Black Women breaking the Tech Ceiling

Schedule

Thu Mar 23 2023 at 06:00 pm to 09:00 pm

Location

Barclays Bank | London, EN

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Black Women Breaking the Tech Ceiling
About this Event

Date: Thursday 23rd March 2023

Time: 18.00 - 21.00

Location Barclays Bank London 1 Churchill Place, London E14 5HP


We are proud to be co-hosting our first event with Barclays on Thursday, 23 March.


“Black Women Breaking the Tech Ceiling” is a panel event featuring conversations with four Barclays colleagues, who are Technology experts and Black professionals, as they share their experiences and insights into working at Barclays and the broader Technology environment.


There will be time for Q&As throughout the event, as well as the opportunity to network with our guests and attendees to talk more and meet new contacts.


The first 100 guests to arrive at the event will receive a special goodie bag, so please register your interest and sign up today!


We look forward to welcoming you, to what will be a great event.



About our speakers


Natalie Ojevah MBE, Eagle Labs Diversity & Inclusion Lead, Barclays UK

With over 10+ years in Banking and Finance, Natalie began her career at Barclays in 2012 via the Barclays apprenticeship scheme.

Always looking for ways to support her community, Natalie now brings that focus into her role at Barclays Eagle Labs, the bank’s national network for high-potential startups, where she led on the creation and is the driving force behind Barclays’. A dedicated programme to help Black founder-led tech start-up businesses scale, grow and become investment ready. Having seen the lack of diversity, especially with Black entrepreneurs, she realised this was a national issue and supporting Black founders and businesses would help us to make a real difference.

Natalie has won numerous awards over the years’ from being London’s Higher Apprentice of the Year in 2016, to WeAreTheCity Rising Star award in 2020 and most recently been awarded an MBE for services to business development and to Diversity and Inclusion.


Laura Okafor-Withers, Head of Sales Finance and US Programme Blue for Trade and Working Capital Operations

Laura has over 20 years professional experience, including Group Finance and Operational Leadership. Before Barclays Laura was a Senior Director at Worldpay, FIS, leading the Settlement Operations team for EMEA, APAC and Global E-Commerce she has led international teams across a number of large organisations, including Lloyds Banking Group and Deloitte Consulting. She has a passion for people and motivating large teams.


Ken Osivwemu, Director, Transformation & Commercial Performance

Ken joined Barclays in 2004 as a Continuous Improvement Manager in a Barclaycard contact centre. He then went on to join the Partnerships team, designing and delivering the client experience and operating models for a new joint venture credit card businesses with retailers.

Ken moved into Corporate Bank’s then Operational Excellence team in 2007, delivering continuous improvement and operational change projects and later joined Transaction Banking in 2011. Over a 9-year period he managed different portfolios of client facing products, owning the end to end product performance including P&L as well as developing new products.

In 2020, Ken took up a Director level Head of Business Management and Change Engagement role in HR Optimisation and re-joined Transaction Banking in 2022 in the Transformation and Commercial Performance team, initially leading a review of our products and operating model across Asia and supporting the delivery of the core platform upgrade in India and the UAE.

Ken co-founded the Barclays Black Professionals Forum (now called the BPRG) and co-chaired it for its first 3 years. Under his leadership, the forum designed and delivered a range of events and initiatives which ultimately contributed to the birth of the Barclays Race at Work agenda and culminated in them winning the Inclusion Champion category of the Barclays Global Citizenship and Diversity awards in 2019. Ken continues to be a passionate and active advocate for Inclusion at Barclays and has delivered a number of initiatives to raise awareness and understanding of ethnicity and race related issues and of what’s needed to achieve inclusion.


Neil Wilks, Managing Director, CIO of Corporate Banking

Currently the Head of Technology for Corporate Banking at Barclays, Neil has 35 years of experience of Technology in Financial Services, starting out as a developer, subsequently undertaking Projects and Programme Management, Architecture and Technology Leadership positions.

Neil started his career as a graduate at Unisys the US solutions provider developing and implementing core banking solutions. During his 9 years, he spent more than half of his time on client sites which included living and working in Paris, Brussels, Athens and Stockholm. Following this, he joined UBS Investment Bank in London and ended his 9-year stint as Global Head of Technology for Financial and Product Control. This period also included a 2-year secondment based in Zurich.

Neil joined Barclays in 2006 and has held a variety of senior positions in the Group Centre, the Investment Bank and the Corporate Bank running a variety of global Programmes and Functions. Over his career, he has always had a passion for Diversity and Inclusion and has participated in or sponsored many initiatives across the Gender, Multicultural or LGBT pillars.


About GTA Black Women In Tech

GTA Black Women In Tech, formerly known as TLA Black Women In Tech, is a not-for-profit organisation global organisation, based in London, dedicated to building bridges of opportunities in tech by enabling black female talents to excel and companies to have access to black women of talent. We are a community of black women tech advocates of all levels and allies who support and empower diversity and inclusion.

Our mission is to inspire, support, and connect the tech sphere to allow more black women to excel and tech companies to perform better through diversity & inclusion.

We partner with companies to improve diversity at the junior to board level. We advise tech companies on embedding inclusion and diversity into the DNA of their organisations. We elevate black women to inspire others to put themselves forward to new opportunities so they can change the dynamic in the tech space. We help organisations identify hidden biases and provide information on reducing bias and thus inclusive.

You can visit our website here.

About Our Monthly Events

GTA Black Women in Tech hosts monthly events to bring together business professionals, entrepreneurs and companies. The networking event is a great opportunity to meet other like-minded technology and digital businesses/individuals.

Please save those dates. Our events, virtual or in-house, are on the 2nd Thursday of the month from 18:00 to 20:00. Within our amazing community, we are fortunate to have many professionals willing to speak or host the events.

From 2021, our events will be featured around these 3 pillars, ensuring the subjects are relevant to tech entrepreneurs, tech companies and professionals in tech.

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Where is it happening?

Barclays Bank, 1 Churchill Place, London, United Kingdom

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Tickets

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Tech London Advocates - Black Women in Tech

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