Judges

Catherine Adenle

Senior director, employer brand, ELSEVIER

Catherine Adenle is the Senior director Employer Brand at Elsevier, a global leader in information and analytics helping researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes. Catherine leads the company’s employer brand agenda to drive and expand external awareness, employer reputation, consideration and preference. At Elsevier, she built an award-winning advocacy program, implemented the employer brand social media strategy and function by evolving the employer brand identity. With a following on Twitter and LinkedIn, she’s cited as one of the top 20 AI Influencers, Top 50 Influencers for WIT and Top 100 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers to follow.

Reinold Aryee

Employer brand, social and content lead, Holland and Barrett

Simon Barrow

Creator of the Employer Brand Concept

Simon Barrow, Creator of the Employer Brand – bringing the best of brand management to people at work ie research, planning, innovation, coherence, influence, communication and measurement of the employee experience and its reputation.

Simon’s thinking was triggered when his Product Brand Management experience with Knorr (now owned by Unilever) and then Colgate-Palmolive came face to face with his later role as a senior line manager. While the term ”Employer Brand” gets over 6m Google results and EB roles are widespread, he believes that the current multiple challenges facing the management of people mean that the EB role must match the long standing influence of product brand management and be the same springboard to senior management.

Simon was Founder and Chairman of the employer brand consultancy People in Business (PiB) which he sold to a private equity owned US group. He left in 2012 to become an independent consultant on EB and M&A (a torture test for any brand). He is a global speaker on this subject.

Paul Bhangoo

Global employer brand and attraction manager, BT

Paul Bhangoo has worked in the Recruitment Marketing / Employer Branding industry for over 20 years in a mix of roles across media, agency and client side. Previous roles at BP, Work Comms, and Penna have equipped him with the experience to create a team of experts in his current position at BT (Global Employer Brand & Talent Attraction Manager) to market all types of roles for the organisation globally whilst developing an EVP/Employer Brand.

Kenty Brumant

Senior manager of global employer brand and recruitment marketing, Thermo Fisher Scientific

As the Senior Manager of Global Employer Brand & Recruitment Marketing, Kenty is responsible for identifying, developing and implementing global and localized strategies, campaigns and tactics focused on driving Talent Attraction and Acquisition capabilities to enable business growth across Thermo Fisher Scientific business groups globally. He act as a strategic partner for the business groups playing a critical role in enabling their growth and success by providing innovative talent attraction solutions to identify, attract and nature the talent required to support the day to day base business growth as well as expansions and acquisitions aligned to key business goals and objectives.

Kenty is especially keen on channel diversification, optimisation and adoption as it relates to different markets and cultures and is always on the lookout for the next new innovation in recruitment marketing and employer branding. In his spare time, he’s an avid traveller on the lookout for the next “it” destination. He’s also a proud Arsenal supporter and an eternally optimistic that the glory days will soon return.

Sarah Chambers

Head of recruitment marketing, The Good Care Group

Sarah has worked in the health and social care industry for the past 10 years.  Most recently she has been overseeing recruitment marketing for The Good Care Group, a leading provider of live-in care. Sarah has always been passionate about helping others and takes great satisfaction in helping to find Professional Carers to deliver outstanding care to their clients. During her time at The Good Care Group she has been involved in embedding an exciting new employer brand, creating an attraction strategy for the UK and overseas as well as sharing stories about the fantastic work her colleagues do to support people to stay in the homes they love.

Andrew Farmer

Senior manager, global employer brand communcations, White & Case LLP

Andrew Farmer is a senior brand and communications leader with deep experience of working with global organisations to transform and communicate their employee value proposition (EVP) and employer brand to attract, retain and engage the best talent. His experience includes working on a number of strategic HR/Talent programmes and initiatives, including employer brand management and EVP strategy at a global and local level, recruitment marketing, diversity and inclusion, internal and change management communications and digital and social media management. Andrew is currently working at White & Case LLP, leading global employer brand communications.

Jona Gjini

Head of employer brand, Ledger

Jona is an expert in branding and communications. She is currently the Head of employer brand at Ledger, the world's most secure hardware wallet, after over seven years with Vodafone as well as some consulting and entrepreneurial experience. As an avid traveler with a soft spot for Asia, she is curious about different cultures, speaks Mandarin amongst four other languages and writes a food blog inspired by Asian cuisine.

Richard Gordon

Employer brand, associate director, King

Richard has spent the majority of the last 13 years working in the employer brand and recruitment marketing sector in a variety of media, agency and client-side roles. He now finds himself at Entain, one of the world’s largest sports betting and gaming entertainment groups and home to brands such as Ladbrokes, Coral and bwin.

His responsibilities now lie in activating the company’s employer brand globally – externally and internally – across all owned and third party channels and platforms, including careers sites and social media. He’s particularly passionate about attraction, good social content, and the use of tech to improve candidate and employee engagement.

When not at work, Richard spends time enjoying the football of Leeds United, applying to game shows and buying too much gin.

Melony Gouna

Employer brand and attraction manager, wagamama

Recently joining wagamama as employer brand and attraction manager, Melony is playing a key role in establishing and reigniting wagamama’s voice as an employer of choice in the hospitality industry.

Her RPO and employer brand agency background has brought real breadth to her expertise, delivering consumer-grade solutions and campaigns underpinned by a clear and differentiated message for a range of global clients. Her experience spans from data-driven employee value proposition development to multi-channel brand activation across online and offline touchpoints. Melony is an agile and creative thinker with a passion for bringing authentic and compelling people stories, concepts and campaigns to life in the most effective way.

