Page 45 – Business in the Community

Peter Cheese

Peter Cheese in suit and shirt looks at the camera

Peter Cheese

Chief Executive Officer,
CIPD

Employment and Skills Leadership Team

Peter Cheese joined the CIPD as Chief Executive in July 2012. He spent 30 years working at Accenture, culminating in a seven-year spell as Global Managing Director leading the firm’s Talent and Organisation Performance Consulting Practice. He also held various executive sponsorship positions for Accenture’s firm-wide skills and capability development programmes, and the firm’s global Human Capital and Talent Strategy.

After leaving Accenture in 2009, Peter held a portfolio of consulting and non-executive roles. During this time he was also appointed Chairman of the Institute of Leadership and Management, a post he stepped down from on his appointment to the CIPD, while remaining as a board member.

Peter sits on the Council of City and Guilds, and he is a European Board Director with Junior Achievement Young Enterprise Europe. This is an organisation focused on the development of entrepreneurial, financial and employability skills in young people through business engagement in schools and universities. He is an Executive Fellow at the London Business School, associated with the faculties of Strategic Management and Organisational Behaviour.

About Business in the Community’s Employment and Skills Leadership Team

Each area of work Business in the Community (BITC) undertakes is led by a group of senior executives who provide strategic guidance and support us in achieving our objectives.

The purpose of Business in the Community’s Employment and Skills Leadership Team is to help create a UK where everyone, regardless of their background or experience, can access the education, employment, and skills they need to thrive throughout their working lives.

Find out more about BITC’s work on employment.

Alexis Rose

Alexis Rose smiles at the camera in a black and white image

Alexis Rose

Director of Business Operations-Europe, Accenture Strategy,
Accenture

Gender Equality Leadership Team

Alexis Rose is the Director of Business Operations for Accenture Strategy Europe, driving Accenture’s growing practice at the intersection of business, technology, execution and data/analytics.

She joined Accenture as a graduate in 2001 and spent seven years client-facing in the Strategy practice before moving into business operations, holding a number of roles in management consulting and strategy in the UK and now in Europe. She is the lead for Accenture UK’s Accent on Gender Network, championing inclusion through a thriving employee network that includes both men and women. Accenture has been named the top company on the Thomson Reuters D&I Index, which recognises the 100 most diverse and inclusive companies in the world.

Alexis is passionate about both gender parity and balancing a fulfilling career with achieving personal goals. She believes that one of the most important factors in closing the gender pay gap is to inspire younger women to grow their careers and aspire to leadership roles, and she regularly teaches on Accenture’s internal female development programmes. She is also an Ambassador for everywoman.

Alexis is a Cambridge University and Judge Business School alumna with an MA in social and political sciences and management studies. In 2012 she was recognised as one of Management Today’s 35 Women Under 35.

Outside of work, she is the Chair of the Board of Trustees for a central London theatre charity, a keen amateur theatre performer, and an aspiring photographer.

About Business in the Community’s Gender Equality Leadership Team

Each area of work Business in the Community (BITC) undertakes is led by a group of senior executives who provide strategic guidance and support us in achieving our objectives.

The purpose of BITC’s Gender Equality Leadership Team is to help ensure that women can achieve their full potential at work.

Find out more about BITC’s work on gender.

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Business in the Community is creating a skilled and inclusive workforce for today and tomorrow

Eleanor Bradley

Eleanor Bradley in a white top and large grey necklace

Eleanor Bradley

Managing Director,
Registry & Public Benefit

Business in the Community Community Leadership Board
Small Business Taskforce

Eleanor Bradley is Managing Director at Registry & Public Benefit.

Eleanor was interim Chief Executive Officer at Nominet UK, a profit for purpose company operating at the heart of the UK internet. Nominet runs the .UK domain name registry part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure relied upon by millions of business and individuals every day. This experience in running and protecting one of the largest interest registries has lead Nominet to use its expertise to develop protective DNS (Domain Name System) solutions used by the UK government and governments internationally.

Eleanor believes passionately in the power of technology as an enabler of inclusion and opportunity and oversees programmes focused on ensuring young people, business and the third sector achieve the most from digital.

Working in a variety of operational roles over the past 20 years, always with a technology focus, Eleanor has headed up significant cost saving activities, the move of services online, strategy and governance reviews and the use of data and analytics to support better decision making.

