IHR Live Manchester 2026

Elisha is the Recruitment Manager at a FTSE 250 technology solutions provider, where she is responsible for creating and delivering the organisation’s recruitment strategy.

A connection-centric and passionate leader, she is particularly focused on empowering women in the workplace.

Emma Evans is Chief People Officer at Sense. Experienced in guiding organisations through growth and transformation, Emma has built high-performing in-house recruitment teams across the third sector. She champions coaching-led leadership and strong people management to create vibrant, inclusive cultures where people feel confident and able to thrive.

As Head of Talent Acquisition, Carol leads recruitment strategy across a dynamic portfolio of brands - including , Optical Retail & Sun, UK&I EssilorLuxottica (UK&I retail brands include Vision Express, David Clulow and Sunglass Hut).

Her focus is on building an inclusive, efficient, and people-centric hiring approach that aligns with our values and long-term goals. She's passionate about designing recruitment processes that not only attract top talent but also reflect who we are as a business.

 At the core of her philosophy is a belief that recruitment should always be human-rooted in listening, integrity, and continuous improvement.

Laura is the Head of People at Street Group. She's been working in the People space for the past 12 years. Her background is in the wonderful world of Talent Acquisition, where she spent many years hiring amazing technical people for companies like Sainsbury’s, LADbible and HelloFresh.

Martin is an experienced and strategic resourcing professional who believes that the candidate experience should be at the heart of everything they do. He has experience of working for FTSE 250 businesses and managing and leading change programmes to improve performance and increase value.

A seasoned leader with over a decade of hands-on experience in talent acquisition, management, and HR across diverse sectors including healthcare, education, early years, and technology. His career spans start-ups through to global, matrixed corporate organisations. He has carved out a strong niche in change management and transformation, particularly within talent attraction, selection, and talent management and learning & development (L&D) function.

Adem Ismail is a senior talent acquisition and people leader with extensive experience shaping recruitment strategy across a large, complex, international organisation. Adem leads Talent Acquisition across Europe and Japan for QVC Group, providing strategic oversight of hiring, workforce planning, inclusive recruitment practices to support business growth, digital and social transformation as well as organisational change.

Prior to joining QVC Group, Adem held senior leadership roles within a recruitment agency environment, where he led senior appointments and large-scale hiring programmes across EMEA and APAC regions, built high-performing teams and partnered with executive stakeholders.

Parul Singh is the founder of Parallel Minds, a progressive UK-based consultancy specialising in neuroinclusion in the workplace. A late-diagnosed Autistic ADHDer, woman of colour, and first-generation immigrant, she brings lived experience and evidence-based practice together to help organisations create systemic, sustainable change.

Parul's previous experience spans agency recruitment, talent acquisition and recruitment marketing. She also serves as an Ambassador for ADHD UK and as a Union Representative for the United Tech and Allied Workers Union.

Parul is a sought-after keynote speaker, featured in Channel 4’s documentary “Do You Have ADHD?” and on stages including LeadDev London, Leeds Digital Festival, and Manchester Tech Festival. She is known for her unconventional approaches, colourful style, and infectious energy.

Cordelia Osewa-Ediae is a seasoned Leadership Development and Workplace Inclusion Consultant with over 15 years of experience in driving culture change and talent development across various sectors. 

She has developed bespoke leadership programs for the National Grid and London Metropolitan Police, led a DEI strategic review at NSPCC, and provided consulting services for organisations including Tesco, Clarks, and the Ministry of Justice. At BT Group, she played a key role in establishing comprehensive representation and inclusion goals, designing and leading the first ever group-wide reverse mentoring programme that engaged over 300 leaders, and producing the company's first ethnicity and disability pay gap reports. In recognition of her impact, she was awarded the 2024 BT Group ‘Race Equity’ award.

A Clore Social Fellow, Keynote speaker, Board member, and trained Coach, she has received several awards including the 2023 Baton 'Thought Leader of the Year' award, the Commonwealth Business Women Africa's 2024 'Community Champion' award; and 2024 Novi ‘Inspiring Mentor’ award.

An multi award-winning business psychologist, Jamie has designed or overseen the design of embedded end-to-end selection processes in over a third of the UK’s top 100 employers across varied sectors, winning numerous industry awards for improving validity, candidate experience, and EDI outcomes.

Becca joined AssessFirst with a first-class MEng in Engineering and a diverse professional background in Operations, Project Management & HR across the retail, engineering, and finance sectors. Her hands-on experience with assessment tools has shown her the transformative impact they can have in reducing bias, strengthening alignment with company culture, and increasing efficiency in both recruitment and L&D.

Driven by a commitment to building inclusive workplaces, Becca is enthusiastic about using her expertise to champion impactful initiatives within the AssessFirst client community, helping organisations maximise their ROI while fostering cultures of diversity and belonging.

Lee holds an MBA from The Open University and 15 years+ leadership, sales and customer success experience, working in identity, fraud and background screening. Lee is an advocate of digital identity services for screening and has consulted with some of the largest employers and governing bodies to support digital adoption.

