Meet the Judges

: Darren has been a Talent Acquisition Leadership for over 10 years; working initially for an agency then exec search with a UK focus before moving into more global remits then transferring to in-house recruitment. Experienced in highly specialised recruitment as well as high volume environments across a wide variety of sectors; ranging from hospitality to healthcare to tech to transportation. Darren is heavily focussed and experienced on the candidate & hiring manager journey (probably from his pre- recruitment career in hospitality) while enjoying a continuous learning journey; more recently from educational qualifications in the ED&I & social media marketing areas.

: Analyst, influencer, author and podcaster on HR, Talent and WorkTech trends Mervyn Dinnen is an analyst, influencer, author and podcaster on HR, Talent and WorkTech trends. Based in London, UK, he is host of the HR Means Business podcast, and partners with HR and Recruitment technology businesses to create thought leadership reports that document the emerging trends impacting the hiring, retention, development and engagement of talent.He is an International Keynote Speaker and for the last four years has been recognised as a Top 100 Global Influencer in HR Technology. His second co-authored book, Digital Talent, was published in March 2022.

: Chris is a midlands based recruitment leader, currently leading Talent Acquisition for Audit at PWC UK. Previous experience in Professional Services, Banking and RPO. Interested in driving change through better business collaboration, technology and effective teaming. Passionate about candidate experience, brand and purpose.

: Jane is a disabled social entrepreneur, TEDx Speaker and author. She founded the award-winning social enterprise Evenbreak in 2011. Widely published in inclusive recruitment, including “A Dozen Brilliant Reasons to Employ Disabled People” (2017) and “A Dozen Great Ways to Recruit Disabled People” (2020), she is on the executive board of the Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative, a Patron of Arkbound Foundation and a Trustee of Action on Disability and Development International. Winning a number of inclusion awards, she was 7^th on the Shaw Trust Power 100 ‘Britain’s Most Influential Disabled People’ list in 2019

: Maria is a recruiter with over 25 years of experience, starting as an agency recruiter before moving in-house. Having worked in a variety of industry sectors, including public sector, not for profit and the private sector, Maria has now come to the charity sector as the Talent and Resourcing Manager for Nacro.

: Tara is a recruitment strategist, leader and talent developer, with specialist knowledge in talent sourcing, recruitment marketing and the development of high-performance teams. Tara has managed internal talent teams for organisations in excess of 20,000 employees, both in the private and public sectors. Tara holds an MA in Business Management from Henley Business School and is a member of the CIPD, she lives in a village in Oxfordshire with her partner, son and dogs.

: With over ten years’ experience in recruitment, Sam leads a team of recruitment and immigration specialists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, a world leader in genome research which attracts candidates from all over the globe. Under Sam’s direction the team is responsible for all hiring activity across the Institute from apprentices to senior faculty and they direct source over 95% of all hires.

: Phil leads the design of the Civil Service Graduate Fast Stream assessment process along with the diversity and inclusion strategy for Fast Stream and Early Talent. He also oversees the multi-award winning Summer Diversity Internship Programme, Early Diversity Internship Programme, Autism Exchange Internship Programme and other positive action and outreach activities. Prior to this role he was Head of Occupational Psychology at the London Fire Brigade, as well as Acting Head of Occupational Psychology for Greater Manchester Police and has operated as a consultant for a range of industries. He has presented at numerous professional conferences, and sits on a variety of advisory boards and chaired national committees.

: Guy Franklin is a talent acquisition professional with a passion for people and technology. I get a kick out of building/leading teams and growing cutting edge, forward thinking, businesses. I have built and honed my skills within global businesses such as SAS and Dyson as well as smaller, startup/scale-up, environments including AI chip firm Graphcore. Currently I am Head of TA for the BBC across Tech, Product & Corporate functions.