Parliamentary Steering Committee.

The Better Hiring Institute Parliamentary Steering Committee comprises senior HR and Talent Acquisition experts. The committee advises the Institute on relevant topics for the Modernising Employment APPG, outputs and strategy, and helps maintain the Better Hiring Institute “Most Influential” list.

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Kathryn Herrington

Kathryn is an international CPO/CHRO with over 25 years’ experience in financial services and technology. Partnering with CEOs, boards and executive teams in international, complex businesses in both public and private markets, she has a track record in driving organisational transformation, talent strategy, cultural re-engineering and leadership development in growth and regulated environments. Based in London, she has extensive long-term transatlantic experience having lived and worked in New York for many years.

Matthew Howe

Matthew leads the Volume Recruitment Teams within BT Group, delivering retail, contact centre, field engineer and early careers recruitment across BT Group’s brands including EE, Plusnet, Business and Openreach. Matthew has been working in telecoms since 2015, when he joined Plusnet before moving up through BT Group. He is driven to increase social mobility by breaking down barriers to entry and enabling greater access to great careers for everyone.

Steve Jacobs

Steve Jacobs has worked in the recruitment industry for almost 20 years. Having spent the first half of his career working for leading recruitment agencies and then transitioning in-house over the last decade, he has seen how recruitment operates on both sides of the spectrum. He has worked for global high-tech companies and supported McDonald’s on its digital journey, helping to build a strong leadership team.

Karen Hutchison

Karen Hutchison is the Group Resourcing Director at Mitie, sitting on both the Mitie Leadership Team and the Mitie Artificial Intelligence Ethics Board. She is accountable for all hiring across the Group of 65,000+ employees, with more than 10,000 hires per year. Karen has held recruitment leadership positions globally in a wide variety of organisations, from B2B SaaS start-ups to enterprise services organisations of over 200,000 FTE. She is passionate about equality, equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging.

Martin Poole

With nearly 20 years of experience in recruitment, Martin is a seasoned Talent Acquisition Leader specialising in scaling teams and driving attraction, assessment and process efficiency strategies across a diverse range of industries. He spent nearly 15 years recruiting for management consultancies such as Deloitte and BJSS before moving into the start-up and scale-up space, helping to scale companies such as Bitpanda, Onfido and sennder, and more recently Pod Point.

Misti Melville

Misti is an experienced Non-Executive Director, RemCo Chair and Chief People Officer. MCIPD and legally qualified, her executive career of over 30 years draws on experience in multinational organisations across construction and engineering, financial services, law and management consulting. She is currently NED and Chair of RemCo and NomCo for a top 100 Saudi-based private family company, and has held senior executive positions with global premium consulting engineering firms.

David R Blackburn

David R. Blackburn is one of the most awarded HR professionals working in the UK today and a recognised thought leader within his profession. He regularly contributes to articles, podcasts and roundtables, and speaks at events across the UK and beyond. David is a Most Influential HR Practitioner in the HR Magazine Most Influential List 2024 and is both a Chartered Companion of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the Chartered Management Institute.

Anne Barnett

Anne Barnett has been the Chief People Officer for Paragon Banking Group PLC for over 16 years and is also a non-executive director for Citysave Credit Union and Progress Together. Before joining Paragon, Anne’s HR career spanned several industries in the private sector. She is known for her commercial approach as a people expert, leading people and cultural strategy for organisations, with a passion for sustainability and diversity.

Keith Rosser

Keith is Chair of the Institute and a Non-Executive with UK Home Office and Scottish Government organisations. For his work reforming the labour market he was made an Honorary Fellow of Lancaster University. Keith has worked with UK Government including former Prime Ministers and was recognised by the Home Office with a Commendation Award and as a community leader by HRH The Queen at Buckingham Palace.

Catherine Douglas

Catherine Douglas has over 20 years of experience in banking, having held executive and senior leadership roles in retail, retail banking, business banking, SME, strategy and estate agency. Catherine leads the Chief People Office at The Co-operative Bank, alongside responsibility for the Bank’s delivery of ESG commitments. She is actively involved in the diversity and inclusion agenda and is a keen advocate for the co-operative movement.

Robert Richardson

Robert Richardson FIH MI is the Chief Executive Officer of the award-winning Institute of Hospitality, the world’s largest professional body of almost 16,000 hospitality professionals worldwide, and a registered charity. IoH is dedicated to driving recognition of the hospitality profession and uplifting its membership through lifelong learning, mentorship and network-building.

Elise Hunt

Elise Hunt is a CIPD member to fellowship level and an accomplished Talent Acquisition thought leader, with a career spanning several industries around the globe. Elise has in-depth experience in transformational change, including M&A activity, and has a passion for supporting students entering the workplace. Most recently, she was Global Head of TA at Willis Towers Watson and has recently joined Admiral as Head of TA.

Martin Traynor

After a career in the hospitality sector, Martin moved to become Group CEO of Leicestershire Chamber of Commerce, concentrating on business support and representation. Martin is a former member of HMG’s Regulatory Policy Committee and has completed a five-year term as the Small Business Crown Representative at the Cabinet Office. Martin is now working at the Institute of Hospitality as a Trustee and Non-Executive Director.

Kerry Heaton

Kerry Heaton has over 20 years of experience in financial services, having held senior leadership roles in insurance, banking and private equity. She is currently the Chief People Officer at Hg Capital, a leading investor in European and transatlantic software and services businesses, and was previously the global head of executive talent at HSBC. Kerry partners with CEOs, boards and executive teams, specialising in talent strategy, resourcing, executive development and transformational change in growth and regulated environments.

Teresa Boughey

Teresa Boughey is a TEDx speaker, bestselling author and thought leader in diversity, equity, inclusivity and sustainability. She is founder and CEO of the award-winning Jungle HR and Inclusion 247. With extensive strategic HR consultancy experience, she has driven organisational change across diverse sectors and serves as an NHS Non-Executive Director and Advisory Board member at Royal Holloway University, International School of Business and Management.

Irena Grugulis

Irena Grugulis is the Professor of Work and Skills at Leeds University Business School. She is a Fellow of the RSA, a Fellow of the AcSS, an Academic Fellow of the CIPD, an ESRC/AIM Fellow and an Associate Fellow of SKOPE. From 2021 to 2023 she was the Co-Chair of ReWAGE, the Renewing Work Advisory Group of Experts, an ESRC-funded expert group which advised the UK government on work and employment. Her research focuses on learning and skills.

Chris Warhurst

Christopher Warhurst is an internationally recognised expert on job quality and skills. He is motivated by wanting to see better scientific and policymaker understanding of work and employment. He is Co-Chair of the ESRC-funded Renewing Work Advisory Group of Experts, helping the UK Government build back better jobs post-Covid. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Royal Society of Arts, and an Associate Research Fellow of SKOPE at the University of Oxford.

Dan Godfrey

Dan is a senior executive at Aviva, responsible for people strategy alongside leading recruitment, people operations, organisational effectiveness and transformation globally. Prior to Aviva, Dan held a variety of senior HR roles in private equity, banking, hospitality and the public sector. He is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and member of the Guild of HR Professionals.

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