After starting his career as a management consultant with a lens on strategic HR, Jon decided to use that knowledge to make a difference in a more non-traditional way. He fell in love with the concept of potential, both identifying it and enabling people to achieve it, which drew him to the edtech sector.

Now, as the Scholarships Lead at Blackbullion, Jon brings together

(1) the UK’s top businesses, and

(2) talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds, to enable both parties to succeed!

Working with Blackbullion, Jon launched the UK’s first-ever National Scholarships Week in April 2023, and has published pieces / delivered talks on topics such as Social Mobility and Diversity Equity & Inclusion. Jon holds a MSc International Management for King’s Business School in London, UK, and a BBA from the George Washington School of Business in Washington, DC.

Martin is a global leader specialising in Talent, Organisation Design and Inclusion. Martin’s passion for inclusivity led him to found TalentMapper, where he is supporting clients to create diverse, inclusive and optimally designed workforces.

Prior to leading TalentMapper, Martin led Talent functions, globally at The Body Shop, Wolseley PLC and Halfords, where he designed and delivered global transformation projects and talent management strategies which brought about significant business benefits.

Experienced Business Development Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the staffing and recruiting industry. Skilled in Graduate Recruitment, Interviewing, Business Development, Recruiting, and Training. Contact me to discuss implementing HR Technology to enhance your current processes!

After spending 14 years working for a FTSE 250 recruitment business, my passion to work in partnership with businesses and organisations, who want to provide the best possible candidate experience to their applicants, has brought me to an innovative HR Tech business, who prioritise people and product over profit!

Tribepad have been in the Talent Acquisition tech world for the last 12 years, we are providing talent acquisition technology for clients based in 127 different countries and we process 1 million job applications per month. We are an independent organisation that strives to produce the best possible experience for all involved in the whole recruitment cycle.

Louise brings a wealth of HR and senior leadership experience, garnered through collaborating with C-Suite and senior leaders when designing and executing effective business strategies in complex global organisations. Her career started in recruitment, where she led resourcing teams delivering global campaigns and senior hiring initiatives. Having worked in partnership with a number of respected clients such as Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Lastminute.com, and ING Direct, she then transitioned in-house. Louise focused on structuring and leading large, multi-jurisdictional resourcing functions with global change or optimisation agendas as ExCo-level HR Director. In recent years, Louise has applied her extensive HR expertise to support SMEs and technology start-ups, helping CEOs and their leadership teams to articulate and execute their long-term strategies.

Deeply passionate about digital transformation, data, and implementing enterprise software to help customers drive step-changes in efficiency, speed, and pace of innovation.

With a background in software testing and user experience, Yasmin supports employers to deliver incredible digital candidate experiences by leveraging data and user-centred practices to drive outcomes.

With over a decade working on the creative side of employer branding, Liam has had the pleasure of creating work that solves tough challenges and delivers outstanding results for organisations of all shapes and sizes — from technology giants changing the world to housing associations and healthcare companies helping people care for theirs.

As Sales Director at Reach ATS, Deb Cox brings over 15 years of experience helping HR professionals simplify hiring through smart, intuitive technology. With a background spanning recruitment software and digital advertising, she works with organisations across multiple industries to build more efficient, effective hiring processes

I’ve spent over 11 years in recruitment, working in-house, agency, and RPO, with most of my career focused on building and leading internal TA teams. I know the pressure of delivering great hires while managing shifting priorities and expectations. At Creed, I support clients facing those same challenges, helping them simplify their workload, rethink outdated approaches, and find practical, realistic ways to attract and hire great talent more effectively.

Theo Kitsberg is the co-founder and CEO of HireGlide, an AI-native recruiting tool that helps talent teams source and screen candidates fairly, accurately and quickly. HireGlide's platform uses natural language search to find candidates from both across the web and within a company’s existing network, and it screens inbound applicants with explainable AI, so recruiters spend time on conversations, not CVs. Theo studied Philosophy at Cambridge, conducted applied AI research at MIT, and built HireGlide with his cofounder after speaking to hundreds of recruiters buried in AI-generated applications.

Harry Lee is a Director at PerchPeek, working closely with Talent and People teams as they navigate the realities of global hiring.

He spends his time speaking with TA leaders about how candidates are supported beyond the offer - particularly when roles involve international moves.

Harry is passionate about improving candidate experience in global hiring and enjoys exploring where process, data, and technology can make this support more consistent and scalable.

Natasha Preocanin is the Managing Director for In-house Recruitment (IHR), the largest and most engaged community for In-house Recruiters. Our 20,000+ community benefit from over 70 live and virtual events each year ranging from our 1000-strong exhibitions and high profile awards to exclusive half-day breakfasts and targeted dinners for Recruitment Leaders. We also produce industry leading digital whitepapers, webinars and leadership videos alongside high value community forums and an all-inclusive supplier directory.

With a background in events, Natasha's joined the company in 2012 as an Events Executive and quickly progressed up the ranks to her current position as MD. She now leads the company in becoming the go-to resource for all In-house and Talent Acquisition teams who are looking to become better recruiters. Natasha can often be seen on stage, hosting our events or behind a microphone, interviewing a host of industry experts.