SustainabilityX Speakers

JD Sports Fashion plc Group Sustainability and Procurement Director, having previously undertaken roles including Group Head of Procurement and Environment at JD Sports Fashion plc, and Procurement Director at Sainsbury’s Supermarkets limited. Over the past 3-4 years my role as Group Head of Procurement expanded to encompass global ESG strategy. I am a member of the inaugural JD Group ESG Committee, with responsibility for Sustainability strategy, encompassing Climate Change, Sustainable Sourcing and Circular Economy. My retail experience started at 14 years old, and continued up until, during, and after gaining my Economics degree. I am a firm believer that the study of behavioural traits (cross-referenced with continued interrogation of related data) of customers, colleagues and citizens is key to influencing and embedding long-term change for climate and commercial impacting habits alike.

Jade has over 20 years’ experience in the fashion industry, ranging from design, manufacturing, garment technology and for the last 5 years, in the world of sustainability. Jade has worked with her team, NGO’s and industry experts to build and develop Asda’s ‘George for Good’ sustainability strategy, and has recently expanding her remit into Home Textiles and General Merchandise too.

Natalie leads Avon’s ambitious purpose sustainability agenda, from addressing the climate crisis through to tackling equality and inclusion. In this role Natalie is responsible for crating and implementing triple bottom line strategy across operations in Avon’s international markets, including decarbonisation, circularity, social impact and brand activism.

Natalie is a passionate advocate for Avon’s mission to create a better world for women, leading Avon’s core purpose to deliver positive social impact through support of women and the issues that matter to Avon’s communities. She is also responsible for communications across all aspects of Avon’s sustainability efforts, from corporate responsibility reporting through to engaging and inspiring our independent beauty entrepreneurs to embrace sustainability.

Natalie has over 20 years’ experience in PR and communications. She is known for her energy, determination to deliver, and combination of strategic thinking with can-do pragmatism.

Julia is the former CEO of Emma Bridgewater Pottery Ltd. She is anexperienced leader of senior management and executive teams, with extensive retail and e-commerce experience having held senior positions in Marketing and Business Development at Waterstones and WHSmith.

With a focus on employee and customer engagement, she is keen to listen to feedback from cross-functional teams at all levels. Her recent experience at Emma Bridgewater Ltd includes securing an £8m investment from BGF to support further UK growth and international expansion, and leading the Emma Bridgewater business to achieve B Corp status in January 2022.

Saasha Celestial-One is Co-Founder & COO of OLIO, a free app harnessing the power of
mobile technology and the sharing economy to provide a revolutionary solution to the
problem of waste. OLIO is growing quickly, empowered by 160k+ volunteers. Since 2016,
8m OLIOers have successfully shared over 160m portions of food and 11m household items
with each other in 62 countries. Before OLIO, Saasha founded London’s first pay-as-you-go
high street childcare provider, and prior to that she spent 13yrs at Morgan Stanley, McKinsey
& American Express. Saasha was named one of the UK’s “Coolest Female Founders” by
Business Insider, has an MBA from Stanford, is mum to 11-year-old Nolan, and is the proud
daughter of hippy entrepreneurs.

• The 21 most extraordinary women of 2021 – You Magazine
• 14 women who are changing the way we eat and drink in 2021 – Time Out Magazine
• Who are the Top 32 ESG pioneers in the UK? – Business Leader
• 30 to Watch – The UK’s Top Funded Female Founders (#9) – Financial Times

Christopher joined The Body Shop in 2003 to work with company founder Dame Anita Roddick. He has done some other things. He launched Ralph Lauren’s Fashion Targets Breast Cancer campaign, was a Board Director at MTV’s corporate charity and worked for Save the Children around the world. But it’s mostly The Body Shop. He graduated from Sussex and Cambridge Universities and lives near Brighton. He is believed to be an excellent snowboarder and surfer, loves music, football, ikebana, his dogs….and his two children (not necessarily in that order).

As the Head of Marketing and E-commerce at The Fine Bedding Company, Laura has been instrumental in driving the growth of the company’s branded portfolio, improving health and wellbeing through a better night sleep. She has led the establishment of the direct-to-consumer channel through finebedding.co.uk and expanded online retail partner distribution, which has led to the company becoming one of the leading sustainable bedding brands in the UK. Laura is deeply committed to advancing the company’s sustainability agenda and is proud of her role in securing the company’s B Corporation accreditation. Prior to her current role, Laura spent ten years at Kellogg’s UK and European headquarters, where she led on brand strategy and multi-channel campaign execution.

I am a Principal in the Innovation team at True, Europe’s leading sector-specialist advisory & investment firm. As a B-Corp, True has helped over 25 household brands – like Marks & Spencer, 7-Eleven and Fortnum & Mason – to navigate changing trends, like sustainability, and use emerging technologies for competitive advantage. We provide tailored insights, including how to use emerging technology to unlock bottom-line efficiencies and top-line growth whilst considering the planet and the community, and scout best-in-class technology startups, many with sustainability use cases. Our unparalleled vantage point is a product of our cutting-edge knowledge and ever-expanding network spanning the whole capital spectrum. We leverage our venture capital team’s deal flow, market insights and investment judgment, and we have tested several emerging technologies in our private equity portfolio companies.

