Keynote speaker

Lord Dr Michael Hastings of Scarisbrick CBE

Lord Dr Michael Hastings of Scarisbrick CBE is an Independent Peer in the House of Lords and has had a fulfilling career across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, working within education, philanthropy, and business to support and develop communities around the world. He is Chairman of SOAS, University of London and the recent Chancellor of Regent’s University London. He remains the Professor of Leadership at the Stephen L Covey Institute at the Huntsman Business School, University of Utah, USA. He is a Non-Executive Director at Saxton Bampfylde, the Executive Search firm and is Chair of the London Chamber of Commerce Black Business Association and a director/trustee of the new National Institute of Teaching.

He is also a Vice President at UNICEF UK, an Ambassador for Tear Fund and Chair of the Council of ZANE (Zimbabwe Aid) and a trustee for the Africa Philanthropy Foundation. Lord Hastings is the former Head of Public Affairs at the BBC and was their first head of Corporate Social Responsibility. He also served as the Global Head of Citizenship for KPMG and is a former Trustee of the Vodafone Group Foundation and subsequently a Governor of the Vodafone/Safaricom M-PESA Academy in Nairobi for 800 of Kenya’s poorest children. He is a passionate advocate for the SDG’s – the 17 Sustainable Development Goals the world must reach by 2030 to give dignity to all.

Lord Hastings began his career as a teacher in 1980 having graduated in Theology from the London School of Theology in 1979 and then Westminster College Oxford in Education in 1980 and then from 1986 worked across government agencies on policies to build racial equality, workforce development, and safer and more effective crime prevention strategies moving to live UK wide TV broadcasting in 1990 and then Head of Public Affairs for the BBC in 1996. He was conferred with a Doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Kent, Canterbury in 2014 in recognition for his leadership at KPMG, the BBC and for his work in international development and corporate responsibility and in 2019 was the first ever recipient of the Stephen R Covey Leadership Award for a life built on principles and pragmatic delivery.