The session will be hosted by Woosh Raza, our CIPD Central London branch Co-Chair and Head of People & Culture at Phoenix Futures, who will be joined by a panel of passionate speakers to delve into intersectionality and all things LGBTQ+.

Speakers:

Woosh Raza, Head of People & Culture, Phoenix Futures

Woosh Raza is a prolific campaigner who has developed his HR career in health and social care, in a mixture of public, private and 3rd sector settings. Woosh is a well established Senior HR and L&D Profesisonal, having headed up HR, L&D OD and Talent Teams across a number of different national settings.

Currently, Woosh is the Head of People & Culture for Phoenix Futures, a not for profit organisation whose sole purpose is dedicated to helping individuals, families and communities recover from drug and alcohol problems. Woosh has a proven track record in transformational HR, supporting organisations in shifting their approach to a more agile, authentic and integrated service delivery model.

Woosh is an expert on and passionate about Equality, Diversity & Inclusion identifying himself as both a person of colour and a member of the LGBT+ community, and brings this intersectionality and his lived experience to design meaningful initiatives

He tirelessly supports initiatives to dismantle racism in the corporate world, and is a firm believer in ‘Authentic HR’. Woosh co-created the CIPD Central London ‘Why’ series encouraging HR professionals to play a more authentic role in dismantling racism, which received widescale momentum across the HR community.

Woosh is a chartered member of the CIPD, currently co-chairs the Central London CIPD Committee and is also part of Stonewall’s BAME Leadership Alumni.

Hirila Rose, Head of Service, Certitude

Hirila Rose, is the the eldest of 5 born and raised in South London coming from a proud black Nigerian background.

Hirila works for Certitude as the Head of Service providing accommodation and community services support to individuals with severe and enduring mental health support needs. Hirila developed her career as a deputy manager, and now oversees all mental health service for her organisation in 4 boroughs.

Certitude is the longest organisation that Hirila has worked for because the organisations values sit with her own personal values. ‘We believe that everyone is unique and have a right to a good life’.

Hirila lives in Peckham, and truly enjoys travelling and trying new things, eating out and contributing to a creative process, especially if the result is to make someone create good memories.

And she LOVEs random acts of kindness. Hirila describes herself as a brave assertive black woman who calls a spade a spade.

Emma Palmer, Founder & Director of Culture & Connect

Having worked at Stonewall, Sainsbury’s the NHS and Chance to Shine, Emma is an experienced diversity and inclusion specialist with a particular focus on LGBTQ inclusion and race equity.

Emma has used her expertise to strategically support public, private and third sector organisations, nationally and globally, on their diversity and inclusion practices, as well as crime prevention planning in her role at Sainsbury’s. Emma served as a Police Officer within the Metropolitan Police Service, and after 8 very successful years, left in 2015.

Emma is also director of Culture and Connect a company she recently founded to support workplaces on their diversity and inclusion practices. She is also a Trustee at LGBTQ Young Persons’ Trust, Mosaic.

Emma is passionate about diversity and inclusion and the power of storytelling to move hearts and minds and believes that everyone has a role to play in creating social change.

Kwamina Hagan, Finance Manager, R3

Kwamina is a passionate young individual who has carved a budding career in Finance and is a driven member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

Drawing on experience in industries such as fashion retail and digital marketing, Kwamina now works as Finance manager for a fast-growing Fintech firm, where he is has been instrumental in developing the finance function and promoting the company’s progressive and ‘can-do’ mindset across the very new ‘Distributed Ledger’ technology space (Blockchain!). Kwamina has established himself as an integral and dependable part of R3’s finance division and culture as a whole and is well regarded as a result.

As an active member of R3’s D&I committee Kwamina is committed to endorsing continual learning, personal growth and conducting healthy conversations surrounding key issues such as race, equality and mental health in the workplace. Kwamina takes pride in sharing his experiences as a black male navigating the professional landscape, while also being a member of the LGBT+ community and strives to ‘do-better’ professionally, personally and by impacting positively those around him.

Kwamina is excited to be a part of such an important initiative

Timings:

10:00 - Start of the session

11:30 - Closing

Please note:

1. Webinar joining instructions will be sent to you 2 days before the event (with further reminders 2 hours prior to the session and 20mins prior to the session).
2. The webinar will start at 10:00 and run for about 90 minutes.
3. We will record the webinar and will share will people afterwards. We will be using the recording to upload it to CIPD channels.
4. The chat function will be used for participants to engage with the webinar, rather than audio and video, so just be mindful of the login name you use and ensure you are happy for other people to see this.
5. Professional photography and video production may be taking place at the event, and these images and videos may be used on future promotional materials for CIPD.
6. By attending the event, you are giving your consent for your image to be used on any CIPD promotional materials.
7. For security reasons, it is requested that participants join the live session 10 minutes prior to the scheduled start time and with the same name as registered on Eventbrite as not doing so may cause a delay or non-admittance to the event.