Catherine Hearn

Director, talent acquisition EMEA, Amazon

Stuart Hazell

Global director, TA brand and marketing, Workday

A global award winning, creative, data-driven, methodical and strategic employer brand and recruitment marketing leader with over 11 years’ experience across a broad range of digital and traditional marketing facets. Stuart is very passionate about attracting great talent with great opportunities through marketing and brand. He has launched successful recruitment marketing communication programmes and strategies across the world that have covered recruitment events, social media activation, candidate experience enhancements, digital targeted recruitment campaigns, EVP launches, brand ambassador promotions, career site updates, brand auditing and reporting as well as internal employee referral campaigns.

Caroline Hill

Director, Creed Comms

With more than 30 years’ experience in employer brand and talent marketing, Caroline’s career started in media and then progressed into recruitment communications and internal people comms. She has delivered results focused, award-winning digital innovation, multi-media and creative strategy for major brands across many industries.

Caroline co-founded Creed Comms in 2007 to enable organisations to harness the talent they need to achieve their goals and to deliver great client service and results. It’s her role to lead the business, develop next level solutions and the brilliant team of experts around her.

Sukhi Kandola

Assistant director - employer brand, EY

Sukhi is an assistant director in the Employer Brand team at EY, currently operating in a team of In-house Creatives, Social Media experts and Campaign Planners for the UK&I business.  With over 15 years of recruitment experience within both student and experience hire, Sukhi is passionate about actively building a diverse culture that empowers authentic storytelling and making bold creative decisions elevating employer brand outputs to meet organisational objectives on brief, on time and on budget.

Rob Lewis

EMEA talent marketing strategist, Kyndryl

Rob is an experienced employer brand professional with a passion for digital marketing, social media, and creative storytelling.

From a background in FMCG with regional and global roles at Kellogg’s and Mondelēz International, Rob moved to L’Oréal to lead their employer brand strategy into local market. 

He now works for Kyndryl as their EMEA Talent Marketing Lead, refining the candidate message, devising campaign strategy and GTM activations, and trying to create cool content!

From employer brand marketing, end-to-end recruitment and still managing to be data-driven in decision-making, Rob can bring experience in a number of areas.

Lan Lieu

Recruitment marketing lead, Metropolitan Police Service

Ted Meulenkamp

Lead global employer brand, Mondelēz International

Ted is a Dutch national living in Barcelona, Spain since 2001. He brings extensive experience in Talent Acquisition with a specialisation in Employer Branding. He developed and implemented several employer brands and managed the activation at a global level at Roche, Banco Santander and since 2020 at Mondelēz International as Global head talent attraction. He is knowledgeable on internal/external research, EVP development, visualisation of the brand, localisation, implementation and the activation through HR touchpoints and social media. 

Kat Ogunsanwo

Internal communications and employer brand manager, Camelot

Kat is the Senior Internal Communications and Employer Brand Manager for Camelot and has been in this role since 2019.

Her 15-year people-focussed career spans across a number of organisations specialing in recruitment, people experience, employer brand, engagement, and internal communications.

She developed the Camelot EVP, built an authentic employer brand to support it, and has since embedded it internally in her current role.

Nathalie Plavonil

Global employer branding manager, TUI

A UK-based French national with over 10 years of Employer Branding and Recruitment Marketing experience, Nathalie has recently joined TUI as Global employer branding manager. In her current role, she is responsible for creating TUI’s global EVP and Employer Branding strategy, as well as for implementing global projects and platforms aiming to raise awareness of TUI as an employer of choice.

Data-driven and passionate about storytelling, employee advocacy and international networking, Nathalie has previously worked in market-focused and global roles within BMW Group and Airbus. Her key achievements include setting up BMW Group UK’s HR marketing function, leading successful recruitment marketing campaigns and projects across multiple legal entities, and implementing Airbus’ EVP across different locations in four continents.

Dan Smith

Head of employee communication and engagement, Govia Thameslink Railway Limited

Josh Stevenson

Employer Brand Content Manager, Legal and General

Josh Stevenson leads the Employer Brand marketing function at Legal & General. From a 10-year career in digital content, he has brought this wealth of knowledge and experience from consumer and corporate brands to transform the L&G talent brand. In his time with Legal & General, he has completely changed the candidate experience, focused on a strong social media and content strategy, and helped to massively reduce the reliance on agency spend through optimisation of direct sourcing channels. 

Sharmini Stickney

Senior manager, talent brand and recruitment marketing EMEA and APAC, Stryker

Sharmini leads the strategic development, management and execution of Stryker's talent brand identity, including the corporate and talent narrative, messaging and visual aspects across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. With over 13 years of experience in content creation, brand building, advertising, talent attraction and recruitment marketing for brands like the Boston Consulting Group and clients like Heineken and MINI, Sharmini lives and breathes branding.

She is especially passionate about the candidate journey and tech in the employer branding space – always looking to innovate and improve.

When not managing the employer brand and recruitment marketing strategy for Stryker who was recently ranked #5 on Fortune’s World’s Best Workplaces List, Sharmini can be found experimenting in the kitchen, engrossed in a book or on a warm beach somewhere.

Puja Tailor-Aujla

Global employer brand manager, Sportradar

Currently leading employer brand at Sportradar, the world’s leading sports technology company, at the intersection between sports, media, and betting. Puja has extensive experience in recruitment, HR, and employer branding. She is currently responsible for leading employer brand globally and is passionate about storytelling and creating innovative ways to showcase who we are and employee advocacy.

Amy Turner

Employer brand manager, Bumble

Amy is Global Employer Brand Manager at Paddle, the only complete payments infrastructure provider for SaaS companies. Previously she has managed employer brand at Bumble and Camelot (The National Lottery).

With a background in social media, content marketing and employee engagement, Amy loves using content and creative storytelling to bring an EVP to life. She is passionate about DEI and while at Bumble, co-founded the Bumble Tech Academy, a program to recruit, train and employ junior developers from underrepresented genders.