Date: 9 – 11 November 2026
Blended approach: Virtual delivery, supported through Advance HE Connect and regional SDF networks
Keynotes
Nick Shackleton-Jones, Shackleton Consulting
About Nick
Nick Shackleton-Jones is the author of How People Learn, a book which introduces the first general theory of learning & describes how to apply it.
An industry revolutionary, he introduced the ‘courses to resources’ mantra & pioneered human-centred learning design (5Di). A track record of shaping future learning approaches for public & private organisations, he is the winner of several awards for people development, strategy, innovation, & learning content (including the Learning & Performance Institute’s Award for Services to the Learning Industry, 2017).
He is the former CLO at Deloitte UK & now CEO at Shackleton Consulting.
Julian Stodd, Sea Salt Learning
About Julian
Dr Julian Stodd is a researcher, writer, artist and explorer of the Social Age. He is the founder and Captain at Sea Salt Learning, a global consultancy.
His work explores the context of the Social Age, a time of radical connectivity and social transformation, and takes an evidence based approach to what this means for leadership, learning, culture, innovation, and change.
Julian’s work around Social Leadership, leading at the intersection of formal and social systems, and Social Learning, has been influential in Organisations around the world, including Apple, Google, Novartis, Coke, ARM, Nokia, SABIC, and The Red Cross and within various Militaries and Government agencies, as well as the World Health Organisation (where he sits as a Special Advisor on Learning Strategy).
His work is research led, evidence informed, and held in a principle of #WorkingOutLoud, shared, always evolving, and highly imperfect.
He has written 21 books, including key research based pieces like ‘The Trust Guidebook’, and ‘The Community Builder Guidebook’, as well as broader texts like ‘The Social Leadership Handbook’, and ‘The Socially Dynamic Organisation – a new model of Organisational Design’, and has contributed core chapters to publications like the US Government published ‘Modernising Learning’ collection, as well as nearly 3,000 blog posts and articles.
Julian teaches on the University of Pennsylvania Doctoral Chief Learning Officer programme, on the Berlin School of Creative Leadership MBA, and is a Visiting Research Fellow at Middlesex University Graduate School.
You can read his work at www.julianstodd.wordpress.com
X @julianstodd
LinkedIn Julian Stodd
www.seasaltlearning.com
Hannah Fromageau, Advance HE
About Hannah
Hannah Fromageau SFHEA is a Senior Consultant in Leadership and Management at Advance HE. She is an experienced consultant and coach with a demonstrated history of leading and managing leadership development programmes for staff within higher education and research environments, including the University of Cambridge, University of the Arts London and University of Portsmouth.
Hannah collaborates on several of Advance HE’s open leadership programmes including the Inclusive Leadership Programme and directs the current Academic Leaders’ Survival Series member benefit. She has successfully designed and delivered leadership and management programmes for various institutions at a range of leadership levels for professional services and academic staff as well as with senior leadership teams
Paul Gentle, Invisible Grail
About Paul
Paul is a leadership development expert with extensive experience in supporting and coaching teams in universities. With 35 years’ experience of working in Higher Education, Paul has held positions as Head of Department and Dean. From 2012-2016 he was Director of Programmes at the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, and has led 14 cohorts of the Top Management Programme now run by Advance HE.
Paul works in the UK and internationally and is an advocate of sharing learning across the world to better inform strategic development, and to build a more connected global higher education system. In any one year, he works with around 20 different universities.
He is passionate about the potential for universities to enable their students and staff to connect to one another and to a wider ecosystem in service of building a kinder world.
Rachel Reeds, Think BOLD
About Rachel
Rachel Reeds’ 2024 book, Surviving and Thriving in Higher Education Professional Services, speaks directly to the staff who keep universities running and too often go unheard. She built her work around the idea of the positive disruptor: the confidence to challenge, to influence, and to shape decisions rather than wait for permission. Rachel co-hosts the HE Tea Break podcast and runs The Bold Collective, a development community for mid-career professional services managers. She speaks regularly across the sector on strategic voice, career agency, and leading change. Her company Think Bold takes that philosophy into UK HE admissions.
