Women in Rail Conference
Thursday 2 March 2023

Adeline Ginn MBE

Head of Legal, Egis – UK and Founder & former Chair of Women in Rail

Adeline Ginn MBE is a senior lawyer with over 20 years’ experience in the rail sector, currently Head of Legal at Egis, UK. She is also the founder and former Chair of the charity Women in Rail which she created in 2012 to improve gender balance, female diversity and broader equality, diversity and inclusion across all grades and roles within the UK railway sector. Adeline was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours List 2020 for services to Rail, in recognition of her work as leader of Women in Rail.

Jess Bates

Network Rail Client Account Director & ED&I Lead, AtkinsGlobal

Over a short 13-year career Jess has progressed from Graduate in a Rail Recruitment firm to a Director on the Senior Leadership Team at Atkins. Responsible for the Network Rail Regional Programmes portfolio, she now spearheads client relationship management across England and Wales.

As a critical friend to the Atkins ED&I and Social Value strategy, Jess has sculpted a personal brand dedicated to being the voice for change. She is respected voice for EDI improvement across the industry, both to support raising of standards and to improve attraction of colleagues in protected groups.

Jess is on the leadership team for the industry network Rail Unites, she is the Atkins Women in Rail signatory and is a SEND STEM Governor through the ‘Governors for Schools’ social impact programme she metamorphosized and scaled to the Atkins UK business with CEO sponsorship. Under Jess’ leadership 44 Governors will work with 44 underrepresented schools to counter the diversity and skills crisis in Engineering, in what will be a complete industry strategy and step-change in championing ED&I progression across the sector. Jess looks forward to facilitating wider industry involvement through joint engagement with clients and the wider supply chain.

Lucy Dyer

Apprentice Civil Engineer, SLC Rail

Lucy Dyer is an Apprentice Civil Engineer at SLC Rail and a member of Women in Rail West Midlands Committee. In addition to her work at SLC Rail supporting rail projects and feasibility studies, she is also studying for a five-year Level 6 Civil Engineering Degree Apprenticeship BEng (Hons). Since joining the industry following a HNC in Construction at Birmingham City University, she has gained considerable experience in the construction and engineering industry doing a variety of work including highway layouts in AutoCAD, sustainable drainage option selection, and client requirements management. Lucy is also passionate about sustainable development and contributing to the industry’s effort to achieve carbon net zero.

Mark Johnson

Engineering and Major Programmes Director, Southeastern

Information to follow…

Rachel Fullard

National Rail Service Analyst, Rail Delivery Group & Chair, WR RIA EDI Charter Working Group

Rachel (she/they) is currently the Chair of the Women in Rail / Railway Industry Association EDI Charter Working Group. She has been a member of the group since it was created in February 2021 and has a special interest in LGBTQIA+ and neurodiversity topics; she has delivered several events for the Group, including workshops on Social Mobility and Inclusion in Leadership. Rachel works as National Rail Service Analyst at Rail Delivery Group and has been working in the rail industry since 2014, including as a Section Planner in maintenance depots. Their goal is to help make the industry more representative of the communities and customers that it serves.

Alexandra Batey

Phase 2b Development Director, HS2 Ltd

Alexandra Batey is the Phase 2b Development Director at HS2 Ltd, she is accountable for leading the development of future lines and delivery of the Phase 2b scheme throughout the programme lifecycle. Alexandra joined HS2 Ltd in 2022, having previously been at Transport for London (TfL) for nearly 20 years where she took on several leadership roles including Head of Public Transport Sponsorship and Director of Investment Delivery Planning. Most recently, Alexandra led the sponsorship of TfL’s Capital Investment Programme delivering Major Projects, London Underground and Surface Transport projects shaping the future of London’s Transport Network. With a background in Civil Engineering and Project Engineering, Alexandra is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineering and is passionate about mentoring and developing people.

Laura Donnelly

Head of Sales and Marketing & Chair of Engender, West Midlands Trains

Laura entered the world of marketing in 2016, after a complete change in career direction. A musician at heart, Laura studied music at The University of Edinburgh and trained to be an opera singer and performed in many venues across the UK and Australia. However, she found that the pull of advertising and producing was too strong and led her into marketing. Experience in leisure and tourism, Laura was Marketing & Communications Manager at Drayton Manor Park, and it was theme park marketing that led her to the railway. Since being at West Midlands Trains Laura has progressed to being Head of department and is chairperson of the internal network group Engender, which is the gender focussed group. Working on projects like ‘My Mummy is a Train Driver’ a collaborative industry project as well as many other EDI related activities has been really rewarding.

Lydia Fairman

Head of Capability and Skills Development, Network Rail & GBRTT

Lydia is the Head of Capability and Skills Development for Network Rail and GBRTT. Lydia leads a team who are focused on seeking out and developing the future, emerging, and existing talent for the railway industry. Lydia’s passionate and committed to increasing the number of women working within the sector. With a varied background in technical recruitment, generalist and strategic HR, Lydia uses creative and innovative approaches to everything she does, challenging behaviours and what has gone before, to make positive strides to a better and more equal future for all. Lydia considers the impact and opportunity of every decision she makes, outside her team, business and across the wider industry. She sits on the Routes into Rail board and is a White Ribbon Trustee, contributing to collective industry leadership to increase the profile of rail, bringing in new people, skills, and opportunities for all.

