Programme
People Development Summit 202512-14 March 2025, EPIC SANA Marquês Hotel
2025 Topics & Themes
- Practical use of AI in L&D
- Learning with a neurodiverse population
- Proving L&D ROI
- Talent management approaches to performance management
- L&D’s role in workplace wellbeing
- Data-driven L&D
- Psychological safety
- In person vs. virtual instructor-led training (ILT)
- Relationship between L&D and D&I
- The future of L&D?
The People Development Summit programme consists of - keynotes, TED-style talks + Q&A and interactive Action Learning Workshops
If you have any speaker recommendations, please email eventteam@summit-events.com
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2025 speakers below!
Ben Chambers
Director of Partner DevelopmentGrant Thornton
SPEAKER
Creating communities of practice within organisations
Biography
Ben leads on the partner development agenda at Grant Thornton UK, a leading professional services firm. He was previously Head of Learning at Grant Thornton. In addition to this Ben founded the Talent and Leadership Club, a community of over 1,000 ‘in house’ learning professionals that has been supporting the learning profession for over 15 years through expert events, discussion forums and learning content.
Prior to Grant Thornton he worked in a wide range of sectors including Retail, Financial Services, Telecoms, Pharma, Engineering, Manufacturing, Travel and Tourism and Public Sector. During this time is has worked and lived in Australia, India and the UK.
Ben also advises a range of learning providers on their product and marketing strategies and has a keen interest in supporting high-growth learning tech start-ups and is always looking to expand his portfolio.
He hold a Bachelor of Arts Degree with honours in Management Studies from The University of Leeds and a Masters in Human Resource Management from The University of Westminster. He is a member of the CIPD, NLP practitioner, has his Level A&B in personality assessment and is Hogan qualified.
Most importantly he is a father to three energetic boys and married to his lovely wife Sarah. In his spare time Ben coaches football.
Ben works for Grant Thornton, a market leading professional services firm. At Grant Thornton he is responsible for learning, talent and performance and has also spent time understanding what the firm stands for i.e. its purpose.
In tandem he also founded the Talent and Leadership Club, a collaboration group for talent, learning and leadership professionals that has been going for over ten years now and has over 600 members.
Ben has a wide range of experience, having worked in retail, finance, telecoms, pharma, engineering, manufacturing, travel and tourism and the public sector. He has worked and lived in Australia and India as well as taking on global roles from the UK. He also acted as an advisor to Ezra, a digital coaching platform in its start-up phase.Presentation Outline
Ben has developed a keen interest in community building having built a global community of learning professionals over the past 15 years. This interest has led him to research a wide range of additional communities to understand what the successful ones have in common. He will share his insights in a pragmatic way so these can be applied within your organisation.
James Farrell
Head of People Development and CultureHaribo UK
SPEAKER
Demonstrating Impact – The ultimate challenge for L&D professionals
Biography
James is a Learning and Development Professional with 30 years spent across a broad range of industries including Financial Services, Food Manufacturing, Telecoms, Utilities and Retail. James has also led 2 Leadership Development consultancies working clients to support their capability development goals with a huge focus on demonstrating the impact that every programme delivered. James has passion for a number of areas within learning and development including neuroscience, making learning stick, demonstrating impact including return on investment and enabling individuals and teams to be high performing, Currently Head of People Development & Culture at HARIBO James is driving the capability and culture elements of the People Strategy to support HARIBO continuing to be the Number 1 in the market.
Presentation Outline
The session creates an opportunity to explore one of the hardest areas for L&D professionals to master – Return on Investment. We all know that L&D is one of the first to be impacted through many business changes and we can demonstrate our worth by becoming a commercial business partner that is integral to the success of teams, functions, and organisations. Together we will explore and understand how this can be achieved including the role of the learner, the line manager, the sponsor and L&D in this complex, and often avoided part of our profession.
Biography
The world is changing incredibly fast and shows no sign of this slowing down any time soon. For the last 25 years I have focused on helping organisations succeed by helping their people succeed. Fostering and building curious, continuous learning cultures across global technology businesses mostly from the ground up has given me incredible opportunities to explore and experiment with the levers that can build or destroy these highly engaged, high performance environments. It has sparked my thinking around leadership, performance, career, engagement, employee experience and wellbeing (to name a few areas).
Presentation Outline
This interactive session will delve into the reality of wellbeing in organisations. Peeling back the lid to look at what really happens when wellbeing aspiration meets business realities and how to make it about more than “hey we got an app”. Nick doesn’t have all the answers, but he has an interesting set of experiences and a curious mind. Which means this session will be about collectively seeing what ideas we can uncover and pool for everyone’s benefit.
Sarah Kenuel
Director - Leadership, Learning, Talent, Culture and DiversityBT Group
SPEAKER
Authentic Leadership: The Key to ED&I
Biography
An experienced Leader with a career predominately in the Technology sector – Sarah focuses on driving organizational change and performance through the lenses of Talent, Leadership, Inclusion & Diversity and Organizational Culture.
Currently Sarah leads the teams focused on Learning, Leadership, Talent, Culture, Performance and I&D in BT Digital. Previously Sarah spent nearly 8 years at Salesforce; leading the team designing and delivering learning pathways for Global Senior Executives and supporting the Talent Development agenda across EMEA & the UKI. Prior to Salesforce, Sarah was a Talent Development Manager at CA Technologies.
Sarah is a passionate speaker, a lifelong learner and focuses on self-development through supporting and learning alongside those around her.
At home, Sarah and her wife are proud parents to 4 children – she enjoys travelling (always a joy with 4 kids!), cooking and spending time making memories with family and friends.Presentation Outline
Exploring the role of leaders in unlocking organisational culture, equity, diversity and inclusion. How we show up, how we create space and how we lead - all build the foundation for the experience of our people. Leaning into authenticity, empathy and psychological safety empower us to be the best leaders and sustain the best organisational culture.
Biography
Laura Ashley-Timms is the co-author of the best-selling book The Answer is a Question: The Missing Superpower that Changes Everything and Will Transform Your Impact as a Manager and Leader.
She’s also the COO at Notion (L&D Supplier of the Year), the co-creator of the STAR® model, the multi-award-winning STAR® Manager programme and an expert thought leader on how to leverage Operational Coaching® behaviours across organisations to drive commercial results and improve productivity and engagement levels.
Laura learned about the power of coaching from her early childhood career in international sports and was coaching others by the time she entered Oriel College, Oxford. With over thirty years of international business experience, living and working in the USA, Europe and Asia, Laura has a strong focus on pragmatism and results. She’s been recognised as one of the UK’s top executive coaches and as one of 40 Outstanding Global Women.Presentation Outline
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Register your interest in the People Development Summit 2024
March 2024
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