2022 Speakers
GRISELDA TOGOBO – CEO OF FORWARD LADIES
Griselda began her career as an electrical engineer, she then veered into business having been influenced by the challenges and successes that her parents experienced as entrepreneurs. She trained and qualified as a chartered accountant with one of the BIG 4 professional services firms but now runs her own businesses, Forward Ladies included. Griselda is a mother of two beautiful children. She is extremely passionate about positively impacting the future of women and girls in the workforce. Griselda joined Forward Ladies as a member and was hooked.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/griseldatogobo/
Louise Hardy is a chartered civil engineer who rose to director level within the engineering profession, most notably as Infrastructure Director responsible for programme managing a £2bn portfolio of projects on the London 2012 Olympic Park. In 2015 she began building her non executive portfolio career with a mix of public sector and FTSE250 board roles plus voluntary work within the Institution of Civil Engineers and as a STEM ambassador and diversity champion. She was listed in the inaugural Top 50 Influential Women In Engineering list, June 2016; in conjunction with the Daily Telegraph and WES. and the FT Top 100 Influential Women Leaders In Engineering, 2019.
Louise currently sits on the FTSE listed boards of Balfour Beatty the UKs biggest construction contractor; Severfield, the UKs largest steel fabricator and the house builder Crest Nicholson. She is also Chair on the Oriel Project, overseeing the build of the new NHS Moorfields eye hospital in London.
Louise is Mum to ten year old twin daughters.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/louise-hardy-75242589/
Joanna Jensen is the Founder & Executive Chairman of the UK’s number one baby and children’s toiletry brand, Childs Farm. In July 2020, she also launched an adult brand Farmologie following huge demand from women and parents.
As well as being an entrepreneur, Joanna is a mother of two, Mimi and Bella. They were the inspiration behind the launch of Childs Farm and the products she created, as they both had sensitive skin and nothing on the market worked
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joanna-jensen-ab904a14/.
ARTI HALAI
Arti Halai specialises in presentation, media and communications having spent fifteen years working in the UK media industry. She was a television presenter, reporter and producer working in news and current affairs for both the BBC and ITV. Moving on to business, Arti co-founded a number of successful companies including PR agency, Fleet Street Communications and creative design agency, Grin Consultancy. Both companies became profitable and grew parallel to reach seven figures and work with some of the world’s largest brands.
Following a successful exit, Arti is currently a board advisor to an EdTech, Auris Tech and an ambassador for Every Child Needs a Mentor. She has also held positions as board director, trustee, governor and NED.
Arti continues to work with clients who need to sharpen their messages and deliver them with confidence, authenticity and with flair. Arti hosts award ceremonies, annual dinners, is a conference facilitator and chairs panel discussions. Her podcast is called Five Star Insights.
Throughout her career, Arti has helped and supported women and young people encouraging them to aspire high and given workshops and talks about her career in television and business.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/artihalai/
Catherine Asta is a psychotherapist and an impassioned champion of women and their stories, with an unequivocal specialism in ‘Bringing Sparkle Back’.
Over the last 7 years Catherine has worked with hundreds of women and has spent thousands and thousand of hours inside the minds of women, she has a global client base, and an ever increasing client base of late discovered neurodivergent women, and is a featured expert across the BBC and the media
This is combined with 10+ years’ experience gained in Local Government and the NHS in a variety of local and national strategy, research, policy development and operational delivery roles.
Catherine left her corporate role as Head of Transformation in a large NHS Acute Trust in 2017 and since then has established a successful therapy business, been awarded a Fellow by her professional body for outstanding commitment to her profession, secured a 3 year residency slot on BBC Radio, represented UN Women as an ambassador, created and nurtured communities (girl tribe gang), and has studied for, and gained her Psychology Masters.
Catherine always has a head full of ideas and is a creative strategic thinker, with an associative thinking style, and her USP is people.
Community building and dressing happy is her thing.
Catherine is also a late discovered autistic woman (with a sprinkling of ADHD), mum to an autistic girl and the founder of the Late Discovered Club – a community for late discovered autistic women, whenever they are on their self-discovery journey.
Catherine created the late discovered club because she says “there are lots of late discovered women out there, who have had to figure this out alone, along with a lifetime of struggles whose voices have never been heard. The Late Discovered Club exists for those women and their stories.”
www.catherineasta.com
Hannah Duraid is a Multi-Award-Winning young entrepreneur behind the escape room attraction, The Great Escape Game. A fully immersive experience where customers enter into a themed, Crystal-maze style adventure and must solve a series of puzzles to escape before their time runs out.
Launched in 2015, today the business has developed across three sites, boasting bars and kitchens, 17 escape room experiences, as well as being proud to be home to Yorkshire’s only 18+ escape game, that was featured on channel 4’s “Don’t Tell the Bride”.
As well as this Hannah consults for a femtech company, Hyivy Health.
GEORGIA HENRY
2022 Agenda
11:20 – Take your seats
11:30 – Host’s welcome – Arti Halai
11:40 – Keynote address – Joanna Jensen, Founder and CEO of Child’s Farm
11:55 – Panel discussion – How does neurodiversity affect Unstoppable Women? Catherine Asta, Ally Dowsing-Reynolds
12:45 – Winners announced
13:15 – Forward Ladies Advocates for Change
13:30 – Winners announced
14:00 – Dessert and coffee
14:20 – Panel discussion – How are the Next Generation preparing for being Unstoppable? Hannah Duraid, more tbc
14:40 – Business Woman of the Year 2021 Louise Hardy
15:05 – Winner announced – Business Woman of the Year
