Our speaker biographies can be found below.
Please note that more are being added as they become available.
Keynote Speakers
Major General Zac Stenning OBE
Commandant Royal Military Academy Sandhurst; Director Leadership, British Army; Colonel of the Regiment, The Royal Yorkshire Regiment
With a distinguished 29-year career in the British Army, during which he has served around the world from The Balkans and Africa to Iraq and Afghanistan, Major General Zac Stenning OBE is the Army’s current Director Leadership and Commandant of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS). He is also the Royal Yorkshire Regiment’s Colonel-in-Chief. As RMAS Commandant he has been widely recognised as leading culture change across the Army and Defence. His challenge is to ensure that the Army continues to provide a unique environment for future officers to learn and grow as leaders, ready to fight and win wars, with an emphasis on developing leadership skills and fostering teamwork and collaboration.
Richard Flinton
Chief Executive of North Yorkshire Council
Richard Flinton became Chief Executive of North Yorkshire Council following its establishment in 2023 after 12 years at the helm of North Yorkshire County Council. Richard first joined the County Council as a trainee trading standards officer, becoming Assistant Head of Trading Standards before using his background in economics to lead the Council’s Economic Development Team. In his current role Richard was closely involved in developing the Devolution Deal for North Yorkshire and York – with the new Combined Authority established in February this year. Richard is married with two children and lives in Ryedale.
Professor Stephen Eames CBE
Chief Executive of Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (HNY HCP)
Stephen has been the Chief Executive of HNY HCP since April 2020. He has over 30 years of top-level leadership experience in the hospital and health care industry, having held a number of Chief Executive and system leadership roles. He also has a strong grounding in Executive Coaching and Development and is a Visiting Professorship in leadership and management at The University of Central Lancashire. Stephen was awarded a CBE for services to the NHS in 2019. He lives in North Yorkshire and is an avid follower of Leeds United FC.
Speaker and Panel Facilitator
Johanna Hooper
Leadership and Change Management Expert, Limitless Peak Performance
Johanna is a retired Royal Navy Commander who, after a career in management consultancy, now runs her own business working with small business leaders and executives in larger organisations. She provides strategic workforce planning, coaching and mentoring, teaching, facilitation and mediation services to help develop high performing teams and exemplary leaders. She specialises in organisational design, leadership and change management, employee engagement and resilience, tutoring on these topics on behalf of universities and on the national Help To Grow Management Programme. A TEDx speaker, Johanna is sought after to talk about the impact of stress and resilience on our leadership style.
Speakers
Valentina Hynes
Entrepreneur, Founder and CEO of SVH Inc. CIC
Valentina Hynes is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker renowned for delivering compelling talks to diverse global audiences for over 15 years. As the founder and CEO of SVH Inc. CIC, (an acronym for Strong Vibrant Happy & Incorporated), a workplace wellbeing solutions provider, she brings a unique perspective, emphasising success with purpose and social impact. Moving to the UK in 2017, she founded SVH Inc. with her husband in January 2019. Two years later, she led its transition to a Community Interest Company. Valentina was named Yorkshire Choice Awards Business Woman of the Year last year and is listed on the WISE100 Top 100.
Debbie North
Cabinet Office Disability and Access Ambassador for the Countryside; Writer; Consultant and Founder of Access the Dales. After a serious health diagnosis resulted in Debbie having to rely on a wheelchair, she refused to give up on her love of the fells and has gone on to become a leading advocate for an inclusive countryside accessible to all. Establishing the charity, Access the Dales, to dismantle barriers preventing people with limited mobility from enjoying the outdoors, she has recently been appointed as the government’s Disability and Access Ambassador for the countryside. She is currently working on two books: a guide to stile-free walks in North Yorkshire and a chronical of her personal journey across the UK.
Panellists
Nicki Watkinson
Youth Voice and Creative Engagement Strategic Manager, North Yorkshire Council Children and Families Service
Nicki is the Youth Voice and Creative Engagement Strategic Manager for North Yorkshire Council’s Children and Families Service. Her early career revealed a passion for the homelessness sector and led her to take on a variety of roles in the statutory and voluntary sectors. Keen to gain professional qualifications to develop her career, she returned to university to study for a Masters in Youth Work and Community Development. Gaining this qualification changed how she saw herself, she says, making her more confident to stretch herself and apply for jobs she would previously not have considered.
