EMAG Members

EMAG members are volunteers from a range of backgrounds, including higher education, voluntary and community groups, training providers, faith groups and business.

EMAG is Chaired by Iqbal Wahhab, and following an open competition for new members, refreshed membership during 2010.

"The group is greatly encouraged that the coalition government wants to commit to improving work and business opportunities for ethnic minorities. We have strengthened our membership base and it is now more reflective of the Government's stated priorities. We hope to support their endeavours as effectively as possible." Iqbal Wahhab.

Iqbal Wahhab OBE - Roast Restaurant

Iqbal Wahhab was born in Bangladesh and came to Britain at the age of eight months. He was educated in London and is a graduate of the London School of Economics. After working as a journalist in the national press for three years, in 1991 he set up his own PR firm which specialised in food, drink and restaurants and then in 1994 he launched Tandoori Magazine.

He sold out of the magazine to launch the multi award winning Cinnamon Club in 2001 - a restaurant and bar aimed to change the way we view Indian dining. In 2003 he co-authored The Cinnamon Club Cookbook and in 2005 opened the highly successful Roast, a British restaurant and bar in Borough Market.

A series of new commercial projects are soon to be launched.

Chair, the Quilliam Foundation
Chair, The Mayor's Fund for London Business Club
Visiting Professor, London Metropolitan University Business School
Chair, Autograph ABP
Fellow, Royal Society of the Arts

Board Memberships:
Race for Opportunity - Business in the Community
The Mayor's Fund for London

Awards:
Businessman of the Year 2008, The Drinks Business
Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration, University of East London
Voted Restaurant Personality of the Year by Menu Magazine
Voted one of the Top 10 Restaurateurs in Britain in an Independent on Sunday survey
Retailer of the Year, Pig and Poultry Marketing awards 2009
Director of the Month January 2010, The Director magazine
Entrepreneur of the Year, Muslim News Awards 2010

Jeremy Crook OBE - Black Training and Enterprise Group (BTEG)

Jeremy is the Director of the Black Training and Enterprise Group, a national charity that works to improve education, skills and employment outcomes for black and minority ethnic communities. He has 25 years experience of promoting diversity and developing practical solutions in the public, private and third sectors.

Jeremy is the Vice Chair of EMAG, Equality Schemes Reference Group, Vice Chair of the national Learning and Skills Council's Equality and Diversity Committee, a non-executive board member of Greater London Enterprise and a member of the Specialist Assessment Committee for the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service.

www.bteg.co.uk

Tunde Banjoko OBE - Local Employment Access Projects (LEAP)

Tunde Banjoko is the founder and Chief Executive of Local Employment Access Projects (LEAP), an inspirational training and employment organisation based in London. LEAP is a Black and Minority Ethnic (BME)-led charity that has helped over 5000 unemployed people into employment and provided services for over 19,000 people and has been held as an example of good practice in a number of government and other publications. He was the lead designer of a career-planning and employability training programme that is being used by Skills Development Scotland, in schools and careers offices across Scotland.

Tunde brought the powerful STRIVE scheme to the UK, which is an empowerment programme that uses employment as the vehicle, and tackles some of the underlying reasons of why people cannot find and keep work. Tunde is a charismatic and convincing public speaker, who regularly gives presentations on leadership programmes for both London Business School and PwC. He is involved in mentoring Black young people and is passionate about race equality issues.

Tunde has an MSc in Urban Regeneration from UCL. He was recognised as a "Man of Merit", for community work, in September 2002 and in the same year received recognition from the Mayor of London for services to the city. Tunde was awarded an OBE in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours List and featured in the Independent on Sunday's 2009 Happy List and also the 2009 Powerlist of influential Black people in the UK. He is Chair of EMAG’s Procurement sub-group and is a Governor of Kensington & Chelsea College.

Elizabeth Henry - Race On The Agenda (ROTA)

Elizabeth is Chief Executive of ROTA, one of Britain's leading social policy ethnic minority think-tanks, which aims to increase the civic engagement of minority organisations and communities.

Compliance: policy to practice
Training: development and delivery and Training of Trainer programmes
Individual coaching/mentoring and support
Service delivery audits and assessment
Research and development
Community engagement and capacity building.

