The Realities of the New Working Environment

As Chief People Officer Estelle brings over 25 years of People experience to the role, most recently as Vice President, Cabin at the airline, leading its cabin crew and ground team. Estelle joined Virgin Atlantic at the beginning of 2018, as Vice President, People Experience where she was responsible for talent, leadership development and learning across the company. 

Previously, Estelle has worked and lived internationally across 5 different industries: Hotels, Financial Services, Industrial Gases, Defence and Security and now Aviation. She joined Virgin Atlantic Ltd from BAE Systems where she was the UK HR Director, Talent and Organisational Effectiveness. Prior to that, she spent 15 years with Air Products, setting up and leading Specialist HR functions as well as leading the HR Function across Northern and Central Europe, based in Brussels. 

Neil joined Severn Trent in August 2017 as Director of Human Resources and has responsibility for the HR as well as the internal and external communications teams. Neil started a career in HR management in 1996 and has worked across a range of different sectors and FTSE 100 companies, including Rentokil Initial and GUS (which latterly became Home Retail Group). Before joining Severn Trent, he led the merger that created Penguin Random House, the world’s largest trade publisher. 

Furat Ashraf is a Partner within Bird & Bird’s London employment team. While she is based in London, Furat has an international focus, with extensive experience of supporting US multinationals with their employment law needs across EMEA and APAC. She leads the Tech & Comms group within the employment team and acts for some of the Firm’s biggest tech clients.

Most recently, she has supported a number of these tech clients on cross-border reductions in force, offshoring and other complex multi-jurisdictional change management exercises such as a transition to, or away from, remote working. She has also advised extensively on global policy and contract reviews, together with other compliance-related exercises for companies with employees in multiple countries.

In addition to the above, Furat also supports clients on the TUPE aspects of outsourcings and business transfers and advises on the full spectrum of day to day employment law issues including unfair dismissal, unlawful deductions from wages, whistleblowing and discrimination cases, as well as commission disputes.

Advising a broad range of tech clients, Furat has deep sector expertise and has spoken publicly on a number of key topics including employee activism, the legal challenges of implementing a global D&I strategy, managing your workforce in a time of economic uncertainty and the intersection between generative AI and employment law issues.

For over a decade, he has been working as a thought partner to talent and organisational development leaders across Europe, North America and Asia. His role is two-fold: to engage global talent leaders and leverage BTS resources to guide individual and organisational decisions across a variety of human capital areas. Since 2009 he has been responsible for implementing strategically linked programs and providing clients with a wide range of offerings that support their diverse leadership and talent challenges. His clients include FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 corporates, as well as government departments. He has worked with senior leaders across a wide range of industries including clients in the energy, pharma and tech arena – he remains a trusted advisor to these organisations across Europe and internationally. James is passionate about helping organisations close the skills and mindset gap and empowering people so they have access to the right development experiences which help organisations in accelerating their strategy execution capabilities.

Ravin Jesuthasan is the global leader of Mercer’s Transformation Services business. He is a recognised global thought leader, futurist and author on the future of work and workforce transformation. He has led multiple research efforts on the global workforce, the emerging digital economy, the rise of artificial intelligence and the transformation of work, for the World Economic Forum and is a member of the forum’s Steering Committee on Work and Employment. He is the author of the books Transformative HR, Lead The Work: Navigating a World Beyond Employment and Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach to Applying Automation to Work. Ravin has authored over 150 articles including 14 for the Harvard Business Review and the Sloan Management Review.

In her 30-year career, Karen has worked extensively across all sectors on the issue of organisation effectiveness, particularly developing sustainable strategic capability. Her work spans two communities within organisations – organisational leaders and line managers on the one hand and change practitioners (HR, OD or L&D) on the other. She is particularly interested in the potential of the space between these communities for creating accountable, ethical and healthy places of work.

John Whelan is a Director at Corporate Research Forum. Formerly UK HR Director of BAE Systems, the FTSE 100 defence, security, and aerospace company, John’s experience and strengths lie in business and HR Transformation, Organisation Development and Employee Relations. Prior to joining BAE, he held a variety of HR roles in engineering, technology and manufacturing businesses across the telecommunications and semi-conductor industries including Matra-Marconi Space where he was HR Director for the UK and, latterly, Group HRD.