In recognition of the enormous number of challenges that small businesses have faced due to COVID-19, Eleanor joined Business in the Community’s (BITC) Small Business Taskforce as Co-Chair with the fundamental belief that if all sectors – public, private and not-for-profits – work together, we can support the recovery of small businesses, and in turn the recovery of communities quicker. As an action-orientated leader, Eleanor is keen to draw upon the skills and expertise across all of BITC’s network and beyond to make a difference for all of society, but especially in those areas most impacted by COVID-19.

Stephen King

Stephen King smiles at the camera

Stephen King

Commercial Director,
Go North East

North East Leadership Board

Stephen King is the commercial director of bus company Go North East, including its East Yorkshire business, which operates bus services on the East Yorkshire coast and into Hull. 

He began his career at Go North East on a youth training programme in 1994 and has progressed through the organisation to his current position. 

As Commercial Director, Stephen is a member of the Go North East executive team, sharing a collective responsibility for the company’s overall performance with parent company the Go-Ahead Group plc, a FTSE 250 company. 

Stephen plays an active role in the regional business, culture and tourism communities. He is a director of Network Ticketing Limited, which provides integrated public transport ticketing across the region, and is a non-executive director of Visit County Durham, County Durham’s destination management organisation. He is a member of Business in the Community’s North East Leadership Board, a member of the Business Friends of Beamish leadership group and the Regional Chair of the Confederation of Passenger Transport, the UK national trade body for the bus and coach industry.

He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, an accredited member of the Institute of Directors and has a business management degree from Sheffield University gained while working at Go North East. He was recognised nationally by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as its 2018 Marketer of the Year and at the UK Bus Awards winning its Gold Award for leadership and inspiration in 2017.

Simon Jonsson

Simon Jonsson in a pin stripe suit smiles at the camera

Simon Jonsson

Partner,
KPMG

Chair, West Midlands Leadership Board
The Prince’s Responsible Business Ambassador – West Midlands

Simon Jonsson has over 25 years of tax experience, 16 as a Partner at KPMG.  He acts as either Lead Partner or Lead Tax Partner for industrial clients. He is also an international tax partner with a broad range of experience, including complex supply chains and assisting clients to execute complex cross border mergers and acquisitions.

Simon is a Director of the Anglo-German Trade Counsel and is a longstanding member of Business in the Community’s (BITC) West Midland’s Leadership Board. 

He has helped BITC West Midlands nurture close relationships with Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP, and has been active in bringing new companies in the region into membership – in 2014, he hosted a leadership dinner, which resulted in new companies signing up.

Simon leads KPMG’s Business Class partnership with Shenley Academy. He has worked with the school to develop its leadership and governance.  In 2014, he participated in a Birmingham-based Seeing is Believing visit about Business Class, showcasing the benefits of KPMG’s partnership with Shenley Academy. 

In his role as HRH Ambassador, Simon will focus on education and youth unemployment, two critical issues in the West Midlands. He will explore partnerships and collaborations with other organisations, which will help increase the scale and impact of BITC’s existing initiatives.

Mike Halldearn

Mike Halldearn in a pin stripe jacket and blue shirt

Mike Halldearn

Client Leader, UK Corporate Risk Board,
Marsh Ltd

West Midlands Leadership Board
Small Business Taskforce

Mike Halldearn is leading the client service practice for Marsh UK Corporate having moved into the role after an 18-year period leading offices for three major insurance broking firms. He now reports into the Corporate Chief Executive Officer and is a member of the UK Executive Team.

Mike’s career has focused on two main drivers: supporting businesses make informed risk decisions when purchasing insurance; and coaching, mentoring and developing colleague’s careers through a mixture of growth strategies and succession planning.

Mike is interested in how businesses grow and succeed within competitive industry sectors, and will always try to build strong relationships to offer support in, for example, major global organisations and owner-controlled private entities.

Mike has first-hand experience of businesses struggling to respond effectively to disruptive losses and  can contribute towards resilience planning to the small- and medium-sized enterprise sector where funds and resources are not always available.

Mike has a national role at Marsh and works in the Birmingham offices as he lives about 20 miles away on the outskirts of Wolverhampton. He is a former professional golfer, stills plays a little and is an enthusiastic supporter of Wolves FC.

Mike is married to Sarah and has two teenage children, Ben and Lucy.