Elizabeth has worked with both public and private sector organisations in international, national, regional and local contexts, and in diverse settings.

Elizabeth previously worked for Enfield and Haringey Health Authority as Assistant Director/Public health specialist. She has also worked in Texas USA for Fort Bend Family Health Centre as Director of Public Health.

Elizabeth is also Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Selby Trust.

Timothy Campbell MBE - The Bright Ideas Trust

Timothy Campbell - The Bright Ideas Trust

Timothy Campbell is an entrepreneurial businessman who first became known by the British public after being crowned the winner of the hit BBC series The Apprentice and going on to become the first Project Director of the Health & Beauty division within Sir Alan Sugar's company, Amstrad PLC. Prior to working for Sir Alan, Tim had a very successful career with London Underground and progressed from a Graduate Trainee to a Senior Marketing Project Manager before applying for the high profile business programme. When he left Amstrad after two years to launch his own business, Sir Alan's message to Tim was testament to his ability and potential.

"He has been a great asset to the company and I wish him the best of luck for the future. He was the right choice and I will be there to offer any help and guidance should he need it."

Tim has gone on to found his own entrepreneurial social enterprise Bright Ideas Trust, a charitable organisation which encourages young budding entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds to start business ventures, by giving them greater access to start-up finance, real business mentors and professional services advisors. Bright Ideas Trust has already generated successful start-ups, much excitement and interest from Corporates and innovative young entrepreneurs alike.

Tim is well respected within the business community and has had the pleasure of speaking to several audiences across the country including Ernst & Young, Deutsche Bank, Accenture, Citibank, Department for Work & Pensions, NHS, Conservative Party, The Arts Council, Octopus Investments, NSPCC, J P Morgan, Learning & Skills Council and Morgan Stanley just to name a few. He has shown a talent and ability to actualise his ideas and plans and coupled with his positive outlook on life and what can be achieved by taking a 'no excuses' stance his inspirational messages are always well received and sought after.

Tim is fortunate enough to be asked to comment on a variety of topical matters and regularly appears on BBC television and in broadsheet newspapers including most recently the Financial Times. He is the face of the British Library's campaign to promote their services and has been described as 'the human face of business' by one broadsheet newspaper.

Tim has spent much time within various communities and institutions, promoting an entrepreneurial culture and motivating others, particularly the younger generation, to pursue their dreams. He is a Cabinet Office Social Enterprise Ambassador and a Child Ambassador for London and was appointed to focus on the particular problems of the capital's young people. Tim is also a great supporter of the Jack Petchey Foundation, the ACLT, as well as the NSPCC and Connexions and has received a number of awards including recently being named as one of the Young Guns by Growing Business and fittest entrepreneur by Men's Fitness!

Tim continues to follow his passions and believes that anything is possible with the right support and the right people.

Sandra Kerr OBE - National Director Race for Opportunity (BITC)

Sandra Kerr - National Director Race for Opportunity (BITC)

Sandra is the National Director for Race for Opportunity which is a business led network of organisations from the private and public sector working and committed to race equality as part of their business agenda. Sandra works together with the Race for Opportunity board and Champion organisations to set the agenda for race diversity in the UK as a business imperative.

Sandra strongly believes there is a key role for leaders to encourage business engagement and to promote best practice in recruitment and development of ethnic minority individuals, marketing to ethnic minority people as profitable customers, including diverse communities with responsible business action and including ethnic minority owned businesses in their supplier chains. Sandra is particularly passionate about raising the profile of senior role models from diverse backgrounds to inspire the next generation and create an inclusive environment through group and one-to-one mentoring.

Before joining Race for Opportunity Sandra worked in the Cabinet Office advising Ministers on diversity and inclusion best practice and policy development on race, disability, gender, and work life balance across Whitehall. Sandra has also managed very large teams in a frontline delivery role in DWP and also spent some years as a personal development and IT skills trainer.

Sandra currently sits on the independent Ethnic Minority Advisory Group which advises the government on closing the ethnic minority employment gap. Key pieces of research reports from Race for Opportunity include Race to the Top looking at ethnic minorities and leadership in the UK, Race into Higher Education, Race and the Professions - Aspiration and Frustration and Race to the Future.

