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A one-day summit on 15 September 2026 at the QEII Centre, Westminster, bringing senior HR, culture, and talent leaders together to tackle the biggest shifts in the workplace from the Employment Rights Act 2025 and AI to workforce wellbeing and hiring at scale.
Senior people leaders: HR Directors, Chief People Officers, Heads of Talent, Culture and L&D leaders, and others setting people strategy. Designed for decision-makers.
Tuesday 15 September 2026, QEII Centre, Broad Sanctuary, London SW1P 3EE.
Joeli Brearley MBE - Founder, Pregnant then Screwed
Joeli Brearley MBE is a British activist, author and public speaker, best known as the founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, the charity leading the fight against the motherhood penalty.
Helen Farr - Employment Law Partner, Taylor Wessing
Helen Farr is an Employment Law partner at Taylor Wessing who is praised by clients and peers for her employment law knowledge. Helen is a recognised expert in employment law in Chambers, Legal 500 and Chambers Global.
Sunaina Sethi - Co-Founder & Chief People Officer, JKS Restaurants
Sunaina Sethi is co-founder and Chief People Officer of JKS, the restaurant group boasting 8 Michelin stars across its portfolio. Sunaina leads HR, Recruitment and Learning & Development strategy for all employees across the group.
Niall Mackenzie CBE - Chief Executive Officer, ACAS
Niall Mackenzie CBE is the CEO of ACAS, the UK’s leading authority on employment relations. Niall is passionate about helping ACAS contribute to Britain’s economic growth by preventing and reducing workplace conflict. Prior to his role as ACAS CEO, Mackenzie was the UK’s trade commissioner for North America.
Shruti Singh - Senior Economist, OECD
Shruti Singh is a Senior Economist in the Skills and Employment Division of the Organisation For Economic Co-operation And Development (OECD). She currently leads the work on Ageing and Employment policies. Shruti also co-leads the award-winning initiative Living, Learning and Earning Longer.
David Morris - Former Chief Learning & Talent Officer, HSBC
David was Chief Learning and Talent Officer at HSBC where he led enterprise-wide talent and learning transformation across a global workforce. He also spent nearly two decades with McDonald’s Corporation building capability at scale. He is now founder of Braeward Partners and a senior advisor at the Josh Bersin Company.
Julie Stephens - Group People Director, BUPA
Julie is Group People Director at Bupa, where she leads wellbeing, inclusion, and people risk for over 100,000 employees worldwide. With more than 25 years’ experience in HR, she has driven large-scale transformation across healthcare, with a focus on improving frontline employee wellbeing and embedding holistic mental health support.
Nijma Khan - Managing Director, FacultyAI
Nijma is a leading expert on practical applications of AI. A Managing Director for Customer at FacultyAI (acquired by Accenture), Nijma led a large practice area delivering extensive AI and machine learning work across the public sector.
Alex Harland - Chief Executive Officer, AIScore (ex-GCHQ)
Co-Founder and CEO of AI Score, Alex is defining how organisations measure and manage artificial intelligence ROI and risk. Previously, Alex led intelligence operations in the British Army, before becoming one of the founding members of the National Cyber Security Centre at GCHQ.
Six themed sessions: the Employment Rights Act 2025, High-Performance Culture, AI in HR, Hiring for Scale, the Aging Workforce, and Human Sustainability (wellbeing).
Attendance is by application. Registrations are reviewed before approval, so the room stays senior and relevant, which is what makes the sessions and networking valuable.
Delegate tickets are free, but attendance is vetted by application and reviewed before approval. This keeps the room senior and relevant, so every attendee is there for genuine value.
Most events are either very large and broad or focused on a single niche. The Sovereign Minds Summit is deliberately curated and senior – a board-level Future of Work strategy summit prioritizing quality of audience and conversation.