Judges

The Employer Brand Management Awards will be judged by those tasked with their organisation’s attraction, engagement and retention strategies, regardless of where they sit in the organisation – HR, internal or corporate communications.

Each category has separate criteria for judging and a points-based system. Within the categories section, there is a detailed look at the areas on which the judges will focus in their deliberation.

We have two slots for representatives from creative agencies and they are given to the previous year's winners of the 'Best creative execution of the employer brand' and the 'Grand prix'.

Below you can find our esteemed 2023 panel. If you are interested in joining this panel please contact michelle.manton@communicatemagazine.co.uk

 

Reinold Aryee

Employer branding and recruitment marketing manager, Serco

Serco delivers essential public services on behalf of government clients around the world and is committed to redesigning and improving public services for the benefit of everyone.

As the Employer Branding and Recruitment Marketing Manager, Reinold is responsible for positioning Serco as an employer of choice, playing a key role in implementing attraction strategies that enable business growth.

With a gift for creative storytelling, Reinold is passionate about creating impactful moments that form an authentic connection. In his spare time, he's either travelling, cycling or taking photographs.”

Simon Barrow Final

Simon Barrow

Creator of the employer brand concept

Simon created the employer brand approach to management, now a subject which gets over one million results on Google. Simon was founder and chairman of the employer brand consultancy People in Business which he sold to US private equity group TMP Worldwide in August 2007.

Stephen Boyle

Global Talent Brand and Marketing COE Leader, Workday

Stephen is an employer branding professional with a passion for creating authentic and impactful employer brands. They began their career in D&I at Microsoft and subsequently worked at PayPal before moving to Workday, where they held regional roles in EMEA and APJ, culminating in their recent position as COE lead globally.

Throughout their career, Stephen has developed a deep understanding of the intricacies of employer branding and the role it plays in enhancing a company's overall reputation. They believe that an employer brand should be authentic, data-driven and reflect the company's values and culture. 

Rachael Brown

Talent attraction and candidate engagement manager, Kantar

Rachael is the Talent attraction and candidate engagement Manager for Kantar and has a global remit. Her primary focus is around candidate engagement and making sure candidate experience is as simple and easy as it can be. She’s also actively involved in ensuring Inclusion & Diversity is at the heart of all attraction strategies, making sure Kantar is an employer of choice for everyone.

From experienced hires to early careers, from social media to partnerships, and from events to careers website, Rachael can bring knowledge and understanding in a number of areas.

Kenty Brumant

Senior manager of global employer brand and recruitment marketing, Thermo Fisher Scientific

As the Senior Manager of Global Employer Brand & Recruitment Marketing, Kenty is responsible for identifying, developing and implementing global and localized strategies, campaigns and tactics focused on driving Talent Attraction and Acquisition capabilities to enable business growth across Thermo Fisher Scientific business groups globally. He act as a strategic partner for the business groups playing a critical role in enabling their growth and success by providing innovative talent attraction solutions to identify, attract and nature the talent required to support the day to day base business growth as well as expansions and acquisitions aligned to key business goals and objectives.

Kenty is especially keen on channel diversification, optimisation and adoption as it relates to different markets and cultures and is always on the lookout for the next new innovation in recruitment marketing and employer branding. In his spare time, he’s an avid traveller on the lookout for the next “it” destination. He’s also a proud Arsenal supporter and an eternally optimistic that the glory days will soon return.

Rebecca Causey

Global Commercial Director, Ph.Creative

Rebecca is an award-winning Employer brand and recruitment marketing expert. After 10 years in the industry working client side, Becs moved over to Ph.Creative to establish their recruitment marketing division and after great success, now leads their global client services team and overall client happiness. Becs is passionate about problem solving for our clients and bringing employer brand and recruitment marketing ”out of the dark ages."

Jona Gjini

Head of employer brand, Ledger

Jona is an expert in branding and communications. She is currently the Head of employer brand at Ledger, the world's most secure hardware wallet, after over seven years with Vodafone as well as some consulting and entrepreneurial experience. As an avid traveler with a soft spot for Asia, she is curious about different cultures, speaks Mandarin amongst four other languages and writes a food blog inspired by Asian cuisine.

Harriet Deacy

Global employer brand manager, Diageo

Harriet Deacy is the global employer brand manager at Diageo, a global leader in premium drinks with over 200 brands including Guinness, Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, and Bailey’s.

With a passion for content marketing and creative storytelling, Harriet enjoys building authentic, powerful, and data driven employer brands whilst helping to deliver a positive candidate and employee experience. With a background in both agency and inhouse environments, Harriet has experience developing and activating regional and global EVPs, as well as defining and managing complex attraction campaigns for a diverse portfolio of brands and audiences.

Andrew Farmer

Associate director, Employee experience and employer brand communications, White & Case LLP

Andrew Farmer is a senior brand and communications leader with deep experience of working with global organisations to transform and communicate their employee value proposition (EVP) and employer brand to attract, retain and engage the best talent. His experience includes working on a number of strategic HR/Talent programmes and initiatives, including employer brand management and EVP strategy at a global and local level, recruitment marketing, diversity and inclusion, internal and change management communications and digital and social media management. Andrew is currently working at White & Case LLP, leading global employer brand communications.