Lydia has an eye on the future. Speaking at the WISE conference in 2018, she talked about how people can make a difference: “Career decisions are hard. Young people are afraid they will make the wrong choice. Girls are less confident than boys to make those decisions.  I work in the area of early engagement, teaching school age children about what we do in rail, STEM, and why we do it. We must continuously adapt, be creative and innovate, particularly in our language, and how and where we choose to communicate with this audience, so that we can get our messages among our future scientists and engineers.

Nia Mellor

Detective Chief Inspector in the British Transport Police

I have almost 23 years’ experience of policing in both Uniform and Detective roles, both in London and beyond. I currently lead our criminal investigation teams across the South East of England and specialise in sexual offences and violence and intimidation against women and girls, having National responsibility for BTP’s response to these offence types. As a part of this portfolio, I am very proud to have lead BTP’s White Ribbon accreditation and am passionate about working collaboratively to tackle male violence against women and girls.

Shane Andrews MBE

Project Manager, Network Rail & Chair of Archway

Shane Andrews MBE is currently in post as Project Manager for the Performance Measurement team at Network Rail’s Wales & Borders route and has been in rail since 2006.  In addition to his paid role, he’s currently the chair of Archway (their LGBT+ employee network which is open to all in rail).  Shane was awarded an MBE in the 2021 New Year’s Honours list, for services to Diversity & Inclusion.

Fi Westcough

Consultant (Strategic Rail), Atkins & National Chair, Young Rail Professionals (YRP)

Fiona (Fi) Westcough is an award-winning engineering consultant at SNC-Lavalin Atkins and National Chair of the Young Rail Professionals (YRP). In 2021, she won the Future Leader Award at the Railway Industry Association (RIA) Supplier Excellence Awards, recognising her commitment and contribution to the industry.

Leon Lloyd

Director, Centrum Solutions & Former England international rugby player

Leon Lloyd is a former England international rugby player, who has played at the highest level and against elite players such as Jonah Lomu, (and survived!). He won 11 trophies whilst playing with the English and European Champions, Leicester Tigers. Since retiring from playing the sport, he has gained a first-class honours degree in Leadership and Management, followed by an MBA receiving a Distinction. He has gone on to work with other elite organisations that include the SAS and the Premier League.

His years of playing elite rugby and working with elite organisations, have given him remarkable insights into the entire life cycle of high performing teams. He has a deep understanding of how high performing teams are made, how they, or individual players can be crushed, and then rebuilt, and how they can go on to develop a sustainable winning mindset and culture. He is passionate about the importance of attitude and culture when it comes to achieving high performance. You cannot buy a culture. Together you have to create collective behaviours that have momentum.

He shares with his client’s innumerable insights, stories, practical tools, tips and techniques and his 5- point steps to building a winning team provides a practical framework for success. He also shares how you can go from the highest of the highs to the lowest of the lows, and then come back stronger.

Leon grew up in Coventry and still maintains a dream to score the winning goal in an FA Cup Final for Coventry City. As the eldest of four children Leon left school at 16 to pursue a professional sports career and has benefitted from lots of support and guidance along his journey. As result of this, giving back to others less fortunate is high on his personal agenda and has been an Ambassador and Business Mentor for the Princes Trust since 2004 as well as being a Patron for Action Deafness. He is a co-founder of the Switch the Play Foundation, the first and only UK charity that assists professional sports people transition away from their sport. Having been the CEO that successfully led that organisation he stepped down in 2021 to pursue some of his other passions but remains an active Ambassador.

Mandeep Singh

Marketing Manager for D/Gauge & Vice-Chair, WR RIA EDI Charter Working Group

Mandeep is the vice-chair of the Women in Rail and Railway Industry Association EDI Charter Working Group. He is passionate about the delivery and execution of better EDI within the railway. Bringing experience from Financial Services and Education sectors, he aims to embed a more inclusive mindset, in a collaborative, positive manner. Mandeep will be discussing some of the successes of the Charter, what it stands for and how to get involved.

Odis Palmer

ED&I Project Manager at GBRTT, I&D Manager at GWR, Co-Chair of Rail Unites for Inclusion

Odis Palmer currently seconded to the Great British Railway Transition Team (GBRTT) as Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Project Manager. Home organisation is Great Western Railway (GWR) where my substantive role is Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager.

I have been in the railway for over 10 years starting out front line within the station customer service and retail teams. Since day one I have always seen my main purpose as helping people, from assisting customers and colleagues at stations to moving into Learning and Development where for 5 years I welcomed and supported the progression of new and existing colleagues across the organisation. Leading on outreach programs with charities such as the Prince’s Trust and Mencap to ensure we inspired young and underrepresented members of society to join the railway family.

This consistent purpose to help others in the areas it needed most now finds me focused on how best to ensure equality, diversity and inclusion are central to the future of a simpler and better railway.