Danny Mirza, Coventry University London
About Danny
Danny Mirza is a nationally recognised, award-winning Careers & Employability leader and Careers & Experience Head/Manager London Hub at Coventry University London. A trailblazer in Generative AI for Higher Education, Danny has delivered 160+ global workshops, reaching over 10,000+ participants across the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe, and has supported 600+ HE professionals through direct AI engagement.
Winner of the 2025 UK Career Development Award for his outstanding contribution to the profession, Danny is a multi-award-winning and nominated innovator in the HE and careers space. He is a regular speaker for AGCAS, CDI, AHEP, ATEM, AMOSSHE, and international bodies like Research Impact Canada (RIC) and Careers Industry Council of Australia (CICA).
Known for his energetic, practical, and tech-savvy approach, Danny is one of the leading voices on GenAI in UK Higher Education, shaping the future of employability, student experience, and professional services.
Charles Jennings, Duntroon Consultants
About Charles
Charles Jennings is a globally respected thinker, author, communicator, consultant, and solution designer in the talent, learning, and performance fields. He has 40+ years’ experience helping organisations innovate, design, and develop state-of-the-art performance and learning approaches.
He works with clients across the world to create and transform strategies and operating models to deliver improvement in learning, performance, processes, and strategies for business leaders, managers, talent development specialists, and L&D focused on measurable business results.
His career includes roles as a business school professor, as head of the UK national centre for networked learning, as an executive and Chief Learning Officer in global companies, and as a member of advisory boards for international learning, performance, and business bodies.
Charles brings a wealth of practical experience to help navigate the increasingly complex (and AI-impacted) world of learning, organisational performance, and continuous improvement. His passion is for integrating learning with working. He is a firm believer in evidence-based learning and performance practices, and his work is sometimes challenging to traditional HR, learning, and talent approaches.
He is a Fellow of The Royal Society for Arts (FRSA) and a Fellow of the Learning & Performance Institute (FLPI). He is also a Senior Advisor at the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and other bodies.
Matt Ballatine, Equal Experts
About Matt
Matt Ballantine has spent thirty years working at the intersection of technology, organisations, and change in roles at the BBC, Microsoft, Reuters, and across UK government. He now works as a consultant, speaker, and facilitator, helping organisations think more clearly about how they adapt and learn in conditions of genuine uncertainty.
He is co-author, with Nick Drage, of Random: How to Thrive in an Unpredictable World. It’s an unconventional book about randomness, luck, and the organisational conditions that determine whether unexpected opportunities get acted on or pass by unnoticed.
Clive Wilson, Clive Wilson Consulting
About Clive
Clive Wilson spent the first 27 years of his career (last century) in the UK electricity industry as a mains engineer, health and safety engineer, change manager and management development advisor.
This century he devotes his career to Purposeful Leadership Development, supporting leaders and their organisations across the globe to create the conditions necessary to deliver powerful objectives in support of a Brighter Future. Alongside this quest, he writes about the intersection of technology, society, energy, landscape and the future of human civilisation. His work explores how emerging technologies may reshape communities, ethics, land use and environmental systems during the twenty-first century.
With a particular interest in systems thinking and long-term societal change, he has written on topics including community energy, geopolitics, environmental transition, the future relationship between humanity and the natural world and precision fermentation. “Purposeful Leadership – leading people and organisations through the great disruption” continues this exploration by examining how organisations and their leaders can prepare for success during this current period of unprecedented change.
Facilitators
Jo Keeler, Belbin
About Jo
Jo Keeler is the Managing Director at Belbin Ltd, an employee ownership trust. At Belbin, their mission is to improve business performance through sustainable and effective teamwork.
Jo is responsible for spearheading strategic and operational activities, and building the Belbin brand, both in the UK and worldwide
Jo is also a speaker and facilitator, bringing the Belbin message to international audiences. She hosts the popular and thought-provoking Belbin webinar series.
