In the first of this year’s Critical conversations series of online events, Academy CEO, Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE, was joined by:
- Anne-Marie Neatham, Partnership Director at Ocado Group and COO, Kindred
- Dr Karen Salt, Deputy Director for Research, Culture and Environment at UKRI
Drawing on their experience of evidence-based leadership, they explored how to create disruptors in the engineering community with new and innovative ideas to achieve our diversity and inclusion ambitions. The conversation looked at ways to measure diversity and inclusion that can make a real impact,and discussed the benefits of measurement to ensure greater belonging and meaningful commitments.
This event set the scene for the Academy’s forthcoming activities to support diversity and inclusion in engineering, including the annual Diversity and Inclusion conference on 15 March 2022.
Anne-Marie Neatham
Anne Marie Neatham is the chief operating officer (COO) at Kindred a Robotics and AI company acquired by Ocado Group in 2020. Anne Marie leads the organisational development of and integration of Kindred into the Ocado Group organisation. She completed a BSc in Computer Science at University College Cork before starting work as a software engineer and has worked in various technical roles in Ireland, the US, Germany and the UK. Anne Marie joined Ocado in 2001, to lead the development of early in-house support applications and has since taken on a variety of technical leadership roles across the organisation, as well as opening Ocado’s first offshore development centre in Krakow Poland. She was appointed Chief Operating Officer at Ocado Technology in 2014, looking after infrastructure and operations, organisational development, and general management. She has been listed as one of the UK’s Top 100 women to watch 2018 by Cranfield University, and has been included in Computer Weekly’s 2018 Top 50 most influential women in IT.
Dr Karen Salt
Dr Karen Salt has over 27 years’ worth of experience working in and with communities, organisations, charities and governmental bodies. An expert on systems and transformative change, she has led and managed research centres, large research teams and research projects, including those involving community members as active researchers and those exploring the governance of technology deployed for the public good. Now based in UKRI, she is the Deputy Director for R&D Culture and Environment where she drives UKRI’s cross-organisational strategic thinking and policymaking on research integrity, equality, diversity and inclusion, open research and culture. She also leads UKRI’s internal and external programme of work on mitigating risks and managing threats to international collaborations and partnerships. A sought after thought-leader and speaker, Salt works closely with leaders across Government, academia, civil society and industry and contributes to numerous international initiatives focused on embedding inclusive policymaking.