National Career Guidance Show 2023 - London - Speakers

Wednesday 8 Mar 2023

Muniya Barua, Deputy Chief Executive, BusinessLDN

Muniya leads BusinessLDN’s Policy, Campaigns and Communications team, with responsibility for its impact, influencing, thought leadership work and membership. She supports the CEO John Dickie in the running of the business and has responsibility for developing the overall business strategy. She was previously Managing Director of Policy and Strategy, and before that she ran the Corporate Affairs team. Before she joined BusinessLDN, Muniya's previous senior roles include: Managing Director of Corporate Affairs at the award-winning public and communications agency Newington Communications, and  Director of Corporate Communications and Head of News at the business lobby group the CBI. Muniya is an independent governor at London Metropolitan University and also sits on its finance and resources committee. She was previously a trustee at the Campaign for Better Transport.


Monet Durieux, Economist, GLA Economics

Monet Durieux is an Economist working on skills and labour market analysis at the Greater London Authority (GLA). She has 14 years of experience as an Economist in the public sector as well as a labour market statistician. Monet’s work has focused on using labour market data to inform policy and understand the pathways which support employment creation for young people.


Andy Hall, Skills and Technical Education Senior Manager, The Careers & Enterprise Company

Andy Hall is the Technical Education and Skills Senior Manager at the Careers and Enterprise Company.  Andy is responsible for co-ordinating CEC’s Technical Education and Skills strategy and in working with partners to ensure that employers, educators and learners are supported in engaging with vocational routes.  Prior to this role Andy worked for the British Council, leading research, policy dialogue and technical assistance to support governments around the world to improve their TVET systems, and for WorldSkills UK, leading on the co-ordination of the programme of national competitions.


Nicola Hall, Director of Education and Grant Funding, The Careers & Enterprise Company

Nicola’s role as Director of Education with the Careers and Enterprise Company follows 7 years as a secondary headteacher. She started her career in industry as a graduate trainee in, and then retrained as a teacher and worked her way through both further education and secondary provision to the role of Headteacher. Nicola was headteacher of both a 14-19 Studio School and a mainstream secondary school. Nicola can see and understand the challenges and opportunities faced by both education and continually developing industry sectors in preparing young people to make choices about their next best step. She joined CEC to influence systemic change and support the development of an impactful, world class, inclusive and sustainable careers guidance offer for young people embedded as a relevant and deliberate part of their whole education.


Dr. Deirdre Hughes OBE, International Career Development Specialist

Deirdre specialises in lifelong guidance policies, research and practice at an international, national and regional level. She is an associate professor at the University of Warwick, Institute for Employment Research (IER). Deirdre recently led a team of careers researchers and practitioners from Canada, Wales and Scotland investigating career development and wellbeing conversations in the aftermath of the Covid lockdown. This resulted in a free practical toolkit designed to equip practitioners and their managers with techniques and strategies for meaningful career and wellbeing dialogue and action. She is a Cedefop-appointed UK expert in lifelong guidance and the IAEVG UK expert correspondent. She is an adviser to the OECD ‘Career Readiness’ programme and new Digital ODICY Observatory. Deirdre was a lead expert on a recent ILO and ETF ‘Career Development and Changing Labour Markets’ international training programme.


Jacob Lovick, Area Manager, Unifrog

Jacob is an experienced Area Manager at Unifrog, and works closely with a wide range of institutions across North London, Essex, and Suffolk to support them in delivering outstanding careers guidance. Jacob is working to ensure that all students, regardless of their background, have access to the information they need to make the most informed career choices.


Amanda Metcalf, National SEND Education & Career Development Manager, Talentino!

Amanda taught in a large special school for over 25 years, which was graded Good with Outstanding features, including careers, attitude to learning and British values. She was the lead for enterprise, employability and work-related learning for over 10 years across the school and key stages, including sixth form, and the post-19 provision. Amanda was instrumental in the developments of key initiatives; including creating and running a pre-internship and supported internship programme and setting up a café and shop in the community. Her continued drive is to create and sustain positive outcomes for young people with additional needs.


James Wilmot, Director of Careers, Employability, Advice & Guidance, The Priory Learning Trust

James Wilmot is Head of Careers at Priory Community School Academy and also manages the careers offer across all schools in The Priory Learning Trust. James is a Psychology graduate with many years’ experience in the recruitment industry. He has also worked for community careers organisations and ran apprenticeship recruitment at Weston College before joining The PLT in 2015. James believes that effective careers advice in schools through events, activities and 121s is vital for students to become brave, kind, curious and brave young adults. These attributes are the real secret to a happy and healthy career.


More speakers to be announced soon!