Nicola Barber, FCIPD, Department for Infrastructure

Nicola Barber, Chartered Fellow (FCIPD), Chair of the CIPD NI Branch and Head of Workforce Planning in the Department for Infrastructure. Nicola is an experienced HR professional with more than 20 years senior experience in a range of industries and sectors.

With a passion for learning, Nicola holds Master’s Degrees in HR and in Housing and is a qualified Mediator, Coach and Mentor and holds advanced qualifications in Employment Law and Employee Engagement.

Nicola is committed to voluntary and community work and has been on a Board of Directors with local Housing Associations for more than 12 years and previously with Women’s Aid. Nicola is dedicated to advancing the HR profession and shaping the future of HR through mentoring emerging leaders and HR professionals. Nicola has been a part-time lecturer, delivering Master’s Degree level with Queens University as well as CIPD HR qualifications with Belfast Metropolitan College.

With a keen interest in employee engagement, Nicola has been the Lead Regional Ambassador with Engage for Success for more than 10 years.

Wendy Close, MCIPD, Prestige Insurance Holdings

Wendy Close is Group People Director of Prestige Insurance Holdings, where she is responsible for working with the Directors and senior managers to agree HR strategy and plan, and ensure implementation of plan in line with key business requirements.

Previously, Wendy worked for Bank of Ireland in NI as Senior HR Business Partner.

Carol Fitzsimons, MBE, Young Enterprise Northern Ireland

Carol Fitzsimons MBE has been Chief Executive of Young Enterprise Northern Ireland since 2009. Having previously specialised in learning & development in the private sector, she is a strong advocate for the benefits of providing young people with the opportunity to develop entrepreneurship skills from a young age. She is committed to providing young people in Northern Ireland with the best preparation for success in the new economy through her work at Young Enterprise – Northern Ireland’s leading business education charity.

In May 2019, she was awarded IoD NI Director of the Year for the Third Sector. She is an Alumni of the US Boston College Irish Institute exchange on Youth Entrepreneurship, and was a participant in the Global Ambassador’s Program with Vital Voices. Her involvement in these programmes has allowed her to benchmark the work of the charity against global best practice, and develop & implement a strategic vision to make Young Enterprise NI one of the leading providers of Enterprise Education in the world.

She was awarded the MBE in 2016 for services to enterprise education.

Paul Gillen, FCIPD, Lewis Silkin

Paul has been a Partner and employment lawyer at Lewis Silkin since June 2022, before which he headed up the employment team at at Pinsent Masons LLP. Previously, Paul worked for over ten years in HR Management within the manufacturing, engineering, retail and construction sectors. This experience supports his commercial and solutions-based approach.

Paul is qualified as a solicitor in England & Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and he is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and is Past-Chair of the Northern Ireland CIPD Branch.  Paul is Visiting Professor to the School of Law at Ulster University and sits on the CBI Employment & Skills Committee.  Paul specialises in advising public and private sector clients on contentious and non-contentious matters, TUPE, equality and diversity (including public sector equality duties), policy and procedure, organisational structure and development and strategic HR support. He specialises in employment matters in reorganisations and insolvency.

Paul is a regular employment law speaker for Legal Island, the CIPD, CBI and other organisations as well as delivering the CIPD-accredited Advanced Diploma in Employment Law.

David Johnston, FCIPD

Prior to retiring in 2021, David had been a Human Resources practitioner for over 25 years, having worked in several high-profile, complex, and dynamic public service organisations, including Inland Revenue Northern Ireland, Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Tourist Board and Police Service of Northern Ireland.

His most recent position was Head of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. He was also a part-time lecturer – developing and delivering level 5 and level 7 CIPD and CMI courses. He is also a qualified leadership coach and mentor and holds a master’s degree in Human Resource Management.

In 2021 David received the CIPD NI HR award for outstanding contribution in the field of people development in Northern Ireland.

David is a ‘class of 2021’ participant on the Boardroom Apprentice programme, and is hosted by the Community Relations Council, whose functions focus on enhancing diversity and including across the communities in Northern Ireland.

Despite now being retired, David remains passionate about initiatives that enhance diversity & inclusion and social mobility and maintains his membership as a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD.

Don Leeson, FCIPD, Labour Relations Agency

Don took up post as the Labour Relations Agency’s Chief Executive on 1 December 2020, having been its Director of Corporate Services since March 2017.  He earlier worked as a senior manager at the Agency between 2011 and 2013, managing the Agency’s arbitration services and facilitating collective conciliations and mediations.

