As an international lawyer, general counsel and law firm Chief Operating Officer, Kiran Chawla Scarr has spent a global career leading transformational change in the legal sector. Her experience has been widely recognized: she has been multi-awarded individually as General Counsel of the Year and with her teams for legal technology innovation, compliance innovation, championing diversity and contribution to the in-house legal community. A prominent keynote speaker and thought leader on leading through change, she is a regular contributor to legal and business publications on the future of law.
Kiran holds an LLB (Hons) from University of Glasgow and worked 25+ years as a lawyer in UK, Australia, Singapore and the Middle East. She is a 30% Club mentor to senior female leaders and a qualified executive coach, helping law firms and legal departments transform the way they lead themselves and their businesses through global challenge and disruption.
Lesley Roberts is a business coach and adventurer. In 2000 she began a 16-year corporate career with Mars Inc spending 8 years in the commercial side of the business before moving into people development, where she brought her insights from working outdoors to her coaching work with leadership teams and executives.
In 2016, Lesley founded Brave Conversations, working with global teams and individuals to unlock their potential. In 2019 she founded Coaching Outdoors, bringing with her all she has learned about people development and leadership from her corporate career as well as working with youth at risk in the Highlands of Scotland and testing her own limits in the Clipper 11/12 Round The World Yacht Race. Her aim is to bring the many benefits of partnering with nature to as many people as possible.
Lesley holds a BEd in PE and an MSc in Executive Coaching from Ashridge Business school. Her research focused on how Nature can support both coach and client. She is an EMCC Senior Practitioner and is the proud winner of the Global EMCC Coaching Award for her ‘Getting Started’ and ‘Nature as Co-Facilitator’ coaching programmes.
Giles Lindsay is a technology executive, business agility coach, and CEO of Agile Delta Consulting Limited. Renowned for his award-winning expertise, Giles was recently honoured in the prestigious “World 100 CIO/CTO 2024, “Global CIO 200 2024” and the “UK CIO 100 2024” as well as being invited to join Forbes Technology Council. He has a proven track record in driving digital transformation and technological leadership, adeptly scaling high-performing delivery teams across various industries, from nimble startups to leading enterprises. His roles, from CTO or CIO to visionary change agent, have always centred on defining overarching technology strategies and aligning them with organisational objectives.
Giles is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (FCMI), the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT (FBCS), and The Institution of Analysts & Programmers (FIAP). His leadership across the UK and global technology companies has consistently fostered innovation, growth, and adept stakeholder management. With a unique ability to demystify intricate technical concepts, he’s enabled better ways of working across organisations.
Giles’ commitment extends to the literary realm with his book: “Clearly Agile: A Leadership Guide to Business Agility”. This comprehensive guide focuses on embracing Agile principles to effect transformative change in organisations. An ardent advocate for continuous improvement and innovation, Giles is unwaveringly dedicated to creating a business world that prioritises value, inclusivity, and societal advancement.
Mac Macartney has a foot in several worlds. He is the founder of the inspirational social enterprise, Embercombe, an international speaker, writer, and leadership consultant. Mentored by a group of Native American teachers over a period of twenty years, he made a pledge to do all he could to re-kindle an ancient indigenous teaching known as The Children’s Fire wherever he found, or could create, the opportunity to exert influence. Mac is the author of Finding Earth, Finding Soul: The invisible path to authentic leadership, and has published many articles on sustainability, leadership, and spirituality. He was presented with the Enlightened Society Award by Sakjong Mipham Rinpoche in 2013 and in 2015 was awarded an honorary doctorate in Education from Plymouth University.
Carla Miller is a leadership coach and board-level facilitator who works with women in management and leaderships roles to develop their careers and their confidence. Hundreds of women leaders have taken part in her Influence & Impact programme from companies including GSK, BT, Google, Channel 4, Muller and Deloitte, as well as national charities, the NHS and the Civil Service.
Carla’s own leadership experience includes raising £20 million for good causes and leading the fundraising at Samaritans and many other national charities; she was CEO of Tiny Tickers and then Managing Director of Charity People, a leading charity recruitment consultancy alongside founding her own coaching business.
Carla hosts the chart-topping Influence & Impact podcast for female leaders which has featured leading thinkers such as Graham Allcott, Harriet Minter and Stefanie Sword-Williams. She has featured in national media such The Guardian and Psychologies magazine and regularly chairs conference panels on leadership.
James Sills is an award-winning musician, author, speaker and choirstarter whose work centres on using the collective singing experience as a tool for human connection and transformation. He partners with organisations including Coca-Cola, Lloyds Bank and the NHS, designing large-scale singing events that build trust, culture and belonging.