She believes that, in the words of Meredith Belbin, “Simply putting together a number of people and expecting them to work as a team is not enough.”
Eszter Molnar-Mills, Formium Development
About Eszter
Eszter Molnar Mills helps people and organisations enhance their performance by applying positive solutions to leadership, learning and organisation development. Her current focus is how we can equip our teams, managers and leaders with the skills and strategies they need to meet the challenges of the future workplace.
Prior to founding Formium Development, Eszter held a number of Learning and Development and HRD roles, including as Head of Organisational Development for the University of London. In recent years she has delivered coaching, training and development for many universities, central government departments, NHS bodies, charities and multinational companies – as well as being a visiting lecturer delivering postgraduate organisational behaviour and leadership courses.
Eszter’s particular interests include harnessing the power of positive psychology and strength-based approaches to help individuals and organisations make enduring and effective change.
Mark Crabtree, Mark Stephen Crabtree Consulting
About Mark
To challenge and empower organisations, leaders, teams and individuals to realise their full potential and inspire them to go beyond. To help individuals and organisations rethink what could be and make it happen.
Mark helps organisations, leaders, teams and individuals unlock their full potential—creating space and providing practical tools that build trust, strengthen engagement and lift performance through development, coaching and facilitation. His work is grounded in a clear, values-led purpose: to make a positive difference to people’s working lives by helping clients rethink what’s possible and turn that ambition into meaningful, sustainable change.
Katie Steen, WorkSmart-AI
About Katie
Katie Steen is the co-founder of WorkSmart-AI, which specialises in supporting
universities to be able to embrace the opportunities that AI has to offer and overcome
the strategic and cultural challenges that it can pose.
Prior to this, Katie worked at the University of Exeter for eight years, supporting PS and
academic staff to improve their capabilities and confidence in using digital
technologies. Her final role was as Digital Skills Lead, where she co-led the development of an online Digital Skills self-assessment quiz and resource library, which was used by 2,500 staff within the first 4 months of its launch.
For the first fifteen years of her career, Katie worked as an international television producer, specialising in educational and social programming. It’s where she developed her love for people and their stories.
David Weller, WorkSmart-AI
About David
David has spent over twenty years working at the intersection of education, technology,
and organisational change, exploring how digital tools can make learning more human.
His background spans language education, assessment, and EdTech, with a consistent
focus on building confidence, capability, and practical impact through thoughtful use
of technology.
He holds a Master’s degree in Education, a postgraduate diploma, and is the author of a
published book on artificial intelligence in education. His career has taken him from teaching and examining internationally to leading large-scale digital upskilling initiatives. Most recently, as Digital Skills Lead at the University of Exeter, he designed and led a university-wide programme aligned to Strategy 2030, supporting over 7,500 staff to build confidence with new technologies, including AI, through scalable, role-relevant training.
What drives his work is turning innovation into something usable. He is passionate about helping organisations move beyond AI hype to confident, responsible adoption that saves time, reduces anxiety, and delivers measurable results.
Andry Anastasis McFarlane, The Learning Moment
About Andry
Andry McFarlane doesn’t just deliver workshops—she partners with OD leaders to create frameworks that connect with participants early and guide organisations to truly embed learning. She offers sustainable learning! Andry is an accredited, experienced executive and management coach, author, supervisor, learning consultant, and facilitator, with a track record of success across educational organisations in the UK.
She supports: leading on well-being and resilience, EDIB, leadership and management and team coaching and mentoring.
Her podcast is 1AM Talks is a series of 20-minute 360-degree conversations on OD case studies, including HE. It’s available free on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. She leads The Learning Moment, a diverse and inclusive company, helping staff, teams and leaders to thrive at work.
The Learning Moment is an inclusive company that supports your leaders, managers, and teams in Higher Education and beyond. At The Learning Moment, we create practical, inclusive learning spaces where you can build resilience, improve communication, problem solve, develop diverse leaders and enhance wellbeing.
Our team includes senior education managers and teaching and learning staff who understand the day-to-day realities of academic and professional services roles.
