"Working
together: When women speak, do men listen? "
International Women's Day
2011
A RSAWSN event in association with the English-Speaking Union
08
March 2011, 19:00 to 21:00 Dartmouth House, 37 Charles Street, London W1
Enquiries: Susan Conway 0207 529 1582
Louise
Burfitt-Dons FRSA is a humanitarian. Her pro-social projects
include children’s charity Act Against Bullying which she founded
in 2003; raising awareness of the consequences of our warming planet and
empathy. She is co-founder of Kindness Day UK which launched in 2010.
Louise is frequently on the radio and TV and has contributed to various
magazines and newspapers on all the above issues. She initiated the RSAWSN
whose mission is to raise women’s profile in society by greater
involvement in public speaking. 
Jane
Gunn FRSA is a mediator, conflict management consultant and speaker
working with businesses and business leaders around the world and is known
as The Corporate Peacemaker. She is the author of How to beat bedlam
in the Boardroom and Boredom in the Bedroom. A few hours spent with
Jane has helped her clients to reduce legal costs, increase productivity
,repair trading relationships, restore hamonious working and find peace
of mind. For more information on Jane www.corpeace.com
James
Max With a background in property, investment
banking and private equity, James took part in the very first series of The
Apprentice, reaching the semi finals. He now presents Saturday Breakfast and
The Sunday Afternoon Show on LBC Radio and regularly appears o
eadership
roles within the public sector, Deborah has now set up two companies
and hoping to grow them significantly in 2011. ID-Choices Ltd is a company
offering outplacement and redundancy support to the growing numbers
of laid-off employees. Also she is working as a senior consultant with
partners on major public sector change programmes. Most recently as
the Chief Executive of Business Link she was responsible for several
major change programmes. These included the merging of seven organisations’
CRM databases; leading three organisations through a £60 million
bidding process: and maintaining high performance throughout the company
in the face of redundancies and a TUPE scenario to a major corporate
organisation. Deborah is an accountant by profession and spent her early
years in major corporate businesses in London. She then undertook a
series of consultancy roles with small businesses for seven years whilst
her two children were growing up. Deborah has a Psychology and Law degree
from Keele University, an MBA from the University of Bath and was previously
a Fellow of the ACCA. She is a Governor of Holyport Primary C of E School;
a Governor of Oxford and Cherwell College (taking an active role in
the process to recently acquiring Reading College); and a Fellow of
the RSA. Her interests are walking, currently managing sections of the
South Downs Way at weekends; traveling to different continents; yoga
and cooking.
Judith
Perle FRSA is a networking expert, management trainer and co-author
of The Network Effect. She became involved in management training after
completing the Sloan Fellowship at London Business School. Many businesses
and individuals pride themselves on having the hard skills to get the
job done, but often these technical skills actually only ‘get you
through the door’. The truth is that success often depends on the
‘softer’ interpersonal skills that are all too often overlooked
or under-valued. Chief among these is networking – the ability to
build relationships of trust with a wide variety of people.Judith is a
co-founder of training consultancy Management Advantage, which specialises
in teaching those soft skills at corporates, professional organisations
and business schools in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. She is co-author
(together with Tony Newton) of The Network Effect, A practical guide to
making – and keeping – the connections that can make your
world go round. Judith also works with the Microloan Foundation, a charity
which provides mentoring and small loans to women entrepreneurs in Malawi
to help them develop their businesses and work their way out of poverty.
Matthew Taylor became Chief Executive of the RSA in November 2006. Prior to this appointment, he was Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to the Prime Minister. Matthew was appointed to the Labour Party in 1994 to establish Labour's rebuttal operation. During the 1997 General Election he was Labour's Director of Policy. His activities before the Labour Party included being a county councillor, a parliamentary candidate, a university research fellow and the director of a unit monitoring policy in the health service. He was the Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research between 1999 and 2003, Britain’s leading centre left think tank. Matthew has written for publications including The Times, Financial Times New Statesman and Prospect.