Inclusive leadership in a challenging environment: fostering change, culture, diversity and equity

Andrew is an economics graduate with over 17 years' experience leading large operational teams in challenging and complex environments across the military, investment banking and central banking. Andrew gained a Queen's Commission as an officer in the British Army, ending his military career as an instructor in leadership at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He has remained passionate about people and how we lead. After leading three teams across Morgan Stanley's collateral management function he went on to chair the Governor's Leadership Taskforce at the Bank of England. The taskforce made recommendations on The Bank's Leadership Commitment, identified a Leadership Curriculum and set the organisation's future strategy on leadership. At the Bank of England, Andrew is a Leadership Story coach and has broad responsibilities across Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Andrew is currently responsible for leading 55 people across 3 functions in the Central Banking Operations Division at the Bank of England, with additional responsibilities as the division's operational risk officer. During his military career, Andrew led and commanded team sizes ranging from 4 people to 30 people, and was second in command of (and at times assuming command of) an operational task force of 250 men and women.

Stefan Ingves served as the governor of Sveriges Riksbank, from 2006 to 2022. He was chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision from 2011–19. Since November 2021, he has served as the vice-chairman of the Bank for International Settlements where he has chaired its Banking and Risk Management Committee since 2007. Ingves served as chairman of the Advisory Technical Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board between 2011 and 2017, and was first vice-chair of the ESRB from 2021. From 1999–2005, Ingves was director of the monetary and financial systems department at the International Monetary Fund and worked as deputy governor of the Riksbank from 1994–98, after a year working as director-general of the Swedish Bank Support Authority. From 1988–92, he was a member of the board of the Swedish National Debt Office, the Stockholm Stock Exchange and Värdepapperscentralen, as well as under-secretary for financial markets and institutions at the Swedish Ministry of Finance. Ingves has also worked in banking as assistant vice-president in the central finance and fund management division at Svenska Handelsbanken between 1984 and 1986, and was president of Sofe, Sweden’s Options and Futures Exchange in 1987. He has a PhD in economics and was a lecturer at the Stockholm School of Economics between 1976 and 1984.

Eva is a creative and insightful leader with a diverse background of experiences in HR matters. During her more than 20 years at the European Central Bank she has been exposed to different HR roles and organisational challenges working with and learning from numerous stakeholders both within the European System of Central Banks and International Financial Institutions. During her career at the ECB Eva established the Learning and Development function, increased the impact of the HR Business Partners for leaders, led the Diversity and Inclusion strategy and the transformation of the HR function.  As Director General Human Resources Eva is leading the ECB’s people and culture strategy dealing with the challenges and opportunities arising from the transformation of a new way of working and leading within the Bank.

Passionate for people, organisations and continuous development, Eva is a change agent and believes in continuous transformation as the enabler to achieve sustainable business impact in an ever changing and complex environment.

Economist by education, central banker by heart. Throughout his 25+ year career in central banking, Mugur Tolici has held numerous roles in both core and enabling functions within the National Bank of Romania, ranging from head of monetary policy division, adviser to the deputy governor, head of the governor's office, deputy director of cash department and his most recent tenure as HR director. In this role, he has successfully lead one of the most transformational projects of the bank, implementing a new people management system aligned to international best practices and centered on bringing to the forefront NBR’s values: integrity, commitment, performance and cooperation. His career also includes international experiences, most recently the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, serving as a Senior Adviser for the Executive Director (Dutch-Belgium Constituency).

Passionate for teaching, he also has a rich academic experience as lecturer at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies and National University of Political Studies and Public Administration.

Joel Gujral is 31 years old and the Founder & CEO of a mental health company MYNDUP. Joel founded the company in April 2019 after his own mental health battle due to an undiagnosed gut condition and he struggled to access support when working at a global finance company that offered counselling. He then set up MYNDUP to stop the one size fits all approach to mental health and also change the way organisations were dealing with this by removing all barriers to care. 

Joel bootstrapped the company with £105 and then subsequently raised £5m. MYNDUP is now servicing employees in 50 countries with brands like Monzo, Dentons, Savills, CVC & The Princes Trust. 

Joel has won several awards during his entrepreneurial journey including:

• Winner of the Barclays Start-up Entrepreneur of the Year Award
• Winner of the London Stock Exchange Group Entrepreneurship Programme
• Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech 2023 listed as a top 5 UK startup

Varshaa Kutik joined BIS on 1 March 2022 as their first Diversity and Inclusion adviser. She has 18 years of experience in the D&I space and has worked across several industries. Prior to joining the BIS she was the APAC LEAD for D&I for Bank of America based in HK. Across her career she led D&I for the APAC & EMEA regions for Cargill, a Minnesota-based global leader in trading and distributing agricultural commodities. She also held a global role in Cargill driving learning, talent management, and D&I for one of Cargill’s 5 global businesses for over a year and was based in Minneapolis. Before Cargill, she was employed with Goldman Sachs in India and led their D&I efforts. She started her career in the ESG space and was responsible for the publication of the first Sustainability Report for Infosys, an Indian multinational corporation that provides business consulting, information technology, and outsourcing services. Varshaa has a master’s degree in Globalization and Development from Warwick University in the UK. She has lived and worked in 5 countries (India, UK, US, Singapore & Hong Kong) and she is currently based in Basel Switzerland.

Professor Braganza is Dean of Brunel Business School and holds the Chair in Business Transformation.  Prior to being appointed Dean, Professor Braganza was the Deputy Dean of the College of Business, Arts and Social Sciences. 

He is the Founder and co-Director of Brunel’s interdisciplinary Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence, launched in 2018, which incorporates a dedicated AI Lab. The Centre and Lab are part of the wider Brunel’s AI Ecosystem, led by Professor Braganza.  Most recently, Professor Braganza is part of a consortium that has won a €5.8 million bid for the ELOQUENCE EU project (2024-2027).

Professor Braganza’s scholarly contribution is to the field of change implementation and, specifically, leadership of strategic organisational transformation.  His interest in the implementation of cross-functional change was sparked during his doctoral journey, and continues to inform his research projects, teaching, and consultancy assignments.  His research is practice-based, underpinned by thirty-five publications in high-ranking, peer reviewed journals. Professor Braganza has led over twenty-five large consultancy transformation projects in global and national public and FT100 private sector organisations. 

Peter Faykiss is the Director of Digitalization Directorate at the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (the central bank of Hungary), where he is responsible for FinTech, digital finance and digital currencies/CBDC topics. Before entering the digital finance area, he gained experience in financial stability, financial regulation and macroprudential policy. As the Head of Division for Banking Regulations of Ministry for National Economy he was responsible for the domestic implementation of the European regulatory package CRD IV in 2013. In 2014 he was appointed as the Head of Macroprudential Policy Department of the MNB, from 2017 he served as the Director of Macroprudential Directorate. Mr. Faykiss graduated in 2009 from Corvinus University of Budapest and he holds a PhD in Finance from Corvinus University of Budapest.”