OBN People and Culture Advisory Group

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OBN’s People and Culture Advisory Group is committed to supporting the leaders of innovative life sciences companies to navigate the rapidly changing workplace environment.

The Advisory Group members meet regularly to share knowledge and best practice on a range of HR, culture and workplace matters, and find practical ways to disseminate this with the OBN network, via events, discussions and data sharing.

Our guiding principles are to:

Develop a long-term strategy for EDI, implemented across all of OBN’s activities
Build an inclusive and positive work culture within OBN to enable a thriving and diverse community
Support our members to establish authentic, valuable, and measurable EDI strategies
Provide resources, data and access to expertise and support for OBN members on all ‘People & Culture’ topics
Establish our own definitions and guidelines and share with member organisations

A group of people having a discussion at a table at BioTrinity 2024.

Past event topics:

What do funders value from a People and Culture perspective, when considering an investment?
AI: Friend or Foe? A discussion around the impact of adopting AI functionality within organisations.
How can we foster better collaboration between centres of excellence in the UK to further support life sciences innovation?
How can we better support growing R&D Companies in the current environment?
The importance of getting your company story right from the start
Building Success for your Organisation from the Inside Out
Assessing & Measuring the Value of your Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy

Photograph of a person holding the BioSeed handbook, viewing the "Programme" page.

Future event topics (dates TBA):

How is cognitive overload impacting our people and businesses?
The importance of building (and how to build) the best relationship with your board, for the benefit of your company and investors
What are the next generations’ expectations for leadership (both being a leader and expectations of)?
Challenging the notion of a CEO, has the world moved on, and is hierarchy the right structure for today?
The negative perception of ‘vulnerability’ in leadership and why this must change
Morality and ethics in your company culture – getting results vs establishing a culture
How to ensure that workplace culture suits the needs of multi-generational teams – what needs to be considered and who’s doing it well?
Workforce planning – what are the future skills that your team will need to thrive, and how to get ahead in planning?
Importance of attracting and creating a workplace that supports neurodivergent talent

The P&CAG Team

Rod is an independent consultant offering a generalist HR service with a health care industry focus, he established Biotech Personnel in 1996 after 20 years in industry. His first degree was in physics/computing from London and he started work as a radar engineer. Rod is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

He has assisted multiple hi tech companies with set up and on-going HR needs and has been involved with OBN almost since inception.

Catrin is a senior HR professional with UK and international experience and a proven track record of driving organisational change programmes by utilising HR solutions to transform organisational performance.

Angela Hobbs joined the OBN Board in March 2020. Angela is CEO of Wilkinson Hall Ltd, a business consultancy working with entrepreneurs in their transition from start-up to scale-up. She is a member of the Design Council’s investment panel for Tech Spark and a mentor for Aspire for Equality Foundation.

She founded her first company in the 1990’s working with media owners, advertising agencies and global brands. After a period of consulting with product design consultants Triteq, she became MD in 2017 working with MedTech clients and funding organisations developing safety critical medical devices and digital health solutions.

In 2010 she completed her MSc in Sustainable Business at University of Bath

Jane’s early career was agency side focusing on PR & Events for a range of sports and entertainment clients. After moving in-house to an event management role at Alliance Healthcare, she progressed to the global head office of Walgreens Alliance Boots where she ran events and developed a new cross business strategy for Alliance Healthcare regional businesses throughout Europe, Boots UK and globally for Alliance Boots.

Jane then ran her own events consultancy for several years, working on events and comms for a range of corporate healthcare clients. After running several projects for OBN she was offered the Head of Events role where, alongside a talented team, has developed and delivered a new events strategy. In October 2021 Jane was appointed Executive Director of the OBN Board.

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A believer in human resilience and flourishing, and passionate about creating social impact and humanising the world of work. Mavis is an accredited cognitive behavioural psychotherapist specialising in people and behaviour change, with several years experience across the private and public sectors. She has led the design and delivery of initiatives in the areas of leadership development, team effectiveness, culture, learning, wellbeing, risk management, talent strategy and service improvement.