Skills panel

Speaker profiles

He served on the Board of Trustees of the Royal Town Planning Institute (2016-2017) and has recently been elected by the RTPI membership to sit on the Board of Trustees as a Chartered Trustee for 2023-2025.

Samer was elected to Brighton and Hove City Council in 2019. He served on the city’s Health and Wellbeing Board throughout the pandemic and more recently served on the council’s audit committee. He is presently a member of the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee and Group Spokesperson on the Tourism, Equalities, Communities and Culture Committee.

PANELLIST: Wells OBE, Chief Executive, Visit Kent Deirdre Wells OBE was appointed as CEO of Visit Kent in September 2018. Deirdre is also CEO of Go to Places, an organisation created by the company, to deliver services to partners outside, and in partnership with Kent, including the Big Weekend and a number of national tourism projects.

Prior to her appointment to Visit Kent, Deirdre was Chief Executive of UKinbound, representing nearly 400 UK inbound tourism businesses. Deirdre joined UKinbound following 20 years in Government at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport working on a variety of high-profile projects including the Millennium Dome, Liverpool Capital of Culture 2008 and the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games, and latterly as Head of Tourism.

Deirdre is Chair of English Tourism Week and sits on the Board of the Tourism Alliance.

Deirdre lives in Kent with her husband and two sons.

Skills panel

CHAIR: Professor Nicholas Clarke, Deputy Dean (Planning and People) Kent Business School Nicholas Clarke is Professor of Organisational Behaviour and HRM and Deputy Dean at Kent Business School. He has previously held chairs in OB at Loughborough University, EADA Business School in Barcelona and the University of Southampton (UoS) Business School. He was head of department of HRM at UoS for 8 years managing a team of 12 academics and a member of the school’s management group. In that role he also advised the university on HR areas including managing change, organisation and leadership development as well as grievance issues.

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Speaker profiles

Nicholas has sat on the editorial boards of European Journal of Training and Development, Team Performance Management, and Human Resource Development Quarterly and regularly reviews for journals including Human Resource Management, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Leadership Quarterly, and European Journal of Work and Organisational Psychology.

Previously he has held managerial and practitioner positions in healthcare and is a qualified social worker. In his early career he worked in statutory and voluntary organisations in the areas of substance misuse, AIDS/HIV and mental health as well as leading up workforce and organisation development for a large NHS community health services trust.

HEADLINE PANELLIST: Rebecca Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Social Enterprise Kent (SEK)

As Deputy CEO of Social Enterprise Kent, Rebecca Smith is an experienced senior manager leading large teams working with a wide range of voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations (VCSEs), local authorities and funding partners, to implement and deliver a diverse range of successful projects to support individuals and business in our communities across Kent. With a MA in HR Business Partnership, a postgraduate diploma in management, and an adult teaching qualification, Rebecca loves upskilling social enterprises and charities to help them grow and develop. Rebecca represents Kent based VCSEs on the national Social Enterprise Places committee, and the South East LEP social enterprise, digital skills and skills advisory subgroups.

Rebecca is passionate about social enterprise, communities and empowering people and is proud of helping make a difference in people’s lives. PANELLIST Jessica Bartindale, Employability Project Manager, Social Enterprise Kent (SEK) Jess Bartindale is Employability Project Manager at Social Enterprise Kent. Jess currently leads on three employment projects all supporting people from marginalised or minority groups/communities, who, as a result, often have additional barriers to obtaining work. Jess promotes a person-centred, holistic approach, encouraging individuals to take charge of their lives by developing their skills and confidence so they can create long-term, sustainable change.

Jess’s work leading the Breaking Barriers project, funded by the UK Community Renewal Fund, has led to her working closely with both businesses and job seekers to promote equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging in the workplace. The project brings together job seekers and businesses to build, embed and celebrate a diverse workforce. This project has been shortlisted for the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA) national employability award, for the ‘Hardest Hit’ category.

PANELLIST: Sapphira Waterson Management Development Services Chief Executive Officer

Saffy joined MDS in May 2005 and holds the position of Chief Executive Officer. having previously worked in welfare and social work, in the probation service and the RAF. Her career developed from a background as a Probation Officer with the National Probation Service and Social Work Support Officer with SSAFA working for the RAF. She was attracted to MDS by its commitment to helping young people reach their potential and has been instrumental in doubling the size of the business over the last five years whilst tackling issues of diversity and inclusion. In 2022, Saffy supported the launch of two new development schemes.