James is a TEDx speaker, the author of Do Sing: Reclaim Your Voice. Find Your Singing Tribe (Do Book Co.), and a regular contributor to TV, radio and print media, including the BBC, NBC and Psychologies magazine. In 2020, he founded Sofa Singers, a global online singing community that brought thousands of people together during the Covid-19 pandemic, earning him a UK Government Points of Light Award.
He is currently the musical director of Bantam of the Opera, a BBC-founded project that has taken fifty Bradford City football supporters from stadium to stage, with performances for King Charles III, BBC Sports Personality of the Year and the FA Cup Final at Wembley.
Deboleena Dasgupta has led People Strategy, Change and Culture globally across geographies. Her debut book, Choose Depth, is a guide to growing as a whole human while building a lasting legacy. Integrating timeless wisdom, psychology, and neuroscience, it explores the drivers of human and leadership behaviour and offers a grounded path to clarity in modern complexity.
At the heart of the book is Deboleena’s signature framework, the 4i Rhythm – Introspection, Insight, Intention, Impact – supported by practical depth tools that help individuals, teams, and organisations rise meaningfully and sustainably.
A London Business School alum and systems thinker, Deboleena has lived both sides of the journey — the relentless pursuit of success and the longing for inner peace. From organisational politics to closed-door breakdowns, Deboleena in her long corporate journey for over two decades has seen a common pattern: talented professionals compromising wholeness for short-term wins, chasing the 3P s (performance, power, promotion) while neglecting the 4i s. Her message is simple: ambition and depth are not trade-offs — they are inseparable.
Julia Muir is the CEO of Gaia Innovation Ltd and Founder of the Automotive 30% Club, a network of automotive CEOs and MDs working to close the gender gap. She is a Vice President of the Automotive Fellowship International and speaks regularly at automotive events such as the FT Future of the Car summit. She has been a judge for various sector awards, and is often approached for comments and contributions by the motor trade press.
Named in the Financial Times and HERoes top 100 Women in Business Global Champions of Diversity in 2017, 2018 and 2019 for her work as the Founder of the Automotive 30% Club, Julia provides advice to members and directs the club’s digital communications and activities such as the ‘Inspiring’ e-zine; a digital lifestyle magazine for the women of the sector to which she contributes comment and opinion pieces. She is also a steering committee member of the Global 30% Club, which is working to appoint more women to FTSE 350 boards.
Julia has over 25 years’ experience in automotive retailing, manufacturing, marketing and consulting. She has a Business Studies degree and a Postgraduate Diploma in Human Resource Development, and has worked in the UK, Germany and Spain. She helped to establish the BSc in Automotive Retail Management at the Loughborough University School of Business and Economics’ Centre for Automotive Management, and recently taught modules covering authentic leadership on their executive programmes. In 2018/19 she was the lead on Employment and Skills and the Equality and Diversity Champion for the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership Board.
Julia designed the Inspiration for Innovation programme to help automotive employers and universities create gender balanced talent pools, aiming to achieve the best employment destination for every child, and she was awarded the Mary Lou Carrington Award by the City of London Worshipful Company of Educators for her work with the charity Speakers for Schools.
Geoff Robins, BSc, Ph.D
Geoff was educated at Liverpool University, where he studied Physics. After an early career working for the UK Government, Geoff turned to the private sector, operating and leading technical consulting organizations ranging from SMEs to a major portfolio within a UK Plc. Along the way Geoff was involved in the acquisition and sale of a range of different organisations including two management buy outs. Latterly Geoff was the Transformation Director for two major Government organizations, both of which employed thousands of staff throughout the UK and overseas. He is now a strategic advisor and Non-Executive Director to a number organizations in sectors that are high growth and fast moving
Away from work Geoff has a passion for sport and has been responsible for the management and growth in the participation and engagement of volunteers to achieve exceptional outcomes through collective endeavours. This experience has been invaluable in his working life in terms of getting buy-in and motivating people to go the extra mile.
Dr Susanne Evans is an organization change consultant and researcher on a mission to change the way that transformations are managed.
Having spent 10 years in Big 4 consultancy firms, she saw first-hand how difficult it was to achieve the benefits of large-scale transformation programmes.
Her PhD research focused on the role of stories in transformation and she distilled both this research and her 25 years of hands-on consultancy experience to create the ChangeStoriesTM approach, enabling her clients to use stories, ask questions and have powerful conversations to drive change.
As well as writing and speaking regularly for platforms such as the Change Management Institute, Business Transformation Network and Enterprise Nation, Susanne also hosts open storytelling workshops, supporting people in writing a compelling story for themselves.
She is the host of the popular ChangeStories podcast, in which guests share ideas for improving the way that changes are managed in organisations.
