, leasing and fleet management) rental committee for five years, two as chairman and one as assistant chairman. A keen supporter of diversity and inclusion in business he chaired Enterprise’s Southeast group Diversity Committee for three years and has actively supported local charitable causes. He led the Southeast group’s Children in Need activities last year, raising more than £70,000.
Brian will be relocating to Cheltenham in 2021 with his wife, Chantelle and their three children (Sadie, Camden and Hadley).
Chris Conway took up the position of Group Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company and its operating subsidiaries (Translink) in 2015. He has extensive international business experience with Tata Steel Europe where he worked as Managing Director Tata Steel Distribution Ireland and previously as Vice President Operations for Nortel Networks in Europe.
Chris is Chair of Business in the Community Northern Ireland and also Chairperson of NI-CO (Northern Ireland Co-operation Overseas). He is a member of CBI Northern Ireland Council.
Chris graduated from Ulster University with a BSc in Engineering and also has an MBA from Ulster University. He is a Chartered Company Director and a Fellow of the Institute of Directors and a Fellow of ICE (Institution of Civil Engineers).
Prof Dr Petra Molthan-Hill, PhD, MBA, MDiv, PFHEA is Professor of Sustainable Management and Education for Sustainable Development at Nottingham Business School and Co-Chair of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) working group on climate change and environment.
Petra has led the Green Academy at Nottingham Trent University from 2013-2020, with the aim to include Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) related curricular and extra-curricular initiatives into the whole university. For example the internal online course offered to all 32,000 students at NTU: ‘Sustainability in Practice Certificate’ (Shortlisted Green Gown Award 2014, practical challenge day shortlisted in the Green Gown Awards 2017, now three topics on offer: Food, Energy and Clothing). She won the Sustainability Professional Award in the Green Gown Awards 2016 and ‘The Guardian University Award 2015 for Business Partnership’ (Greenhouse Gas Management Project) together with NetPositive Ltd.
Petra is the editor of ‘The Business Student’s Guide to Sustainable Management’ offering seminars and other teaching material in how to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals in accounting, marketing, HR and other subjects in management/business studies, but also ideas on how to teach system thinking, corporate peace-making and the crowdsourcing of sustainable solutions. The second edition is part of the PRME book series and published by Routledge. She is also the Academic Lead for PRME in Nottingham Business School and was, as NBS Sustainability Coordinator, responsible for embedding sustainability and business ethics into the curriculum of the School.
Petra Molthan-Hill reconceptualised the Sustainable Development Assessment Tool (SDAT) of NHS England funded by, and accountable to, NHS England and Public Health England to work across the NHS, public health and social care system together with Dr Michael Hewitt from NBS and the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU). Recently, she undertook research with ‘Coronation Street’ – a popular soap in the UK – about their impactful carbon literacy training and has co-designed a Carbon Literacy Training for Business Schools based on this insight, which is currently rolled out as a PRME Champions Project.
Petra Molthan-Hill is a Fellow of the EAUC, Principal Fellow of HEA and joined the Business in the Community’s East Midlands Leadership Board to develop a joint vision on how the UK could work towards a low carbon society while addressing social inequalities at the same time. She is especially interested in co-designing climate change mitigation tools and solutions for every sector.
Michael O’Toole is CEO at Cambridgeshire Community Foundation (CCF), since 2018. Previously he was Chief Executive of Mentor UK, a national charity working to help every child grow up free from the harms caused by drugs. He was the UK’s first Crown Representative for the Voluntary & Community Sector. In this role he advised across government on how to strengthen charities’ role in the commissioning of public services and how charities can partner with businesses delivering public contracts. In this role and much of his professional experience he is passionate about the role charities play in building communities and especially in helping the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.
He has been a Trustee of three charities, a school governor and led the establishment of a new charitable consortium working in the children’s services early intervention sector.
CCF is a community and philanthropic leader dedicated to improving the quality of life for the people of Cambridgeshire. CCF works with local authorities and businesses to actively inspire and facilitate philanthropy to invest in important community programmes through grants programmes.
Michael is delighted to be part of Business in the Community (BITC) Leadership Board as he is passionate about the role responsible businesses can play in building thriving communities and tackling the critical issues that lead to disadvantage for some.
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