GCHRA24 SPEAKERS

Irene is the Global HR Director for BBC News, overseeing the UK and International divisions. With over 20 years of experience in HR leadership, Business Transformation and Organisational Effectiveness roles for top multinationals like BBC News, Tullow Oil, Vodafone, Standard Bank, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Serco, she's garnered numerous industry awards and holds many qualifications including FMCIPD, an Executive MBA, and a Master’s in Human Resources Management. As well as being a seasoned HR generalist, Irene is a Strategic Business Partner to and a key member of the News Board at BBC, working closely with the Senior Leadership teams across the company to shape and develop HR initiatives, policies and processes to improve the employee experience. At BBC News, Irene currently leads the transformation of a world class HR function, which supports over 7500 employees including freelancers, with a presence in 67 global locations. She devised and leads a 3-year implementation plan to transition towards a ‘Digital First’ organisation, with the design of a new operating model to deliver a lean, agile structure for simplified decision making, governance and ways of working, against institutional culture challenges. Notably in her career, Irene has led significant organisational transformations at Vodafone Ghana where she led the integration and organisational restructure of the business following their acquisition of Ghana Telecom, and established their HR Business Partner model. She subsequently headed up Business Transformation and led the country’s largest-ever cash and cost programme, before being promoted to head Organisational Effectiveness & Change for a group of countries, including South Africa, Vodafone’s fifth largest market globally. Irene would go onto join Standard Bank as Regional Head of HR for West Africa, designing the people strategy for an employee population of 6,000 and later was headhunted by Tullow Oil as Head of HR for Ghana, accountable for 75% of the company’s global revenues and >30% of the employee population. Here, she spearheaded a HR strategy that radically improved employee engagement, operational and cost effectiveness, as well as championing DEI, directing workforce localisation and gender diversity initiatives. Throughout Irene’s career, she has excelled in building proactive HR functions, advising boards and C-level executives, and spearheading transformative people strategies that elevate organisations and foster growth, performance, and profitability.