Wilf Sullivan - Trade Union Congress (TUC)

Wilf Sullivan has worked for the TUC since December 2004, when he was appointed as TUC Race Equality Officer.

He worked in Local Government with young people involved with the criminal justice system for ten years and subsequently as a Principal Personnel Officer dealing with recruitment and equal opportunities monitoring.

As a lay trade unionist, Wilf held membership of NALGO (now UNISON), holding a range of posts including shop steward, social services convenor, branch secretary, negotiating committee chair, and branch president.

He was appointed by NALGO (now UNISON) as a Regional full-time officer in 1990 and worked for ten years organising and representing members in health, local government and higher education. He worked as UNISON's National Black Members Officer from 2000 before moving to the TUC as the Race Equality Policy Officer.

He is active on race equality policy matters both inside and outside of the trade union movement is currently Vice-Chair of the UK Race and Europe Network, is a co-opted Executive Board member of the European Network Against Racism and sits on a number of race equality research academic advisory boards.

www.tuc.org.uk/equality

Collette Cork-Hurst - UNITE the Union

Collette Cork-Hurst is the National Officer for Equalities in Unite the Union, advising and assisting officers, union representatives, members, staff and the union's Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority Committees on all areas of race equality.

Specifically, she has been working on negotiating to tackle racism and promote race equality in the workplace; training others on Race Awareness/meeting the needs of black, Asian & ethnic minority workers and increasing the participation and involvement of black, Asian & ethnic minority members. She has spearheaded the Unite Race Forward Campaign, a 5-point action plan on 8 key race equality priorities at work, including reducing the employment and pay gap, supporting career progression and challenging racial bullying, harassment and discrimination.

She is currently an elected member of the TUC Race Relations Committee and has attended TUC Black Workers Conference as a delegate since 1995 and chaired this conference in 2010. She has been an active member of the trade union and labour movement since 1983 and has worked on Race Equality in Unite the union for 16 years.

Alan Christie - Equality and Human Rights Commission

Alan Christie is Director of Policy at the Equality and Human Rights Commission with a special focus on the private sector. He leads policy development in the areas of education, employment, enterprise and economic inclusion. His remit covers topics such as equal pay, poverty, education and skills, social mobility, workplace integration, procurement, supplier diversity and regeneration.

Alan joined the Commission from one of its predecessor bodies, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), where he was Director of Private Sector Policy. His responsibilities included promotion of their employment code of practice, developing work on supplier diversity and public sector procurement.

He is Senior Stakeholder Relationship Manager for Race at EHRC in which he acts as the internal champion and, along with the Commission's Stakeholder Relations team, is a key contact for stakeholder organisations.

He is a member of the Ethnic Minority Employment Task Force, the Minority Ethnic Enterprise Centre of Excellence and Runnymede 360.

Previously Alan was the Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Levi Strauss Europe, Middle East and Africa, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA)

Anthony Heath, FBA - Oxford University

Anthony is Professor of Sociology at the University of Oxford but will shortly be moving to take up a chair at the Institute for Social Change at the University of Manchester. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1992.

For most of his 40-year academic career Anthony has been researching social inequality, focussing on class, ethnic and gender inequalities in education, the labour market, and in terms of social mobility and political integration. He recently led, with Sin-Yi Cheung, a major cross-national study of ethnic inequalities in the labour market published as Unequal Chances: Ethnic Inequalities in Western Labour Markets (OUP 2007). Other books that he has co-authored or co-edited include Origins and Destinations (OUP 1980), Social Mobility (Fontana, 1981), How Britain Votes (Pergamon 1985), Social Research and Social Reform (1992), The Rise of New Labour (OUP, 2001), Understanding Social Change (OUP, 2005), and Diversity and Change in Modern India (OUP 2010).

Current projects include a national survey of ethnic minority political integration (funded by the ESRC), a study of ethno-religious diversity and social cohesion (funded by the Leverhulme Trust), and a comparative study comparing ethnic inequalities in education in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden (funded by Norface). He is also completing a project (with Christopher McCrudden, Heather Hamill and Raya Muttarak) assessing the affirmative action programme in Northern Ireland (funded by the Nuffield Foundation).