Vanessa Ferris

Global head of internal communications and employer brand

Vanessa is Global head of internal communications and employer brand at global fintech, Moove. With 10 years of agency experience, Vanessa has created employer brands for organisations across a range of industries including Technology, Retail, Government, Fintech, Professional Services, and FMCG. An advocate for inclusion in the workplace, Vanessa is a trained Inclusion Maker and chaired the ‘Developing Female Talent’ initiative during her time at TMP Worldwide UK. Vanessa has won awards in Employee Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion, and Recruitment Marketing, and is also a TEDx co-organiser alumnus.

Melony Gouna

Employer brand and attraction manager, wagamama

Recently joining wagamama as employer brand and attraction manager, Melony is playing a key role in establishing and reigniting wagamama’s voice as an employer of choice in the hospitality industry.

Her RPO and employer brand agency background has brought real breadth to her expertise, delivering consumer-grade solutions and campaigns underpinned by a clear and differentiated message for a range of global clients. Her experience spans from data-driven employee value proposition development to multi-channel brand activation across online and offline touchpoints. Melony is an agile and creative thinker with a passion for bringing authentic and compelling people stories, concepts and campaigns to life in the most effective way.

Nick Homer

Recruitment Marketing & Employer Brand Manager (International), DLA Piper

Nick has worked extensively in the employer brand space, most recently as Head of Employer Brand at Wayfair and prior to that leading client service teams at the likes of ThirtyThree and Tonic. Along the way he's had the chance to work on a number of high profile and award-winning projects with organisations such as Vodafone, McDonald's, Met Police and EDF Energy.

Sukhi Kandola

Former International employer brand and recruitment marketing Lead, DLA Piper

Sukhi is the former international Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing for DLA Piper, and oversaw EMEA and Asia Pacific regions.  With over 15 years of recruitment experience within both student and experience hire, Sukhi is passionate about actively building a diverse culture that empowers authentic storytelling and making bold creative decisions elevating employer brand outputs to meet organisational objectives on brief, on time and on budget

Rob Lewis

Talent attraction manager, BDO UK LLP

Rob is an experienced employer brand professional with a passion for digital marketing, social and creative storytelling and trying to keep ahead of the latest trends in the EB world.

With a background in FMCG, (at Kellogg’s and Mondelēz International), Rob moved to L’Oréal to lead their employer brand into a local market. He then took a stint in IT infrastructure, working for Kyndryl building a new employer brand from scratch.

Now, Rob works as the Talent Attraction Manager for BDO – a global tax and accountancy firm – where he’s setting the strategy for employer brand in their UK team.

 

Münteha Mangan

Chief of Employer Branding, Turkish Aerospace

Münteha is Chief of Employer Branding at Turkish Aerospace since 2019.  He first met with "Employer Branding" while he was working for a digital employer branding platform in 2008. After 15 years of operations and communications experience including 12 years of mid-level and top-level management experience with a proven success in different functions across several sectors, he is now leading Employer Brand Communications of the sector’s fastest-growing company of Türkiye with a record-breaking and award-winning performance.

Kat Ogunsanwo

Head of Internal Comms, Engagement, EVP & Employer Brand, Camelot

Kat is the Head of Internal Comms, Engagement, EVP & Employer Brand for Camelot and has been in this role since 2019.

Her 15-year people-focussed career spans across a number of organisations specialising in recruitment, people experience, employer brand, engagement, and internal communications.

She developed the Camelot EVP, built an authentic employer brand to support it, and has since embedded it internally in her current role.

Nathalie Plavonil

Global Employer Brand Manager, TUI

Nathalie joined TUI as Global employer brand manager in January 2022, to lead the Employer Value Proposition and employer branding strategy development for the global tourism group.

In the past year, together with an international project team, she led the development and launch of TUI’s new employer branding and implemented global projects aiming to authentically position TUI as an employer of choice.

Data-driven and passionate about storytelling, employee advocacy and international networking, Nathalie has previously worked in market-focused and global roles within BMW Group and Airbus. Her key achievements include setting up BMW Group UK’s HR marketing function, leading successful recruitment marketing campaigns and projects across multiple legal entities, and implementing Airbus’ EVP across different locations in four continents.

Dan Smith

Head of employee communication and engagement, Govia Thameslink Railway Limited

Dan has worked in PR, branding and employee communications for over 15 years for a range of well-known names such as Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and the NHS.

Since 2017, Dan has been leading internal communications, engagement and branding for train companies, including Virgin Trains East Coast where he led the development of the company’s new people purpose and values as it was taken under public ownership by the Department for Transport in 2018, forming London North Eastern Railway, or LNER.

Today, Dan heads up the employee communications and engagement team at GTR, the UK’s biggest train operator. He’s also a Fellow of, and mentor for, the Institute of Internal Communications.

Katie Sparrowhawk

Talent acquisition leader, Amazon Stores EMEA

Katie Sparrowhawk has been leading talent acquisition across Amazon’s EMEA Retail business since January 2022, and prior to that has a range of experience leading Talent Acquisition and recruitment teams most recently at the BBC and BBC Studios, and Cancer Research UK. Katie has over 14 years of recruitment experience in industries such as not for profit, financial regulation and financial services, across experienced hires and campus recruitment.

Caroline Winder

Managing partner, Havas People

Caroline Winder is a Managing Partner at Havas People – a global talent communications agency. With over 20 years of experience in the industry, Employer branding is an area of marketing that continues to inspire her. She loves the variety of looking inside different company cultures to understand what makes those businesses tick, and enjoys working with clients who recognise that their strategic approach to talent is a priority for ensuring business success. During her career, Caroline has worked on some of the most complex brands in the market including adidas, AXA, McDonalds, PwC, RBS, Royal Mail and RWE.