Learning People Industry Advisory Board
Gill Cooke
Head of Digital Planning and Delivery at Three
Gill is a dynamic and innovative leader with both Digital and Agile transformation and delivery experience. She is passionate about driving change to improve wellness, gender parity, diversity and inclusion. This is demonstrated by her work leading Women in Tech @Three as well as having founded her own company STEMConnext to run STEM networking events in the Thames Valley area.
The Learning People Advisory board exists to support our initiatives
The tech skills gap is widening between candidates and jobs, as more and more people find it harder to identify their career paths in a rapidly changing environment. The Learning People Industry Advisory Board is a key part of our mission to better connect learning with careers and to match students with leading tech employers.
We have brought together experienced professionals from tech industry, online learning experts and government officials, to discuss ideas and build solutions for closing the skills gap. They advise us on the challenges that industry face, keep us well connected and on top of trends.
They will also endorse our learning pathways, ensuring our students will receive the highest quality experience aligned with industry expectations.
Mike Thompson Gen.healthy Minds – “Talent is not defined by your academic ability, it’s defined by your determination and mindset”
Gill Cooke – 3Mobile – “Companies are having to evolve to employee needs of working at home and maternity. It’s the employers going through transformation”
We’ve been enabling people to achieve careers in tech since 2010 and our deep connection with the industry permits us to understand exactly what employers are looking for and deliver the most up-to-date data and insights.
Our board includes;
Rav Bumbra
Founder at Cajigo App
Having spent 20 years working as a consultant in the tech industry, Rav started Structur3dpeople in 2015 after seeing first hand how far too few women were entering the industry, with even less progressing within it. She works with organisations to support them in attracting, recruiting and retaining talent, helping them overcome the challenges they face in order to increase diversity in the workplace.
Rav is also the founder of Cajigo, a mobile learning platform that uses innovative ways to raise aspirations and engage girls in schools and women to work in STEM and leadership careers.
Mike Thompson
Managing Partner at Gen. Healthy Minds
Mike is currently the Managing Partner at Gen.HealthyMinds Ltd, a wellbeing and training company with a difference. They work with apprentices and graduates in their early careers to help them to develop resilience and live happy, healthy and successful working and personal lives.
Mike is a multi award winning HR professional and recognised industry expert. He speaks about early careers, diversity, employee engagement and learning and leadership development.
Sue Brooks
CEO at IMAGINE
Sue has dedicated her career to building companies that challenge, innovate and disrupt established ideas and practices to deliver superior value from people for some of the most important and ambitious clients around the world. She is the CEO of IMAGINE Collaborative Community, a new business consortium of leading organisations formed in February 2017 to enable Talent & Business leaders, and their organisations, to leapfrog forward and be future-fit for a new business paradigm.
Ricky Doyle
Founder at Practice Labs
Ricky fell into IT at the end of the 90s, and worked his way up the IT ranks from the support desk to Technical IT Consultant. He came up with the idea of developing an online platform where users could interact with real IT equipment in a safe working environment. The underlying benefit of Practice Labs whether you are someone in IT or wanting to get into IT is to develop or gain skills which helps you progress in your career or helps you get into the IT field.
He is now focused on making Practice Labs a solution that becomes a default part of online IT training.
Steve Wainwright
MD at Skillsoft
Steve is an accomplished business leader with a track record of delivering outstanding results in challenging market conditions. He’s worked in a vast range of enterprise software and hardware sales leadership roles across the tech industry. He seeks to embrace employees, customers and partners in a journey towards clearly defined goals that deliver success for all participants.
Sarah Atkinson
Director, Corporate Social Responsibility, Global at Micro Focus
Sarah has 20+ years of business experience in multinationals and is currently Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Micro Focus – FTSE listed, global software firm. She is passionate about driving organisational change to realise business results. A champion for equality and inclusion. Strong commercial acumen and deep understanding of both the business challenges as well as the opportunities of digital transformation.
Sarah is a regular commentator on STEM, equality and inclusion topics, and has appeared on BBC News, BBC World and in various publications.
Graham Hunter
VP at CompTIA
Graham’s role at CompTIA is to help Governments and Organisations build a workforce capable of exploiting technical innovation, protect valuable information and at the same time help address the scarcity of talent. For him, building a capable workforce with knowledge, skills and experience can only be carried out effectively if it is done sustainably by promoting the value and excitement of technology careers and encouraging new entrants into the industry.