We don’t just deliver learning programmes, coaching and enable culture change. We partner with HR, OD and L&D leaders to offer frameworks for your learning—connecting with participants early, adding activities between sessions, and we guide you to embed your staff’s learning.
Led by Andry Anastasis McFarlane. Reach out for a chat about supporting your leaders, managers and teams.
Madiha Sajid, Imperial College London
About Madiha
Madiha is a Strategic Organisational Development leader with over a decade of experience
designing and delivering people transformation across complex institutions. Currently based at Imperial College London, she leads a comprehensive learning & development portfolio spanning leadership and management development, talent management, employee engagement, performance management, mentoring, and wellbeing. She is equally skilled at working at the strategic level and shaping organisational culture and driving systemic change as she is at the delivery level, facilitating workshops and coaching individuals and teams.
A qualified coach accredited by the European Coaching and Mentoring Council (EMCC) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Madiha brings both professional rigour and a deeply human approach to her practice. Her expertise in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is woven throughout her work, informed by years of leading gender equality networks,
championing inclusive workplace cultures, and chairing the National Network for Parents and Carers in Higher Education. She is an experienced international consultant, having designed and delivered transformational change programmes in Rwanda, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Wales working with senior leaders, mid-level managers, and wider teams to embed lasting
institutional change. Her consultancy work spans capacity building, behavioural science, safe campus initiatives, and sector-wide policy reform.
Madiha is a published researcher and a regular speaker at national and international conferences, having presented at the London School of Economics, University College London, and the Diversity and Inclusion Forum, among others. Recognised as one of 75 Notable British Pakistanis by the UPSIGN international network, she has also received
multiple institutional awards for leadership excellence and outstanding contribution to staff experience. She holds a Masters in Education, Gender and International Development from UCL, an MBA from Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden, and a Level 7 CIPD in Strategic People Leadership and Management.
Linda Spinks, University of Cambridge
A
bout Linda
Linda has worked at the University of Cambridge since 2004 both as a Business Analyst, Process Improvement Lead and more recently as Continuous Improvement Lead within the Change and Programme Management Office (CPMO).
She is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and Lean Competency (LCS) accredited trainer, and has been delivering training in process improvement to staff across the collegiate University since 2017. In addition to this, she has worked with many teams to help them improve their processes.
Away from Cambridge she has worked with a number of other universities and not for profit organisations to deliver accredited Lean training. She is an active member of the LeanHE Global community, as Co-chair of the England and Wales steering group, Vice chair of the European and a member of the Global steering group. She has contributed to two books in collaboration with colleagues in the community and hosted the 2024 Global conference in Cambridge.
Luke Phillimore, De Montfort University
About Luke
Luke is the Head of Change and Continuous Improvement at De Montfort University, leading the Continuous Improvement Team to drive operational excellence and enable effective change across the institution. He previously served as Associate Director of Change at the University of Nottingham, where he supported the people side of change across its strategic investment portfolio.
With a strong focus on continuous improvement, Luke applies Lean Six Sigma methods to deliver measurable enhancements to processes and services in higher education.
He is also the Network Lead for the Change Network at the Association of Higher Education Professionals (AHEP), championing proactive change leadership and sector-wide collaboration. A regular speaker at national conferences, Luke advocates for human-centred transformation and is committed to building an evidence base of impactful change case studies within the sector.
Clementina Quinn, The Open University
About Clementina
Clementina (Clemmie) Quinn is a Learning and Development Manager at The Open University, facilitating educational development for the University’s remote Practice Tutor and general Associate Lecturer community.
Since 2012, she has worked across staff, researcher, and postgraduate research learning development, building expertise in professional development within higher education. Her work focuses on enhancing learning at work for OU Tutors through digitally enabled learning experiences and fostering relational and inclusive practice.
A committed lifelong learner, Clemmie is currently studying for the OU’s MA in Online Teaching, with interests in inclusive pedagogy, online professional development, and work-based learning. She has recently submitted for the award of HEA Fellowship through Advance HE.