Officers
Lee Barron MP (Labour, Chair)
Lee Barron is the Labour MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire, and has been an MP continually since 4 July 2024. Barron is a former Northampton borough councillor and during this time was leader of the Labour group.
Joe Robertson (Conservative)
Joe Robertson is the Conservative MP for Isle of Wight East, and has been an MP continually since 4 July 2024.
Bambos Charalambous (Labour)
Bambos Charalambous is the Labour MP for Southgate and Wood Green, and has been an MP continually since 8 June 2017.
Lord Lucas (Conservative)
Lord Lucas’s full title is The Lord Lucas. He is a current member of the House of Lords and remains an active backbencher, taking interest in education, employment, planning and finance.
Members
Juliet Campbell, Labour
Lord Thurso The Rt Hon. the Viscount Thurso Liberal Democrat
Michelle Welsh, Labour
Baroness Pidding, The Baroness Pidding CBE Conservative
Jon Trickett Labour
Alex Sobel Labour
Navendu Mishra Labour
Lord Bellingham Conservative
Daisy Cooper Liberal Democrat
Baroness Stedman-Scott Conservative
John McDonnell, Labour
Lord Sharpe of Epsom, Conservative
Damian Hinds, Conservative
Baroness Fulbrook, Conservative
Johanna Baxter, Labour
Michelle Welsh, Labour
Secretariat
Andrew Henderson (Secretariat)
Andrew Henderson is the secretariat for this APPG, along with a number of others covering a range of subjects. Andrew co-owns Wychwood Consulting Ltd which is funded by the Better Hiring Institute to provide the Secretariat service. Andrew has been working with software for the HR sector since 2011 as well as looking at innovative ways to improve issues around hiring and employment.
Keith Rosser (Officer)
Founded and built Reed Screening, one of the UK’s largest employee screening businesses. Non-Executive Board Member with a UK Home Office body and Scottish Government agency. Received a Home Office Commendation Award in 2016 for services to recruitment and was recognised as a Community Leader at Buckingham Palace in 2018. Chair of various trade bodies, the Better Hiring Institute, and JobsAware, a Met Police founded charity tackling labour market issues. In 2023 became an Honorary Fellow of Lancaster University for services to the labour market.
Expert Panel
Kathryn Herrington
Kathryn is an international CPO/CHRO with over 25 years’ experience in financial services and technology. Partnering with CEO’s, Boards and Executive teams in international, complex businesses in both public (NYSE, FTSE, DAX) and private markets, she has a track record in driving organizational transformation, talent strategy, cultural re-engineering and leadership development in both 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 who delivers Retail, Contact Centre, Field Engineers and Early Careers recruitment across BT Groups Brands (EE, Plusnet, Business and Openreach). Matthew has been working in Telecoms since 2015 since joining Plusnet 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
I have been working in the recruitment industry for almost 20 years. Having spent the 1st half of my career working for leading recruitment agencies and then transitioning in-house over the last decade I have seen how recruitment operates on both sides of the spectrum. I’m humbled to have worked for some of the most incredible global hi-tech companies as well as supporting McDonald’s on their digital CEO’s on their journey to build a strong leadership learn around them.
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, which is in excess of 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 200k FTE over the last 16 years in the recruitment industry, prior to which she led various change and transformation projects in Financial Services. She is passionate about equality, equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging and champions creating safe spaces to have difficult conversations at work.
Martin Poole
With nearly 20 years of experience in the recruitment arena, I’m a seasoned Talent Acquisition Leader specialising in scaling teams and driving attraction, assessment, and process efficiency strategies across a diverse range of industries. I spent nearly 15 years recruiting for management consultancies, such as Deloitte and BJSS, before making the move into the Start-Up/Scale-Up space, helping to scale companies such as BitPanda, Onfido, sennder and more recently in my current role as Head of Talent Acquisition at Pod Point, leading the “EVolution” of Electric Vehicle charging!I’m a people leader and change agent, who loves developing people and shaping Recruitment initiatives.
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 a variety of sectors including construction and engineering, financial services, law and management consulting.
Misti’s 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 Buro Happold, and Hyder Consulting plc (both head quartered in the UK), and previously, with leading organisations in Australia and New Zealand.
David R Blackburn
David R. Blackburn is one of the most awarded HR professionals working in the UK today, a recognised thought leader within his profession, he regularly contributes to articles, podcasts, 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 Barnet 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. Before joining Paragon, Anne’s HR career spanned several industries in the private sector. During this time Anne has become known for her commercial approach as a people expert, leading the people and cultural strategy for organisations, With a passion for sustainability and diversity. Anne represents Paragon in the Women Ahead cross company mentoring programme and as a founding member of Progress Together, focusing on progression and retention of a socio-economically diverse workforce at senior levels across financial services.
Catherine Douglas
Catherine Douglas has over 20 years of experience in banking having held Exec 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. This is alongside responsibility for the Bank’s delivery of ESG commitments. Catherine is actively involved in the Diversity and Inclusion agenda and is a keen advocate for the co-operative movement. Catherine is also a board member of Bankifi.
Robert Richardson
Robert Richardson FIH MI is the Chief Executive Officer of the award-winning Institute of Hospitality (IoH), the world’s largest professional body of almost 16,000 hospitality professionals worldwide, and a registered charity. IoH is dedicated to driving the 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 (inc Business Link) concentration on business support and representation. Martin is a former Member of HMG’s Regulatory Policy Committee and has just 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 she was previous the global head of Executive Talent at HSBC. Kerry partners with CEO’s, Boards and Executive teams and specialises in talent strategy, resourcing, exec development and transformational change in both growth and regulated environments.
Teresa Boughey
Teresa Boughey is a renowned 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 successfully driven organisational change across diverse sectors serves. Teresa serves as an NHS Non-Executive Director and is an Advisory Board member at Royal Holloway University, International School of Business and Management, and is a UK Ambassador for UN Women. Recognised as one of the Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs, Teresa’s influential work includes her highly commended book “Closing the Gap – 5 Steps to Creating an Inclusive Culture.” She regularly contributes to media outlets and advises on policy through her role as a Business Board member of All-Party Parliamentary Group for Women in Enterprise where she is Chair of the ESG Workstream.
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 – 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 ERSC-funded Renewing Work Advisory Group of Experts (ReWAGE) tasked with helping the UK Government build back better jobs post Covid. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and an Associate Research Fellow of SKOPE at the University of Oxford. He has published 18 books, including the Oxford Handbook of Job Quality (Oxford University Press, 2022) and the Oxford Handbook of Skills & Training (Oxford University Press, 2017).
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.