Catherine Dolton

Catherine Dolton in a grey suit smiles at the camera

Catherine Dolton

Vice President Global Corporate Responsibility,
InterContinental Hotels Group

Global Goals Leadership Team

Catherine Dolton was appointed InterContinental Hotels Group’s (IHG) Vice President Global Corporate Responsibility in November 2018 to lead the group’s CR strategy and activities across its 5,600 hotels around the world. 

Catherine has joined the Global Goals Leadership Team as she is passionate about finding ways to help businesses integrate activities to enable achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals into its core business strategies.

Prior to this she led IHG’s Investor Relations function, where she was responsible for all activities and communication with investors and sell side analysts globally.

Catherine joined IHG in 2001 in its internal audit function where she led the global hotel audit and Europe Middle East and Africa corporate audit teams. Before coming to IHG, Catherine spent three years with EY in its consumer products external audit division.

Catherine has a natural sciences degree from the University of Cambridge and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accounts of England and Wales. She lives in London and is married with two young sons.

About Business in the Community’s Global Goals Leadership Team

Each area of work Business in the Community (BITC) undertakes is led by a group of senior executives who provide strategic guidance and support us in achieving our objectives.

The purpose of BITC’s Global Goals Leadership Team is to accelerate business progress towards being purpose-driven and deliver on the Global Goals also known as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Find out more about BITC’s work on the Global Goals.

Paul Blakeley

Paul Blakeley looking at the camera, in a close up

Paul Blakeley

Head of Operations and Contracts,
BBC North

North West Leadership Board

Paul Blakeley is the Head of Operations and Contracts at BBC North.

He has over 20 years of experience in the broadcasting industry in managerial, strategic, operational and creative roles. He has been the Managing Editor of BBC Radio 5 live, an executive producer at BBC Radio 4 and he was responsible for the launch of BBC Radio 4 Extra. 

In his current role Paul manages the smooth and safe operation of the BBC’s three buildings at MediacityUK and BBC North’s major third-party contracts. Paul is also a qualified executive, career and leadership coach.

In his younger days he was a semi-professional footballer and a musician with a five-album deal with Polydor Records.

Mike Blackburn

Mike Blackburn in shirt and tie

Mike Blackburn

Local Enterprise Partnership

North West Leadership Board

Mike Blackburn lives in the North West and spent his 36-year career in the private sector, always working for technology companies.

He spent 25 years working for BT. When he left in January 2018, he was both Chair of BT’s North West Regional Board, and also Head of Digital Government in the UK.  

Mike has a portfolio of non-executive roles including Chair of the Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership. This board empowers business leaders to work with the public sector and jointly set the strategic course, determine local economic priorities and drive growth and job creation within the city region.  

Mike’s other non-executive or trustee roles are:  

In June 2015, Mike was made an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to the economy in the north west.  Mike sits on the North West Leadership Board for the Prince of Wales charity, Business in the Community, and was selected as the Prince’s NW Regional Ambassador for 2010/11 and 2011/12. 

Mike is married with three children and lives in Cheshire.

Alan Lusty

Alan Lusty wearing an adi group branded shirt, sits at a table

Alan Lusty

Chief Executive Officer,
adi Group

West Midlands Leadership Board

Alan Lusty is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kings Norton’s awarding winning adi Group. He began his engineering career as an instrument apprentice at Albright & Wilson (an international chemical manufacturer) based in Oldbury near to where he grew up. It was here that he developed a keen interest in engineering and developed his business skills.

In 1990, Alan founded adi Group with the vision to create a one stop shop for total engineered solutions. Since then he has grown adi from a one-man electrical engineering business operated from his own home, to a multi-disciplinary engineering services company with more than 30 service divisions, 11 regional locations and more than 630 employees. 

A former apprentice, Alan understands the importance of passing on skills to the next generation. To help combat the industry-wide skills shortage, he has created opportunities to enable young people to gain experience in the world of engineering.

The group launched its apprentice academy in 2014 and created the UK’s first engineering pre-apprentice programme in partnership with North Bromsgrove High School, which launched in September 2016. Since its launch 36 students have been part of the programme, with 50 per cent of the first intake electing to stay on at adi Group as full-time engineering apprentices. 

Under Alan’s watchful eye, the group continues to grow from strength to strength offering services and engineering solutions to large UK and Irish blue-chip manufacturers. 

Alan’s passion for Formula 1 racing has shaped much of the way of working within the group, as well as incorporating this ethos into the adi brand’s vision and business model to create a winning team.