In addition to academic research, Anthony has been keen to get out of the ivory tower and engage with policy-makers. He has carried out research (with various energetic colleagues) for the Cabinet Office report 'Ethnic Minorities and the Labour Market' (2003), for the DWP on 'Ethnic penalties in the labour market: employers and discrimination' (2006), for the DCLG on 'Predicting community cohesion' (2008), for the EHRC on 'Group inequalities in education, employment and earnings' (2008), for Lords Goldsmith's Citizenship Review on 'British identity' (2008), for the National Employment Panel on 'Measuring the size of the employer contribution to the ethnic minority employment gap' (2008), for OECD on 'The labour market integration of the children of immigrants' (2010), and for UNDP in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the development of social capital 'The Ties that Bind', National Human Development Report for Bosnia and Herzegovina (2009). He has also given presentations to OECD and to the European Commission on ethnic inequalities.

Anthony has served on EMAG since 2008 and was part of the team that drafted the report on the use of procurement to help achieve equality objectives. He is also a member of the GEO's 'equality in procurement Trailblazer group' and feels privileged to work with practitioners and policy-makers on helping to promote equality.

Cecil Edey - Orvia

Cecil is Chief Executive of Orvia (previously Business Venture Group), an enterprise agency delivering a range of business support and related property services to new and established businesses across the North West including ethnic minority businesses.

Prior to joining Business Venture Group, Cecil was Head of Enterprise at the Manchester City Region's Economic Development Agency: the Commission for the New Economy, where he was responsible for developing and implementing enterprise policy and strategy and related programmes. In addition, Cecil had lead responsibility for developing the city region's strategic framework for addressing key ethnic minority enterprise, skills and employment issues.

In addition to his work in economic development, Cecil has substantial experience of working as an independent adviser to a range of regional and national organisations across the UK on organisational performance and development aimed at improving employment opportunities and services for ethnic minorities.

www.orvia.co.uk

Omar Khan - Runnymede Trust

Omar Khan is the Head of Policy Research for Runnymede's programme on financial inclusion. He is the author of Financial Inclusion and Ethnicity (2008), Who Pays to Access Cash? (2009), Why Do Assets Matter? (2010), The Costs of ' Returning Home' (2010), and a report on savings (forthcoming). His research is read and cited by parliamentarians, the Financial Inclusion Task Force, the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions.

Omar has also published many articles and reports on political theory and British political history for Runnymede over the past eight years and has spoken on topics including multiculturalism, integration, socio-economic disadvantage, and positive action. These include giving evidence to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, academic conferences in Manchester, Oxford, Paris, and Warsaw, the CRE Race Convention, the Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights, a Treasury/DFID conference on remittances, St George's House (Windsor Castle), Wilton Park, and many other engagements in the UK and Europe. He has also spoken at the UN High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva, as an 'expert' to the 3rd Forum on Minority Issues.

Omar completed his DPhil in Political Theory from the University of Oxford, a Masters in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Masters in South Asian Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies.

In addition to sitting on EMAG, Omar is a trustee at Olmec (a social enterprise), and sits on advisory boards for the 2011 Census, the Household Longitudinal Survey, the Electoral Reform Society, and is the UK representative on the European Commission's Socio-economic network of experts.

Terry Harding - MENTER

Terry Harding has been Head of Policy and Enterprise at MENTER (the Black and minority ethnic network for the East of England) since June 2008. He leads a regional project 'Ending BME Economic Inequality' that is funded by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA).

His role has been created to advocate for and influence change among policy makers and service providers delivering skills, employment and enterprise services to BME people. He chairs a 'Core Group' of representatives from Strategic Regional Bodies (GO East, East of England Development Agency, East of England Local Government Association (EELGA), East of England Skills and Competitiveness Partnership (EESCP), East of England Business Group and MENTER) to provide strategic direction for the work. He is also currently involved in setting up a trading arm at MENTER to bid for contract work in training, apprenticeships, work with excluded groups such as BME ex offenders, evaluations and equality assessments.

He leads a Regional BME Forum bringing together key agencies such as EEDA, JobCentre+, Next Step and EEIDP Ltd (delivering Businesslink services) together with Local Authorities, Enterprise Agencies, Learning Partnerships, Contractors and the VCS to discuss and address solutions to BME issues. A notable success has been influencing the regional Business Support Strategy to include a higher profile for supporting BME business.

