Kat Holmes, Data Director
13.4 million women and trans/non-binary folk are current going through menopause in UK. It is adversely affecting members of our Women in Data® community right at the point they are stepping into some of the biggest roles of their careers. We need solutions that don’t pathologise the experience, and pave the way for women and trans/non-binary people of all ages to navigate this period of their lives.
Women in Data® is proud to commence WiD Week with a panel that will explore the importance and value of introducing menopause support, raising awareness and discussing why and how we must place data at the heart of the solution. WiD pioneer Kat Holmes is leading the conversation, bringing views, experiences and how Women in Data plan to support solutions for this deeply valued part of the community.
Kat will be joined by senior data leaders and menopause health & education experts to explore the topic!
Come join this safe space to learn, share and network – and understand why this is an important topic for our entire Women in Data® community.
Kat has been transforming organisations through technology and data leadership for the past 19 years – most recently as a data director specialising in strategy and governance. A moderately successful filmmaker for 12 years, Kat is passionate about the potential of data to tell meaningful stories to customers and internal business teams alike, and has spent the last few years helping Fortune 500 organisations such as Travelex and ITV pivot their data strategies to more closely align to business value creation, to be cloud and AI tech driven, but to still keep people at the heart of the storytelling.
Kat has also recently been able to integrate her lifelong commitment to ESG into her data career, through her public talks on diversity, inclusion and belonging in data teams.
This year Kat has put her hand up to lead an ESG initiative on behalf of Women in Data® , partnering with leading menopause health and education practitioners on a data strategy for menopause in the UK, and the provision of support to female data leaders.
Minaxi Mistry is the Founder and CEO of Equality Leaders. She has been championing equality, diversity and inclusion for over 25 years. Having started her career within the publishing industry within a niche space, Minaxi has been fortunate to work with clients across multiple sectors and grown her network globally. She has been instrumental in devising new and effective diversity and inclusion strategies which had had a positive and real impact in the workplace and society.
Minaxi’s work to campaign for equality started soon after the death of Stephen Lawrence, when a young black boy was murdered in a racially motivated attack on the streets of London in April 1993. Stephen’s tragic murder was a watershed moment for race relations in Britain and like George Floyds murder in the US some three decades later, it represents a turning point in our quest for a more equal and equitable society.
In 2021 Minaxi was appointed to the NatWest Ethnic Advisory Council where she is actively working with the bank to support their commitments and targets set out in NWG’s Banking on Racial Equity report. Minaxi is also a member of the Campaigns Board for Historic Royal Palaces and Corporate Advisory Board Member for the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith. She supports both charities with their wider fund raising activities.
As an Indian woman, who plays many roles in life, Minaxi brings many years of varied and lived experiences to the forefront of campaigning for an equitable world.
Pamela Cook is the CEO of Infoshare, a UK-based Data Quality and Management company. She has shaped Infoshare to use its technology for good and has played a crucial role in many successful projects aimed at protecting vulnerable members of society. Her work with police forces has improved the accuracy of millions of police records and the implementation of fully compliant police data processes. And the work she led with local government has improved the identification of vulnerable and at-risk individuals and ensured safe-guarding interventions are delivered earlier and more effectively to those who need it.
Her desire to be a force for good however is not limited to her role as CEO. She is also a magistrate in Thames Valley and attaches great importance to the work she does with the Cabinet Office SME Panel, advocating for the rights and fair treatment of UK small businesses. During the Covid-19 crisis she volunteered with a Covid support team to help vulnerable people in her area who were self-isolating and was shortlisted for a community award for this work.
Pamela is regularly recognised in the industry for her expertise and insights. She was named the Female Entrepreneur of the Year in the 2019 Enterprise Awards; listed on the 2020 DataIQ 100 people in data, and on the 2020 Global Top 100 Data Visionaries. She has been listed as one of We Are Tech Women’s Inspirational Women in Tech and has recently been profiled by both Archives of IT and Business Matters.
Bola is a Career, Learning and Development specialist with experience in a range of industries, across both the public and private sector and is currently the Talent & Inclusion Manager at Hastings Direct.
Bola’s work has always been about people and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential whether at the start of their career, returning to work after a break or reaching the autumn of their career and ready to do something new.
Naturally curiosity combined with working at Hastings Direct, a company which is underpinned by data has meant a growing interest in people analytics. Bola is currently developing data skills and completing a data analyst apprenticeship
Diversity, Talent and Inclusion work has for years been seen as a ‘nice to have’ but hard data has shown time and time again that peoples experiences of work, feeling engaged, valuing diversity and inclusion make a tangible difference to a company’s performance and ultimately bottom line. As data advances we can identify gaps that help us to drive better informed decisions but also allows us to gain sophisticated detailed insight particularly from voices that have traditionally been silent
However most companies still treat D&I as a bolt on rather than a fundamental driver. Organisations tend to focus on or only invest during specific inclusion weeks. D&I doesn’t sit on the executive agenda or is spoken about once a month when an update is provided but directors are not held accountable, nor their performance judged for diversity and inclusion in their areas. Hence the continued need for more focus on data.
Gaele Lalahy, COO of the Femtech Start-up Balance-app.com, Non-executive Director National Paralympic heritage Trust, ex-Panasonic Board Member, Head of Brand Communications & Olympic marketing.
The Balance-app.com offers free support for peri-menopausal and menopausal women globally. Gaele teamed up with leading GP and menopause specialist Dr Louise Newson in her almost solo fight to improve women’s health around the world. balance mission is to make menopause support accessible and inclusive to all by empowering women with unbiased evidence-based information and knowledge so they can instigate a faster diagnosis and demand access to the appropriate treatment.
Lucy Chatwin, Commercial Director at Newson Health Research and Education, a not for profit organisation.
Her role is to establish the Newson Health Menopause Society with a focus on bringing together healthcare professionals from around the world to transform the care, treatment, education and research of the perimenopause and menopause.
