Debbie Lovewell-Tuck is a business journalist with 20 years’ experience specialising in pay, reward and HR. She joined Employee Benefits as a reporter in 2003, before becoming editor in 2015. Debbie is also responsible for editorial content across Employee’ Benefits events, including Employee Benefits Live and the Employee Benefits Awards, as well as hosting Employee Benefits’ webinars.

Tynan joined Employee Benefits in 2010 as reporter before taking on the features editor role. Tynan regularly writes on current trends in the employee benefits arena, including healthcare and wellbeing, workplace pensions and pay and bonus strategies.

Jess is particularly interested in the links between wellbeing, flexible working, and innovation and how this can transform an organisation’s culture and approach towards work.

Most recently, Jess was Head of HR & OD at Blood Cancer UK, where she led the charity to be ranked as the 9th best charity to work for in the UK by Best Companies in 2021, and the most inspiring not for profit workplace at the Inspiring Workplace EMEA Awards 2022. Blood Cancer UK also won the Wellbeing category of Inspiring Workplaces EMEA Awards, and Jess was awarded the Culture Pioneer award for Wellbeing at the 2021 Culture Pioneer Awards. Jess’s background and experience is across the charity and education sectors. She is also a trustee for Yes Futures, acts as mentor for the CIPD mentoring schemes in London, and volunteers for Young Women’s Trust on the Work It Out programme.

Head of Total Rewards at IKEA, who has over 30 years of practical reward expertise, during that time he has won a number of major international awards, is recognised as one of the truly inspirational Global thought leaders in reward, who challenges conventional thinking in consistently delivering exceptional solutions.

Chaired numerous international reward summit meetings, presented at various conferences and has provided input to various governments and legislative bodies, in a career that has taken him across the globe, living in various counties and working in some of the world’s most iconic organisations.

Career history includes being Reward Leader at Channel 4 Television in the UK, Global Reward Director at Willis Towers Watson, Global Reward Director at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Director of Rewards, Mondelez International. In these roles he was responsible for delivering a radical redesign of pay, bonus and benefits structures and global governance programmes.

Previously, he was Reward Leader at PwC, responsible for 32 European Countries, Global Reward of Reward Maersk and Head of Compensation and Benefits at Network Rail. Began his career in British Gas, where after working he way up through the organisation he became HR Director.

Gary Brewer is a highly experienced HR and Reward practitioner, of over 45 consecutive years standing. Currently Head of People with Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, based in Edinburgh, he remains a member of the Employment Tribunal system in Dundee; is a Trustee with Turning Point Scotland in Glasgow and Giraffe/CheckIn Works in Perth; has held global senior HR and general management positions in various sectors (including Spirits/Distilling, Financial Services, Media, Pharmaceuticals, Transport and Public Administration), together with tutoring, judging and lecturing appointments in his field. He has been a recipient of national recognition under the National Training Awards; HR Network; Employee Benefits and Pay & Benefits/Reward Strategy; is a Ch. Fellow of the CIPD and has both an MA and LLM in Employment Law and Employment Relations.

Emma has worked in HR roles at Further and Higher Education Institutions for 17 years; most recently at the University of Salford where she spent four years as a Reward Specialist responsible for the development and delivery of the University's strategic direction for pay, reward and benefits. Since joining UHR in 2021, Emma has been working on a range of projects to benefit members with a focus on reward, engagement, hybrid working and wellbeing. Emma is also active in the CIPD and is currently Policy Lead and Vice-Chair of the Manchester branch.

Anthea has over 20 years’ experience in Employee Benefits across multiple sectors including IT, Telecoms & Consumer Insights and since 2014 has been working as Senior Benefits Consultant for the cloud computing company, VMware. In addition to managing the benefits plans of multiple countries within EMEA, she has been responsible for the successful implementation of the Darwin on-line benefits platform, the set-up of benefits plans in newly incorporated countries and most recently led the EMEA-wide roll out of the new Global Paid Parental Leave policy offering all parents a minimum of 18 weeks paid parental leave. She brings a wealth of experience in managing complex projects including the establishment of Pension and Medical Master Trusts. 

