Since November 2020, Maria Antoniou has held the position of Group HR Director of Morgan Advanced Materials. Morgan is a global FTSE 250 company that manufactures carbon and ceramic products across many industries and a large number of markets. Until May 2020 was Senior Vice President HR & Executive HR (Chief Human Resources Officer) for E.ON based in Germany. Maria joined E.ON in 2008 as the UK HR Director and in 2013 was appointed to the position of CHRO. E.ON is one of the largest European operators of energy grids and provider of customer solutions focused entirely on the new energy world and employs over 80,000 people and operates in over 12 different European countries.

Maria led the HR function as E.ON transformed from a traditional vertically integrated utility to a customer focussed provider of energy solutions. This involved a major spin-off of a third of the business and the acquisition of Innogy – E.ON’s biggest competitor in Germany. The transformation required a major cultural shift to ensure the organisation was digitally enabled, customer focused, agile and with a clear purpose.

Prior to joining E.ON, Maria spent two years working in the public sector as Group HR Director for Transport for London and 20 years with Ford Motor Company in a generalist HR career including 5 years as CHRO for Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin. At JLR Maria was instrumental in developing a people strategy that brought together three very different cultures whilst modernising working practices and improving the cost effectiveness and quality output of the brands. Whilst at JLR Maria led a successful restructuring programme that resulted in the closure of a major manufacturing site and started the transformation of Solihull, Land Rover’s biggest site. Throughout her career Maria has worked in highly unionised environments both in the UK and internationally.

Maria is a non-executive Director at NATS – the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services, Chair of the Remuneration Committee and member of the Nomination Committee as well as Chair of NATS Employee Share Trust. Maria is also Chair of TfL’s Pension Fund that has over £15bn of assets under management.

Jonathan is Chief People Officer for Costa Coffee. Before Costa Jonathan was Group People Director at Halfords for over seven years and HR Director, Resourcing & Development at Specsavers. Prior to that he worked at Director level in HR for Lloyds TSB, Abbey, Zurich and BAE Systems. He is also a Non Executive Director for Tandem Group plc

Dr. Daniel Franklin is a writer, editor and commentator on the world’s political, economic and business developments. He has spent over 25 years observing, analysing and forecasting global economic developments and interpreting the impact of political and economic forces on business.

At The Economist, he initially served as Europe Editor, Britain Editor and then Washington Bureau Chief, before spending a decade as Editorial Director of the Economist Intelligence Unit where he directed editorial operations in London, Vienna, New York, Tokyo. Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. In July 2006 he became Executive Editor of The Economist, a role he continues to have, and has concurrently been the Business Affairs Editor, Business Editor, Diplomatic Editor and until recently Deputy US Editor. He was also editor of economist.com in from 2006-2010.

Between 2003 and 2019, he was also Editor of The World in, an annual yearbook of global predictions published by The Economist, and now called The World Ahead. Daniel has contributed to a wide range of Economist Group publications including The Economist itself and various Economist Intelligence Unit country reports and forecasts. He has since co-edited two important books: MegaChange: The World in 2050 and MegaTech: Technology in 2050.

Dr. Margaret Heffernan produced programmes for the BBC for 13 years. She then moved to the US where she spearheaded multimedia productions for Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard&Poors. She was Chief Executive of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and then iCast Corporation, was named one of the ‘Top 25’ by Streaming Media magazine and one of the ‘Top 100 Media Executives’ by The Hollywood Reporter.

The author of six books, Margaret’s third book, Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times. Her TED talks have been seen by over fifteen million people and in 2015 TED published Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes. Her most recent book, Uncharted: How to Map the Future was published in 2020. It quickly became a bestseller and was nominated for the Financial Times Best Business Book award, was one of Bloomberg’s Best Books of 2021 and was chosen as the ‘Medium Best of the Best’ business book. Her new book, Embracing Uncertainty will be published in March 2025.

She is a Professor of Practice at the University of Bath and, through Merryck & Co., mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organisations.

In 2023 Margaret was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame for her lasting contribution to management thinking.

She is a frequent broadcaster on BBC Radio 4 and the author of many broadcast plays. She writes for the Financial Times and is a parish councillor.

Nick Holley as Director of CRF Learning has responsibility to provide development for HR teams and senior professionals. Prior to joining CRF, Nick spent 10 years at Henley Business School where he was a visiting professor and Director of the Centre for HR Excellence. He has developed and delivered HR capability programmes for organisations across the UK and Europe, and internationally.

Nigel returned to Edelman’s global People Leadership Team in 2022, having spent three years both co-leading their global Unlocking Growth project and advising clients on culture and talent topics ranging from employee experience and employer branding to change management and organisational design. He previously held HR leadership roles within Edelman, Coca Cola and AB-InBev, all based in Europe.

As Chief People Officer, International, Nigel’s priority is to ensure that Edelman has the right people, capabilities and culture in place to enable their EMEA, Canada and Latin America regions’ ongoing transformation and growth strategies, resulting in Edelman being both home to and a destination for top talent across these region’s markets, practices and solutions. Given his experience, Nigel also leads several special projects as part of the Global People Strategy. Based in London, Nigel is a member of both the International Leadership team as well as the Global People Leadership Team.

Gillian has worked as a senior HR practitioner and OD specialist for several organisations including Swiss Re, Vodafone and BAA. Prior to her HR career, she was a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting and is also a qualified solicitor. Gillian has written various CRF reports on subjects including HR strategy, organisation design and development, leadership development, coaching and diversity.