Generally, Terry has 24 years senior management experience in the public sector, 16 in leisure management at Director/Assistant Director in England and Scotland. For the last 12 years he has worked in the voluntary and community sector and as a self employed consultant. Examples of his work include the Regional Meta Plan for the third sector in the East of England and an assessment of sub sectors' work and inclusion in the regional third sector.

James Lee - Greater London Authority

James Lee is Senior Policy Officer, Immigration and Asylum, at the Greater London Authority (GLA) supporting the integration of refugees and other migrants in London. His specialist areas are employment and skills, including English language, and health access.

Before starting at the GLA, he had a national role as the Refugee Council's policy adviser for employment and training. James has substantial policy knowledge at both UK and European levels. He is also an experienced public speaker, media contributor and trainer.

James trained as a teacher in further education working in the UK and overseas. He has degrees from the universities of York and East Anglia and a PGCE from Nottingham Trent. He is also a trustee of the Ruth Hayman Trust.

www.london.gov.uk/refugees-and-migrants

Mohammed Ali OBE - QED

Mohammed Ali was born in Pakistan and came to live in Bradford at the age of 13. He studied at Huddersfield Polytechnic and Bradford University School of Management. He worked for ten years with Glaxo, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, Sheffield City Council, Bradford Community Relations Council and Fullemploy.

He is founder and chief executive of QED-UK- minority ethnic community economic development agency set up in 1990: he has experience of working with diverse communities throughout the UK and participated in seminars in Europe, Canada and Asia on ethnic minority issues. He won Professor Handy's Alchemist Award, an honorary doctorate from Bradford University, an OBE in 2001 and was a finalist in the Personality of the Year, Lifetime Achievement and Principal of the Year categories of the UK Charity Awards.

He is a member of the Ethnic Minority Advisory Group; Bradford and Airedale PCT; ACEVO North Advisory Board; Personalisation Commission; Home Office Earned Citizenship Strategic Advisory Group; European Integration Forum; Appointments Commissions Equality and Diversity Forum; Economic and Social Research Council Peer Review College and Third Sector Consortium Board Member. He has held many other appointments in the past 20 years including West Yorkshire Learning and Skills Council, National Consumer Council Advisory Group, Bradford University Council, Bradford School of Management, Institute Of Directors (Yorkshire Region) and the BBC Northern Region Forum.

Abdul Hamied - Interim Head of Regeneration Rochdale MBC

Abdul is currently interim Head of Regeneration within Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council. He had held a number of positions within Rochdale Council including LSP Director, Regeneration & Renewal Manager and General Manager of the Economic & Regeneration Partnerships. Through these roles he had lead on the Borough's Local Strategic Partnership, the Community Strategy, Local Area Agreement, Neighbourhood Renewal strategy and a range of economic and area-based regeneration programmes and partnerships.

He is also a Local Improvement Advisor, as part of CLG, for Employment/Worklessness, Stronger Communities and Performance Management.

Prior to joining Rochdale Council he has held a range of senior positions within North Liverpool Partnership, Blackburn City Challenge and Kashmir Youth Project (Rochdale).

Abdul is also a member of Home Housing Associations Equality & Diversity Advisory group and a non-executive director of Heywood Middleton & Rochdale Primary Care Trust. He has previously been a board member of the Greater Manchester and North West Learning & Skills Councils, Heywood New Heart Community Transport, Kashmir Youth Project, Nashayman Housing and has been a founding member/advisor to the NW Ethnic Minority Business Forum Board.

Hugh Harris CBE - London First

Consultant, London First.

