Our Patrons

Patron

Denise Wilson OBE

Committed to gender equality, particularly in the boardroom, Denise Wilson spent 12 years as Chief Executive of the Government-sponsored Women Leaders Review, leading the task force to increase the number of women on FTSE 350 Boards and in senior leadership positions.

Her dedication to advocating for women in leadership and diversity in business is clear when you look at her wealth of experience. Denise has been a mentor to senior leaders in corporate and charitable sectors, is an influential speaker and has held many board appointments throughout her career, including Chair of the Royal Academy of Arts Friends, Trustee for the Benefact Trust, and served on the Board of Ecclesiastical Insurance Group for many years. Most recently she was announced as the Chair of Girlguiding, further demonstrating her passion for empowering girls and young women.

Her executive career began with the Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group, before moving into the energy sector where she was one of the first women to take up senior executive roles in the sector. She headed up Investor Relations and the Global Audit function at British Gas, BG Group successor companies and at National Grid Plc, held roles as Shared Services Director, Customer and Global Transformation Director during her tenure. 

Whilst at the FTSE Women Leaders Review, Denise oversaw an increase in women in boardroom positions of FTSE 350 companies from just 9% in 2011 to over 42% today. Her work over the years to remove barriers that prevent gender parity have earned widespread recognition, and in 2016 she was awarded an OBE for services to women in business and equality, and in 2018 she received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Hull.  

Vice Patrons

Una O’Reilly

Una O’Reilly has worked extensively in human resources, organisational development and employee engagement, with a track record of creating award-winning people practices that promote inclusivity, attract top talent, improve retention and increase engagement leading to stronger commercial business results.  

Whilst Una cut her teeth in retail, she brings with her a wealth of expertise, having worked across hospitality, construction, property development and real estate. Her skills in steering organisations through periods of significant growth and transformation really came to fruition when working as the European Human Resource Director Westfield, where she oversaw the People Leadership aspects of the merger of Westfield with Unibail-Rodamco and helped develop and deliver values and led strategies to enhance employee engagement, wellbeing, and advance diversity and inclusion.  

This included, among many other things, reviewing all People practices and maternity and paternity policies, that earned URW 9 Best Practice Awards and got Top Employer recognition. In addition, the diversity and inclusion strategy resulted in 40% of senior management roles being held by women, and a community strategy that led to 80% of employees taking part in volunteering which led to them taking home the HR Excellence Award for Best CSR Strategy.  

Susan Vinnicombe CBE 

MA PhD MCIM FBAM CCMI
Professor of Women and Leadership, Cranfield School of Management  

Susan’s research interests focus on the lack of women in leadership and specifically on corporate boards, women’s leadership behaviours and the issues involved in women developing their executive careers. Susan was Founder Director of the Cranfield International Centre for Women Leaders from 1999 to 2016 and the Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Endowed Chair in Women’s Leadership at Simmons College, Boston, USA from 2013-2016. She and her co-authors produce the annual Female FTSE Board Report, which she launched in 1999 and is regarded as the premier research resource on women directors in the UK and is renowned globally. She has written ten books and over one hundred articles, reports and conference papers. Her latest book “Handbook of Research on Promoting Women’s Careers” (Eds. S Vinnicombe, R.J. Burke, S. Blake-Beard and L.L. Moore) was published by Edward Elgar in 2013.  

Susan receives regular recognition worldwide and was honoured in 2016 by the International Women’s Forum in Washington as a woman who has “Made a Difference” in the world and become a Companion of the Chartered Institute of Management in the UK. Susan was also named in the HR Magazine Most Influential Thinkers, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. Susan has been presented with the Richard Whipp Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Academy of Management. She was a member of The Lord Davies Steering Committee on Women on Boards between 2010 and 2015 and is on the Advisory Board of the Sir Philip Hampton/Dame Helen Alexander Review on the lack of women in the executive pipeline and that of Sir John Parker’s Review of the lack of ethnicity on FTSE 100 boards.  

Susan was awarded an OBE for her Services to Diversity in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List in 2005 and subsequently awarded a CBE for her Services to Gender Equality in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, 2014