Speakers:
Helen Cooke
Helen Cooke, Director of MyPlus is recognised nationally as a leading expert in disability and graduate recruitment. Helen works with organisations to provide them with the expertise to be disability confident in their strategy, their processes and their engagement, and realise the possibilities of hiring and retaining more people with a disability. Clients include: Barclays, EY, Enterprise, Linklaters, and Teach First.
The uniqueness of Helen’s approach comes from her expertise in HR and graduate recruitment combined with her first-hand experience of disability; Helen is a wheelchair user as a result of a childhood spinal injury. She started her career on the M&S graduate management programme before moving to Mars where she spent 10 years, mostly in HR and Resourcing, before setting up her business in 2005.
In addition to her own experiences of disability, Helen has worked extensively with other disabled individuals. The majority of this experience comes from her involvement with The Back Up Trust, an organisation which supports spinally injured individuals. Helen is a mentor for the Back Up mentoring programme and became a Trustee in 2016.
John Robarts
John joined UBS in February 2016 and is a Managing Director who serves as the UK HR Business Partner and Global Head of HR for the Fixed Income & Global Research Businesses. Prior to UBS, John spent seven years at Credit Suisse where he was latterly Group Head of HR for Europe, Middle East & Africa, having previously led the HR team covering the Investment Banking Department and Global Markets Solutions Groups.
John has an undergraduate degree in Politics from the University of Nottingham; a masters in Human Resources and is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development. John is married and lives in London with his husband and their 3 year old son.
James Phoenix
James is currently an Associate in the Linklaters London Dispute Resolution department, having joined the firm as a trainee in 2014. James has a chronic pain condition which he has managed since he was fifteen and is also dyspraxic. James is part of the Linklaters’ Visability network for disability and mental health and has shared his experiences of working with a disability with colleagues and students as part of internal and external campaigns and events.
Will More
Will is currently a student at the University of Exeter, having completed a year's placement at Enterprise Holdings' European Headquarters. During his time there he worked on their Social Mobility Index and Stonewall submissions and, on behalf of the Disability Committee, contributed to the development of a Disability Passport to aid employees and managers alike.
Following an unexpected deterioration which caused him to be absent from work, Will was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. On returning to work he published a blog which was read by thousands, highlighting the difficulties of mental illness and also dispelling myths about this often mis-understood disease. Following the blog, he has been approached by several companies to advise them on their mental health processes and is excited to continue this work.
