Christina Ioannidis
Christina began her career as a corporate professional but, following double redundancies as a result of the ‘dot-com bust’, has pursued entrepreneurship in numerous guises. Despite failures along the way, Christina has learnt through experience that entrepreneurship presents an opportunity for women to identify and design working cultures that suit their individual needs.
Christina’s mixed experience with large corporates, then entrepreneurship and now as an external consultant specialising in Strategic Organisational Development and Management, has helped develop the core of the Gender-Savvy model outlined in ‘Your Loss’. The model has been substantiated through qualitative research from interviewees as well as quantitative research.
Christina Ioannidis is fast becoming recognised as one of the ‘go-to’ experts in the field of diversity and innovation. She is the CEO of Aquitude, a specialist consulting firm and the founder of the Diversity and Innovation think-tank ‘Bidiversity.’
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Nicola Walther
Nicola has over 13-years of experience from the world of banking and finance. She has travelled the world in a variety of roles within financial services, including corporate finance, transaction banking and relationship management, culminating in two senior staff roles, firstly within Emerging Markets and, lastly, within Risk at Citi. Nicola has lived, first-hand, numerous of the cultural and structural obstacles that face women in male-dominated fields, such as commercial and investment banking.
During her time at Citi, Nicola co-chaired a Retention & Development Committee for Women in the UK which developed the “Coaching for Success” programme that won external recognition from the Women of the Future Awards. She has devised and actively supported a multitude of Diversity initiatives, only to see the initiatives as “window-dressing”; not changing the underlying issues around stereotyping and structural bias.
Nicola is keen to make change happen in the corporate arena, to reduce the stereotyping she has witnessed and redress female bias for the benefit of improved business and, most importantly, for the personal and professional empowerment of women. Nicola has two children under three. In her limited spare time she enjoys cooking, dancing and fine dining.