Before True, I built Virgin Media O2’s digital innovation department and, together with my team, spearheaded the company’s foray beyond telco, by creating a new consumer product portfolio. I started my career in strategy consulting and corporate venturing at Monitor Deloitte and Deloitte Ventures, respectively.

I am passionate about using emerging technology as a catalyst to meaningfully address intractable challenges, including sustainability.

Passionate and enthusiastic Retail Operations Manager with a wealth of experience in the fashion retail industry. Specialised in internal communications, in-store brand experience, team management and culture and engagement. A commercially strong fashion professional with a BA (Hons) degree in Fashion Brand Management combined with Journalism.

>Former MD of Reformation UK & Europe
> Ambassador for Retail Weeks’ Future Leaders Be Inspired Program
> Head of North America and Director of Business Transformation NET-A-PORTER and Mr PORTER (London)
> Director of Strategic Initiatives at YOOX NET-A-PORTER

A graduate of Stanford Business School and Harvard Alexis has a prestigious career path spanning investment banking at Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley to retail leadership with Amazon. She has held international roles, published articles and is an advocate for women in business having been selected by YNAP as one of the 10 Senior Leaders to join the Financial Times 125 Senior Executive Forum in London

Caroline is an award-winning Executive with over 25 years’ experience in retail,
hospitality and consumer goods. Leveraging technology to optimise the customer
experience, she brings deep expertise in digital transformation, marketing and
business strategy, in sectors ranging from luxury hotels to digital health.
She is passionate about sustainability and has led ESG reviews for her clients, as
well as published articles on circularity.

Her previous roles include Chief Commercial Officer at Ennismore, Chief Digital
Officer at Sun European Partners and Chief Operating Officer at MySpace
International.

Caroline currently serves as a Non-Executive Director at Saffron Building Society
and Europ Assistance, as Trustee of Asthma + Lung UK, and as a Non-Executive
Director of the Museum of London Trading Board.

She holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a BSc (Econ) from the
London School of Economics.

Clara Eisenberg is interim General Counsel and Advisory Board member at Zero Carbon Forum.  Zero Carbon Forum empowers its restaurant and pub industry members to reach carbon reduction targets at pace through collaborative action. Prior to that Clara was Legal & Sustainability Director at Dune London with responsibility for developing and integrating a responsible business agenda covering sourcing, materials, packaging and governance.

Tim joined DPD in 2005 as Director of Marketing. He and his marketing team are responsible for the company’s marketing strategy, brand, corporate identity, employee communications, media relations, political affairs and event management.

In June 2021 Tim took on additional responsibility for leading DPD’s sustainability programme and team and became Director of Marketing, Communications & Sustainability.

Tim has over 25 years experience working in the transport sector, previously having held senior roles at TNT.

Trusted by the world’s largest internet retailers, Fred explains how paperboard typically represents 6-10% of their
total carbon footprint, encouraging the easiest way to slash total footprint upto 10% is by choosing Carbon
Neutral packaging. Lil came 2 nd at the 2023 Environmental Packaging ‘sustainability champions award.’
Fred has lead the company to become the first & only Zero Carbon packaging factory with its all-renewable-electric
manufacturing HQ in Cambridge & offsets their entire scope3. They’re proudly Europe’s largest independent
manufacturer of ecommerce packaging, producing peel & seal packaging 40% faster than any other, on a mission to
eradicate plastics from ecommerce.

Famed inventions include:
Lil envelope (invented for Amazon), Lil Breezebox (paper voidfill integrated box eradicating need for plastic
bubblewrap/polystyrene), Lil kraft bag (paper alternative to polythene mailbags), Lil ‘M’ mailer (price-matched
paper alternative to Jiffy bubble mailers) and Lil tube (flatpacked, plastic-free, price-matched alternative to round
tubes. Eradicates plastic bungs.)

Ian Jindal is a consultant, publisher and advisor in eCommerce and multichannel retail. Ian cofounded and is Editor in Chief of InternetRetailing, providing insight and research for Europe’s etailers and multichannel retailers – www.internetretailing.net. To underpin the analysis Ian co-founded RetailX, researching performance in multichannel retail, brands and vendors. In 2015 we launched the UK Top500 ranking of retailers (IRUK) and in 2016 the first performance-based ranking of European’s retailers (IREU) – www.internetretailing.net/iruk and www.internetretailing.net/ireu.

Ian’s retail clients include Selfridges, House of Fraser, Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Asda, Couturelab, Waitrose, De Bijenkorf, Kering, Disney, IKEA, Walgreens Boots Alliance and VF Corporation (Timberland, The North Face, Vans etc). Previously Ian was Group eCommerce Director at Littlewoods Shop Direct, and Head of Online Operations at the BBC. Ian founded the European eCommerce Forum, is an Advisor to eCommerce Europe and authored the UK’s first MSc in Internet Retailing. Ian’s skills encompass technology (Chartered IT Professional, Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society), marketing, commerce and finance (Chartered Accountant) and business-wide innovation.