Chris Coyne is currently Head of Performance & Reward at AWE plc, a large defence contractor. He is responsible for all areas of compensation, benefits, performance, wellbeing and global mobility. Following 10 years as a commissioned officer in the Royal Navy during which he gained a BA(Hons) in Behaviour in Organisations, Chris obtained a Master’s degree in Strategic HR and moved into industry, where for the last 22 years has held senior Reward roles in a range of sectors including IT, property, education and defence. Chris is a strong believer in the need for Reward to constantly reflect and adapt to meet the changing needs of business, technology and society. He sees Reward beyond the traditional boundaries of compensation and benefits, with a need to embrace talent, learning and wellbeing agendas in the overall Reward value proposition.

Ricardo has worked in various industries including finance, insurance, IT consulting and latterly the Charity sector. He has worked for several well-known organisations including Barclays Bank, Woolwich, Prudential, Unisys and Equity Insurance. In recent years he has been working at City & Guilds where he has been involved in many projects including pension strategic work, employee benefits alignment and international activities.

As Group Reward Manager, his work covers a wide spectrum of activity in reward and benefits practice across the whole employee base.

As a previous runner up as Employee Benefits, Benefits Professional of the Year, he realises the importance and value of submitting entries for awards and was keen to support the judging panel this year.

An experienced and qualified HR Professional with several years of specialising in the Benefits and Wellbeing field. Currently Senior Benefits Manager at DHL Supply Chain UKI leading on a fantastic wellbeing journey, previously worked at Carlsberg UK and Home Retail Group. Passionate about employee wellbeing and totally believes in an holistic approach.Has won and been short listed for several awards in the past and is an experienced award judge having participated in Engagement Excellence awards, Employee Wellbeing Awards and the Employee Benefits Awards, loving to read the entries and be inspired by the passion and innovation of others.

Neil has nearly 20 year's experience in reward across a range of sectors including retail, financial services and tech. He is currently Head of Reward at Wickes plc having joined Wickes in 2021, and is responsible for the full reward agenda. In recent years Neil has specialised in executive remuneration in listed companies. He has led a number of award-winning benefits teams, and is a regular conference speaker, award judge and contributor to industry press. Neil has a particular passion for financial wellbeing, particularly in relation to pension awareness.

Mark Greenwald is Wellbeing and Benefit Advisor at Lendlease Europe based in London, delivering on the company’s employee benefits and wellbeing strategies across the region. Mark has worked in HR for over 15 years acquiring vast experience across the HR spectrum including compensation, data analytics and employee experience. Mark is passionate about creating impactful employee experiences that empower individuals to take informed decisions that allow them to thrive, which has led to the creation of award-winning strategies across the Wellbeing spectrum whilst working alongside several organisations to share best practice and continually inspire excellence. Mark has spoken at numerous conferences on the topics of employee benefits and wellbeing sharing how Lendlease Europe delivers on their award-winning approach with most recently being guest speaker at Employee Benefits Live 2022, This Can Happen Global 2022, Lockton Forum 2022, and the Benefex Forum 2021.

Tom is the Head of Benefits for BNP Paribas. Having joined the investment bank in London in 2009 he is responsible for the group’s award winning benefits offering across 8 separate businesses, comprising 8,000 staff in the UK with 40+ employee benefits.

Ian is the Head of Reward at the University of Lincoln overseeing all aspects of reward including payroll, pensions, employee benefits, HR systems and executive remuneration. Having started his career in finance before moving specifically in to reward Ian has a background in both the public and private sector having previously worked for Moy Park, Mars, Prudential and Lincolnshire County Council.

A firm believer and champion in the importance of reward strategy as a driver for change and in supporting organisational success, Ian has previously overseen teams that have been acknowledged for their achievements at awards for their innovative work including winning the 2021 and 2022 Employee Benefits Grand Prix award.

Ian is the current Chair of the Northern Universities Reward Group and a board member of the Education Competencies Consortium.Ian has also been a recipient of the Pay and Benefits Career Accomplishment Award and was also the Employee Benefits Reward Professional of the Year in 2019.

Ian also regularly contributes to professional publications and conferences within the sector providing insights into the future of work.

