Ahead of this year’s MAD World Festival of Workplace Culture, Employee Health & Wellbeing, our Features Editor Suzy Bashford has been interviewing a range of the fantastic speakers who’ll be sharing their insights and experiences at this groundbreaking event on Thursday 17th October.
This year the Festival incorporates the Leaders’ Summit, DE&I Summit, Legal Summit and the Construction Summit. Whichever sessions your choose to join, the event is the perfect opportunity to listen to, but also meet and put your questions to a range of leaders from across sectors.
Here are eight of Suzy’s sneak peek interviews – giving a tantalising taste of the different topics being addressed by a total of 129 speakers…
Kicking off with the Wellbeing question on everyone’s lips
Dame Carol Black proposed the opening keynote debate of the Leaders’ Summit at this year’s MAD World Festival. This will pose the big question we hear continually: “Individual interventions vs. institutional change – which is the key to a healthy, happy and productive workforce?”
Of course, it is both the individual and the organisation’s responsibility (and leaders’ responsibility too). But the purpose of this starting debate at the Leaders’ Summit is to showcase this, and to get everyone thinking and talking. In this profile interview, Suzy caught up with Peter Cheese ahead of his appearance to find out more.
Selfridges DEI Lead: in 2024, having darker skin shouldn’t mean I have to show up differently at work
Inclusive recruitment is one of the key topics that will tackled at the DE&I Summit, running parallel to the Leaders’ Summit, Construction Summit and Legal Summit at this year’s MAD World Festival. Sharlene John, Head of DEI, Recruitment & Onboarding at Selfridges will be joining us as a speaker.
Sharlene was awarded a British Diversity Award in 2023 and has also been recognised by Diversity in Retail as a Woman to Watch in Retail and a Retail Role Model. Suzy spoke to Sharlene to find out more…
The new MAD World Legal Summit: ‘we are at a crucial point where we need to turn the discussion about mental health into tangible action’
Elizabeth Rimmer is Chief Executive of LawCare, the mental health charity for the legal sector, which we are partnering with (along with MBC) to launch our inaugural Legal Industry Summit at MAD World.
In this interview she tells Suzy why the timing of the Summit is so important and what specific challenges face the legal industry which need to be addressed. She also shares which sessions in particular at this summit she is looking forward to.
The new MAD World Construction Summit: committing to improving mental health in a challenging sector
As well as adding a Legal Industry Summit, this year’s MAD World is hosting a Construction Summit, in partnership with charity Mates in Mind. Ahead of his appearance at the Summit, Suzy caught up with Tideway’s Director of Business Services and HSW, Steve Hails. He clearly outlines that there are certain characteristics of working in the construction industry that make mental health issues more of a risk. Hails, and other leading figures in the industry, are committing to addressing and overcoming these challenges, starting by sharing best practice at this summit where he is appearing on a panel.
IKEA: putting DEI at the heart of the business, inclusive retailing, training line managers, gender equality & more
Pernille Hagild has been the Global Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Lead for the Ingka Group (of which IKEA is a part) since December 2021, previously holding various HR roles across the business.
She is part of the opening keynote panel for MAD World’s DE&I Summit where she’ll be joined by Dr Patrick Ismond, Head of EDI, RSPCA, and Michelle Okwudiafor, Associate Director -Communications, S&P Global, to discuss delivering a meaningful DE&I agenda. Suzy caught up with Pernille, ahead of her appearance, to find out more…
The mental health crisis in Construction: ‘workers are pretending everything is fine when it’s really not’
Do you have preconceived and stereotypical ideas of what it means to work in construction, and who actually does? Fred Mills found, when he came into the industry, that his family and friends did, thinking of construction employees only as “people that work on sites or at a trades level”.
Suzy spoke to Fred to find out more, ahead of his appearance at MAD World’s Construction Summit. About why he set up construction media company B1M, where he thinks the construction industry is now regarding progress in Health and Wellbeing, and why he’s got a personal interest in this topic.
Channel 4 People Director: ‘My accident gives me a deep appreciation for people who are struggling with their Mental Health’
Channel 4’s People Director Kirstin Furber will be one of the esteemed panellists taking part in the opening keynote debate of the Leaders’ Summit at MAD World this year. Her resilience has had to go up a notch in recent months as she was unfortunately involved in a car accident, which saw her transition from the purchaser of wellbeing services to the user of them.
Typical of her optimistic outlook, she’s used this as an opportunity to analyse and improve the Channel 4 offering, as well as doing everything in her personal power to rehabilitate. Suzy caught up with Kirstin to find out more…
IOSH: ‘The role of an occupational safety and health professional is growing so much’
IOSH is the voice of the occupational health and safety profession, headed up by Vanessa Harwood-Whitcher, who is also part of the opening debate of the Leaders’ Summit at this year’s MAD World Festival. Suzy caught up with Vanessa ahead of her appearance to find out more about how she makes the case for institutional change to support employee health and wellbeing and the role of government in instigating corporate cultural change.
You can find out more about all the different elements of the MAD World Festival of Workplace Culture, Employee Health and Wellbeing here and register with a 50% discount using code MAD50 here.
Employers who are eligible to join the Make A Difference Leaders’ Club benefit from cost-price attendance of the Summit. You can find out more about the Leaders’ Club and apply to join here.
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