Charlee Bewsher
Strategy Manager, Youth Work Unit Yorkshire and Humber
Charlee is a qualified youth worker and manager with over 25 years’ experience, having worked in both the statutory and voluntary sectors before joining Youth Work Unit Yorkshire and Humber. Working with a wide range of partners, she has broad knowledge of the region’s youth sector and thanks to her time with a dedicated participation organisation, has vast experience of engaging children, young people, their communities and organisation representatives in the decision-making process to improve services and meet need. She believes she has learned to lead without authority and sees leadership as supporting others to achieve their aspirations while addressing social inequalities and injustice.
Natasha Babar-Evans
Chief Executive Officer, Better Connect Limited
Natasha is CEO at Better Connect, a non-profit organisation that leads programmes aimed at empowering people to thrive in their life and work. Previously, she worked at Relate Bradford & Leeds. She has been an entrepreneur and Chief Operating Officer of Wizu Workspace – a flexible workspace provider supporting the growth of businesses across Yorkshire. And, with both a banking and legal background, she was appointed Regional Entrepreneur Director for NatWest, supporting and helping to coach hundreds of entrepreneurs in accelerators across the North. Natasha is currently a non-executive director of 54North Homes and a trustee of Trust Leeds and Chain Lane Community Hub.
Paul McCay
Chief Executive Officer, Wilf Ward Family Trust
Paul has held various positions across social care, housing and local authority organisations, beginning with his first management role in 1997 where he was part of a team managing direct access hostels and rough sleeper services. He has since held roles working across statutory homeless provision, sheltered housing, forensic mental health registered services and developing and managing accessible housing whilst running a small 2,000 home registered social landlord. He has been the CEO of The Wilf Ward Family Trust since 2013. The Trust is a large regional charity providing registered care and supported accommodation services (across 73 different sites) to individuals living with a learning disability or profound and multiple learning disabilities.
Lindsay Oliver
Chief Executive, New Beginnings Peer Support
With over a decade of experience of working in peer organisations including gang-affiliated teens, adults with learning differences/disabilities and those recovering from substance misuse, Lindsay founded New Beginnings Peer Support – a charity supporting women and their children previously subjected to domestic abuse. It now has six staff and almost 50 volunteers, offering long-term support in various areas of North Yorkshire. She has since gone on to develop Visionary Actions, a social enterprise offering advice, guidance and training to implement domestic abuse awareness and support and has also been integral to the recent launch of Trauma-informed and Responsive North Yorkshire & Humber.
JK (Jennie-Kate) McQuinn
Founder, Coach and Facilitator, Where the Mind Grows
JK (Jennie- Kate) McQuinn is the founder of Where the Mind Grows – a source of nature-collaborative coaching for individuals, teams and organisations. With a background in mental health, employability and leadership in the VCSE and private sectors, as well as working in public health, JK set up her regenerative coaching business driven by the belief that coaching in the wild helps people expand their horizons and create opportunities to enhance their life. She helps people find the calm, clarity and confidence to celebrate themselves, enhance their communities and manage the ebb and flow of ‘being human’ in a busy world.
Jill Quinn
CEO, Dementia Forward
Jill has worked in the voluntary sector for 23 years, founding the North Yorkshire charity, Dementia Forward, in 2012. Since then, the charity has grown from a team of seven, supporting 200 families in its first year, to a team of over 60 staff and 200 volunteers, currently supporting 4,500 families. Dementia Forward supports people from pre-diagnosis to end-of-life offering advice, information and education plus activity-based day services. A specific focus at the moment is the development of age-appropriate care for people living with young onset dementia. The charity received the Queen’s award for volunteering in 2021 and a King’s Fund Impact Award in 2022. Jill is a member of the Kings fund Voluntary Sector network for charity leaders.
Conference Swap Shop Facilitator
Chris Hailey Norris
Chief Executive, Up for Yorkshire
Chris has worked in the VCSE Sector for over 30 years – he loves it! As well as being Chief Executive, he is a charity entrepreneur and trainer who has been pivotal in setting up vital partnerships and user support for charities and organisations in North Yorkshire and beyond. With Up For Yorkshire, his aim is to help organisations throughout the area to achieve their aspirations and potential as well as enable individuals to set up their own ventures. In 2024 Up For Yorkshire was the joint 1st organisation to be awarded the Local Infrastructure Quality Accreditation. Partnerships he chairs include – Selby District Dementia Action Group, Selby District Equity and Advice Network, the Anti-Poverty Action Group, and the Independent Action Group for North Yorkshire Police. He is also a trainer for the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) and the proud owner, finally, of all 4 autographs from Abba!