Claire Jepras is HR Director for Ipsos in the UK and Ireland. She joined Ipsos UK in 2016 with 20 years HR experience with major multinational companies including Marks and Spencer and Compass plc. Her focus at Ipsos UK is on creating an organisation where people can be themselves and reach their full potential. This has included working with the business to develop an Inclusion and Diversity strategy and this year sees Ipsos UK become the first market research company to report their ethnicity pay gap. She has also been responsible for the development and implementation of the employee value proposition and the launch of a global wellbeing strategy which resulted in Ipsos UK being awarded the coveted Grand Prix title at the Employee Benefits Awards 2020 for their approach to mental wellbeing and the overhaul of its defined contribution pension scheme strategy. Claire volunteers with the charity Pilot Light which offers strategic business support to charities and social enterprises to enable them to become more efficient, effective and sustainable. She also mentors the founder of a community enterprise organisation which provides food parcels to children and their families in Lewisham. Claire is an Economics graduate, has an MBA and is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD.

Embarking on her journey as an expat tax consultant on PwC’s graduate scheme, Selina undertook several client secondments which ignited her passion for global HR specialist work and her desire to move in-house.

Selina subsequently led Global Mobility programmes at PepsiCo (EMEA region and global projects) and Lloyd’s Register (Global) before progressing into broader Group Director roles at Worley with global ownership for Benefits, Global Mobility, Expatriate Tax / Compliance and Strategic HR projects.

Following a fascinating year operating as a self-employed consultant and being appointed as an External Advisor to a leading management consulting firm Selina was appointed as Senior Director for Global Benefits and Wellness at Lumentum, recently taking over additional responsibility for Global Mobility.

Selina holds professional qualifications and certifications across HR (CIPD Fellow), Tax (ATT Fellow, CTA), Global Benefits and Global Mobility and has been the proud recipient of both personal and team industry awards over the past decade.

After a 6 year tenure in the Indian army, Mayur has worked in HR and reward across consultancy, retail, PR, financial services and energy sectors for the past 21 years. Currently, he is the Reward Delivery Manager at bp responsible for reward delivery for over 5,000 employees across 16 countries in Caspian, Middle East and Africa (CMEA) region. He joined bp in 2015 and has held various central and regional reward and wellbeing roles supporting multiple business entities. Before bp, he held many roles in reward and benefits in RBS Group (NatWest Group) for 5 years. Mayur is also passionate about the DE&I agenda and is the One Team Lead of the EMEA Working Families Business Resource Group (BRG) at bp.

A highly motivated and innovative and senior people leader Sarah has undertaken a variety of leadership and board roles relating to increasing diversity, equity and inclusion. Serving in the RAF for over 19 years and completing roles including project management, policy development and initial military training, Sarah brings a global perspective to local issues and delivers enduring solutions. Well connected to the needs of others, Sarah has worked on managing a positive change in culture and has been exposed to all levels of the organisations she has worked to ensure that cultural developments underpin the business values as well as legislative obligations. Sarah is passionate about addressing under-representation and was recognised in the New Year’s Honours List 2016 with an MBE for her contributions to Diversity and Inclusion.

"Dr Amanda Mwale is a clinical psychologist with 15 years experience working within the field of mental health within the NHS, private organisations and the charitable sector. She currently specialises in staff wellbeing and leads on staff support within a large hospital department in the NHS. She is committed to working systemically, alongside senior leaders, managers and teams as well as responding to individual wellbeing needs and requirements. She is also an author, publishing research and a book titled, Becoming a clinical psychologist: everything you need to know."

Jennifer Roberts is Senior Reward & Wellbeing Manager at Central Co-op based in Lichfield and is responsible for delivering the Reward & Wellbeing strategy across the Society. Jennifer has worked in Reward for over 12 years and has vast experience in Reward change projects, Compensation, and benefits while also having worked within other areas of HR such as HR systems, Service Centres, Payroll and Fleet. Jen is passionate about creating a reward and wellbeing offering where there is something for everyone and driving engagement through educating colleagues on the benefits available to them. Previously, Jen has worked alongside the Government Communications team to support the local National Living Wage campaign and has also been a judge on the Employee Benefits awards in 2017.

Niall is a nationally recognised public sector professional with over 10 years of experience in designing and delivering large-scale cross-organisational reward schemes. He has expertise in both procurement and contract management, and has delivered solutions worth more than £10m per year to workforces of over 25,000 employees. Niall is regularly consulted by public sector colleagues across the UK to provide input into scheme implementation and administrative process design.

Niall’s background in data science and information communication has allowed him to adopt a data-driven approach to reward implementation and management, which delivers both operational and strategic value while remaining aligned with organisational requirements.