Hugh Harris is formerly Associate Director, Bank of England 1988-94. He has also served as Commissioner/Deputy Chairman/ Acting Chairman, Commission for Racial Equality 1995-2000; Advisory Committee, Windsor Fellowship; Council member, London Civic Forum. He was also a member of the Business Leaders Advisory Group, Diversity Works for London, London Development Agency (LDA)

He is currently a member of the London Living Wage Advisory Committee; the London Strategic Migration Partnership Board and a Board member of Newham College of Further Education.

www.londonfirst.co.uk

Sahara Quli LLB - KnowHow

Sahara Quli LLB is the former CEO of KnowHow NonProfit, a Big Lottery Funded project based at Cass Business School. She is a senior executive with significant project management experience spanning the corporate and voluntary sector. Presently an acting consultant to the charity sector, her current projects include the delivery of an online Big Society driven portal. Astute at managing multi-million pound programmes, she successfully launched an e-learning and online community platform for the non profit sector in 2008, accessed by over a million users per annum. Her areas of expertise are the development of financially sustainable online collaborative platforms, and the management of staff and consultants to deliver targets within specified timeframes. Driven by making a difference, she transferred her skills to the voluntary sector, and her appointment to this taskforce represents a passion to address the challenges BME communities face, in education and the workplace.

Noor Ali - Asda (Buyer Ethnic Category Selector Emerging Markets)

Noor Ali was born and educated in Leeds, married, with two children.

Noor works as an Ethnic Buyer for ASDA - which involves sourcing ethnic products (food and non food) and developing the growing ethnic supplier base, thus meeting the needs of ASDA's ethnic customers and communities. Noor has developed new product ideas and brands working in collaboration with many suppliers. Prior to this role in ASDA, Noor has also had roles wtihin HR, marketing and merchandising. Noor also sits on the ASDA Diversity Forum, supporting and driving the diversity agenda.

ASDA leads the way on Ethnic Ranging and continues to be first for innovation. Through the work done, ASDA have successfully achieved Race For Opportunity Awards for ranging and supplier development, two years running 2007 and 2008, including achieving the World Foods Awards in 2009. This has involved Noor doing public presentations to employers on the award winning ranges. ASDA have also won an RfO Award in 2010, for the new ethnic non food range which Noor has developed, introducing new products and new suppliers within this market. Noor has also featured in BBC1 'High Street Dreams' in May 2010.

Noor is a Mentor Circle Leader within the Race to the Top mentoring programme for BAME Women and supports women from both private and public sector organisations.

Noor has a strong passion to develop individuals and businesses whether this is through advice, coaching or mentoring. Noor believes in sharing her culture, knowledge and experience wherever possible.

Other commitments include:

Member of EMAG
Race for Opportunity Mentor Leader
Mentor for the Mosaic Group - mentoring young BAME students.

Kate Wareing - Oxfam's UK Poverty Programme

Kate Wareing is Director of Oxfam’s UK Poverty Programme, which works to end poverty in the UK.

Established in 1996, the programme uses community development and campaigning to work with poor communities to overcome poverty. It also works to change the public policies and structures that cause severe deprivation. Oxfam’s work in the UK is focused on ensuring that everyone has a secure income that gives them enough money to live on. We also tackle the discrimination that makes women and ethnic minority groups more vulnerable to poverty. We believe that poor people have a right to be heard in decision making processes that will impact them, and a right to be treated with respect within society rather than being stigmatised because of their poverty.

Before joining Oxfam in 2007, Kate spent over ten years working in Social Housing and Social Care. She has held posts in both the statutory and not for profit sectors with roles including managing housing services, establishing homelessness and domestic violence services, and commissioning services for vulnerable people in Oxfordshire. Under her leadership the Supporting People programme for Oxfordshire was awarded Beacon Council status in recognition of its success in establishing innovative joint commissioning structures across health, housing, and local government organisations across the county.

Kate gained her degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Wadham College, Oxford University. She also holds a post-graduate qualification in Housing Management from Oxford Brookes University and is a corporate member of the Chartered Institute of Housing. Kate is a member of the Department of Work and Pensions’ Social Inclusion Advisory Group; is vice chair of the Get Fair coalition of anti-poverty charities and, in her private capacity, is vice chair of Cottsway Housing Association in West Oxfordshire.

A respected contributor to public and media debates, Kate frequently comments on social policy issues that impact on the lives of the poorest in the UK. Recently, she has focused on welfare reform, housing policy, stigmatisation and public attitudes, the enforcement of labour rights, and equalities issues.

Gurbux Singh - Contract Director Serco

Gurbux has led the successful implementation and delivery of Serco’s Flexible New Deal contract in Greater Manchester. He has been a senior executive in the public sector for over 30 years.

