Speakers

Keynote Speakers:

Professor Mike West CBE

Michael West CBE has spent the greater part of his career undertaking research into the factors that determine the effectiveness and innovativeness of individuals, teams and organizations at work. He has also focused on improving the well-being of those who work within organizations. In recent years he has particularly focused on compassion and compassionate leadership in the workplace.

His research on people management has continued to influence the agenda of Human Resource Management in the UK over the last decade. Moreover, his subsequent research in the NHS has shown convincingly how the management of staff in UK hospitals is the most powerful predictor of patient mortality in those hospitals over time. This work has been extended to show links with patient satisfaction, absenteeism, financial performance, quality of patient care and error rates across organizations in the health service.

As a consequence of his research, he has contributed to a number of national policy making boards, commissions of inquiry and to meetings of senior policy makers. He was responsible, on behalf of the Care Quality Commission and the Department of Health, for developing and running the annual NHS Staff Survey over eight years until 2011. This survey, involving more than 160,000 respondents each year, has significantly influenced policy and practice in NHS Trusts throughout England over this period.

He led the English Department of Health Policy Research Programme into cultures of quality and safety. He also led the NHS National Staff Survey development and initial implementation. He assisted in developing the national framework on improvement and leadership development in England (Developing People, Improving Care – 2016) and in Northern Ireland in developing the Collective Leadership Strategy for Health and Social Care (2017). He is supporting Health Education and Improvement Wales to develop the national health and care compassionate leadership strategy in Wales. He co-chaired with Dame Denise Coia, the two-year inquiry on behalf of the UK General Medical Council into the mental health and well-being of doctors Caring for Doctors, Caring for Patients (2019). He led the review for The King’s Fund (commissioned by the RCN Foundation) into the mental health and well-being of nurses and midwives across the UK, The Courage of Compassion: Supporting Nurses and Midwives to Deliver High Quality Care (2020).

He has authored, edited or co-edited 20 books, including Compassionate Leadership: Sustaining Wisdom, Humanity and Presence in Health and Social Care (2021), The Psychology of Work and Organizations (2010) and Effective Teamwork (2004), which has been translated into 12 languages. He has also published over 200 articles for scientific and practitioner publications, as well as chapters in scholarly books. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the American Psychological Association (APA), the APA Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology and the Acaemy of Social Sciences.He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and an Honorary Fellow of Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery.

Micahel was appointed a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2020 for services to compassion and innovation in healthcare.

Professor Steve Kempster

Steve Kempster is Emeritus Professor of Leadership Learning and Development at Lancaster University Management School and is an Associate Partner of the Regenerative Alliance. He has published broadly on leadership learning, leadership of purpose and responsible leadership with 6 books, and many articles and chapters. His work over the last decade or so has been focused on addressing the question ‘leadership for what and for whom?’ Steve leads the Good Dividends project  (www.gooddividends.com) – formed from an interdisciplinary group of academics drawn from 5 universities in Europe and Australasia – with the objective of enabling business leaders to develop their business towards becoming regenerative with regards to all stakeholders  including our planet and our communities. His latest work (Realising Good Growth, in press) is a practical handbook inter-connected with digital tools for managers to build a plan for regenerative futures. Recently Steve has been the Director of the Lancaster University Made Smarter and Evolve Digital programmes linking digitalisation with regenerative outcomes – funded by the UK Government. He is currently Co-director of the Lancaster University ‘Good Growth’ Programme – focused on reframing growth towards a wellbeing economy.  

Panel Speakers:

David Williams

David Williams founded Impact in 1980 with nothing more than an idea and a passion for people development. Today Impact is a multi, award-winning experiential learning organisation, partnering with global brands in more than 50 countries from offices in the UK, Europe, USA and Asia Pacific. For over 45 years Impact’s work in experiential learning has reverberated throughout organisations around the globe inspiring new approaches to leadership and catalysing change. David is committed to making a positive impact through the work Impact does, partnering with their clients to liberate the human potential in their organisations so that together we can solve the complex economic, social and environmental problems that challenge humanity. When he gets time David enjoys travelling the world, sheep farming, chasing his dog Skye and spending time with his young granddaughters. 

Sue McGraw

Sue is the CEO at St John’s Hospice, North Lancashire and South Lakes. She is the Chair of the Lancashire and South Cumbria Hospice Collaborative and a Kings Fund third sector “Cascading Leadership” partner. After completing her EMBA at Lancaster University in 2019, she became an Entrepreneur in Residence and an Honorary Teaching Fellow. Sue firmly believes that compassionate leadership and purposeful work is inextricably linked with the delivery of high-quality care.   

Johanna Telfer

Johanna is Head of Behavioural Insight at Sellafield Ltd. She is a passionate Organisational Behaviourist with over 25 year’s strong delivery in Behavioural & Change Agent roles predominantly in the energy sector. An Organisational Psychologist by trade, she has an enviable breadth of experience in Behavioural Insights, Organisational Human Factors, Organisational development, and transformational change. 

Johanna is a Leader in Residence and Honorary Teaching Fellow within LUMS. An alumna of Lancaster University Management School for both her Batchelors and Masters’ degrees, Johanna is currently a part time PhD student researching Leaders’ use of rhetorical devices in the preservation of organisational identity. 

Toby Rowland

Toby served for 30 years in the Defence Medical Services, holding a range of leadership appointments focussed on the preparation, deployment and command of field healthcare in a variety of operational roles and austere environments. Internationally, this included serving as UK’s overall military medical commander in Iraq (2007) and Afghanistan (2013), as well as NATO’s head of medical capability development and training. Toby has also served as senior medical commander to the UK’s armoured division and as commander of the UK’s medical brigade. 

His most recent appointments have included Head of the Defence Medical Academy and Head of Leadership Development for the Defence Medical Services. It is within these roles that Toby has explored the application and practice of compassionate leadership and how it can help improve behaviours and culture within healthcare settings.