Outside of the Agency, Don has had a varied career.  He was the Consumer Council’s Director of Operations (2013-17); Head of Corporate Services for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (2004-11); and the Equality Commission’s Head of Disability Policy (2002-04).

Prior to moving to Belfast, Don was Investors in People UK’s Quality Manager, with responsibility for quality assurance and development of the IiP standard.  It was while in this role he developed a passion for organisational development and good employment practice. He has also been a Civil Servant working in Westminster on employment-related issues.

Don has an MSc in Managing Change and is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD.

He is the Chair of the boards of two charities: ESC Films, an award winning film therapy organisation working with highly marginalised people; and the Imagine Festival of Ideas and Politics.

Chris Lillie, SHS Group

Chris Lillie is the Group HR Director for SHS Group. The SHS Group was founded in 1975 and operates in the fast moving consumer goods sector throughout the UK and Ireland and is now one of Northern Ireland’s largest and most profitable privately owned groups. In his role of  Group HR Director, Chris has responsibility for leading the strategic people agenda across the diverse SHS Group. 

Prior to SHS, Chris worked for Coca-Cola HBC Ireland & Northern Ireland for six years, and held the role of HR Director.  He has extensive HR experience gained in other industries including retail, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing, holding senior HR roles in both Qualitrol and Boots.

Laura Lynch, FCIPD, Queen’s University Belfast

With over 20 years of experience in HR and Organisational Development, Laura is currently the Head of Organisational Development & Reward at Queen’s University Belfast, a role held since June 2017. Previously, Laura served as a Senior HR Business Partner (Strategy and Policy Lead) and HR Business Partner at Queen’s University. Prior to these roles, Laura led the HR team at Liberty IT for over a decade. Laura has also been a Workplace Leadership Team Member at Business in the Community Northern Ireland since January 2017.

Helen Sullivan, FCIPD, PwC

Helen is a Director at PwC and has over 30 years of experience in assisting her clients to improve their business performance and achieve their strategic objectives through the development of their people and organisations.

She has worked for PwC for over 25 years, firstly for the UK People and Organisation consulting practice, and more latterly as a Director in the Deals practice as Global leader for capability and learning.

Helen’s consulting clients included global energy, telecoms, construction, and financial services companies and national governments. Her projects have involved the development of organisational models and people strategies, the capability dimensions of change management, leadership alignment and development, one to one executive coaching for boards, consulting on talent management and engagement strategies and learning effectiveness and business impact studies.

Helen’s particular interests lie with senior HR executive effectiveness and business partner development in organisations undergoing transformation of HR service delivery.  She has directed workstreams on some of the largest HR transformation projects in Western Europe.

She currently leads learning and capability transformation globally for the Deals practice working with colleagues across Americas, EMEA and APAC to deliver capability responses to support strategic objectives.

Caroline van der Feltz, FCIPD, Danske Bank

Caroline is an experienced HR Director with over 25  years’ experience within the fields of Financial Services, FMCG, Travel and Retail sectors.

She is HR Director for Danske Bank UK where she leads the People Strategy as part of the Banks Executive Committee.

She has spent the majority of her career in London and returned to NI in 2015.

Prior to taking up her current role she worked for a number of FTSE 100 companies including global FMCG Reckett Benckiser, where she was Global HR Director role, Executive HR Director at Coutts and she had 11 years with RBS in a variety of HR roles.

Will Young, FCIPD, Northern Ireland Civil Service

Will was appointed as Director of HR in the Northern Ireland Civil Service in March 2023. He is responsible for the portfolio of Employee Relations, Occupational Health and Wellbeing Services, and Learning and Development to all government Departments and Agencies. 

He was previously Assistant Head of Centre at the Health and Social Care (HSC) Leadership Centre, responsible for providing organisational and leadership development support to Northern Ireland Health and Social Care and the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Services.

Will was the Assistant Chief Officer for People and Organisational Development at the Police Service of Northern Ireland responsible for the portfolios of Human Resources, Occupational Health and Wellbeing, Health and Safety and the NI Police College.

Will is an experienced Organisational Development Consultant with more than 25 years’ experience working at a senior and executive level and is the lead for number of regional agendas including executive development, cultural development, team based working, quality improvement, succession planning, workforce modernisation and talent management. He has been Course Director for a number of Masters level programmes delivered in collaboration with Ulster University during this period. Will is also involved in a number of significant and complex workforce reviews, culture and modernisation initiatives across the system.

Will holds an MBA in Health and Social Care Management, and Chartered Fellowship of CIPD. He is also involved with several local charities in a Director/Trustee capacity, including Childrens Heartbeat Trust.