His previous roles include Chief Executive of Haringey Council and Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE). As Chairman of the CRE, he was particularly concerned with tackling labour market discrimination.

Arun Batra - Ernst & Young LLP

Arun Batra joined the advisory function of Ernst & Young in June 2011 to lead a major national private sector equality initiative having spent 7 years at the London Development Agency as the Director of Equality and Diversity. Before joining the LDA, Arun was employed by the Home Office where he was responsible for ensuring that the Criminal Justice Group considered diversity issues throughout its core business. Among his responsibilities, he contributed to the production of recent equalities legislation, produced several high profile Ministerial speeches, formulated the National Criminal Justice Race Forum and led the equality agenda across the country to all local Criminal Justice Boards.

Arun, in his last 3 positions, has overseen 100% improvement across all areas of equality monitoring, negotiated major equality requirements into national contracts, directed the LDA to reach Level 5 of the Equality Standard for Local Government, which placed them in the top one percent of equality performers, has initiated some of ground breaking national initiatives, led equality programmes for both London Mayors and subsumed responsibility for Diversity works for London which under his leadership grew to 4,500 registered users and had the engagement of the majority of FTSE 100 companies.

Arun is keen to ensure he combines his legal background, knowledge and commitment to ensure diversity rhetoric is transferred into a meaningful difference to people’s lives.

Angela Dale – Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research

Angela Dale is Professor Emeritus at the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research (CCSR) at the University of Manchester. She became CCSR’s founding director in 1995 and was Director of the ESRC Research Methods Programme from 2002-7. She has a long-standing commitment to promoting and enhancing access and use of census and survey data. She is an Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences (AcSS) and was awarded an OBE for services to social science in 2006. Her research has focussed on women's employment, with particular respect to ethnic differences and strategies for combining work and family life; change between generations; and the role of qualifications, particularly higher qualifications, in women's facilitating economic activity and protecting against unemployment. In 2009 she initiated a new methods hub at the University of Manchester – methods@manchester (www.methods.manchester.ac.uk).

Zamila Bunglawala – Brookings Institute

Zamila Bunglawala is a Non-Resident Fellow of the Brookings Institute leading a Middle East labour market project and a Director in charge of strategy and projects for Bridge International Dialogue, a UK international relations and active demos charity.

Prior to joining Brookings, Zamila held a variety of public sector strategic policy and programme roles including in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office, Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice. Zamila has also worked for the United Nations and World Bank in Sudan and Nepal. Her experience covers a wide range of policy areas, including ethnic and faith minority employment, social inclusion and poverty, immigration, conflicts and innovation policy. Her strategic policy analysis has pioneered a specific focus on second generation British Muslims providing greater understanding of the labour market realities for this religious minority group. Her policy recommendations been adopted in party political manifestos as well as by Ministers and central and regional government departments, and by private sector organisations.

Zamila is an experienced international public policy speaker and has published several government and UN reports, and press articles, including for the World Bank, Open Society Foundation and the Young Foundation.

Zamila is also a Fellow of the Young Foundation and a mentor for their UpRising programme, a Muslim Leader of Tomorrow with the American organisation ASMA, Policy Adviser to Manchester University and a Trustee of Queen Mary Student’s Union, University of London.

Yvonne MacNamara

Yvonne has worked within the voluntary and community sector on a wide range of issues concerning Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities and has over twenty year’s experience. Most of her time has been spent working within in the field of Race Equality, Criminal Justice, Capacity Building and Community Development. She is a well seasoned campaigner with numerous success stories under her belt. A number of the projects she has worked on or managed have been award winning, these include the Liberty Human Rights Award 2004, Irish Youth Foundation 2003, All Party Parliamentary Group on Maternity Care 2011.

She was one of the founding members of the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain (ITMB). A leading national policy and voice charity, working to raise the capacity and social inclusion of the Traveller communities in Britain ITMB act as a bridge builder bringing the Traveller communities, service providers and policy makers together, thereby stimulating debate and promoting forward-looking strategies to promote increased race equality, civic engagement, inclusion, service provision and community cohesion. Yvonne joined the staff team of ITMB in 2008. Since joining she has developed a number of successful training and education programmes aimed at affording opportunities for social and economic inclusion of the Gypsy and Traveller communities.

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