James is an international lawyer with substantial experience of working with European and North American tech, retail and finance organizations. James has undertaken the roles of Head of Legal, General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer working for organizations including IKEA and Treatwell. James qualified as a barrister in 2006 and since then has worked in both the UK and United States as both a lawyer and director. He was finalist for Employed Barrister of the Year and won the Global Leaders in Law: Be Kind in 2020 award. James is passionate about diversity and inclusion in the workplace and the education sector and has supported and led various initiatives of change. He also serves as a non-executive director of an online and offline mental health charity.

Akima Paul Lambert focuses on high-stakes commercial litigation and arbitration. She often works with clients on large, multijurisdictional disputes. She has experience in commercial and investment treaty arbitration, and is dual-qualified in the UK and in the U.S.

She was the 2021 winner in the Senior Leader professional services category at the Black British Business Awards, the UK’s premier legal awards for black business, has been featured in The Lawyer Hot 100 2022, a list of the top 100 most innovative and impactful lawyers in Britain. She was also selected as one of Legal Business’ Top Female Rising Stars for 2022.

Akima has been active in the diversity equity and inclusion spaces for the last 15 years. She is co-founder of a mentoring programme, Creating Pathways, pairing young black and minority ethnic lawyers with senior lawyers in an effort to stem significant attrition. Over the last year, she has developed a sizeable following on Linked In focussing each Friday (#FrIDays) on matters relating to equity, diversity and inclusion.

Ms. White-Tsimikalis is a capital markets partner in the London office and specialises in equity capital markets transactions (including IPOs and secondary offerings), corporate governance matters and general public company representation. She has a particular focus on the Tech and Life Sciences sectors.

Ms. White-Tsimikalis trained at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and subsequently spent over 10 years in the London offices of Davis Polk & Wardwell and Latham & Watkins, including spending time on secondment at global investment banks Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and Citi.  Most recently, she was a partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner where she was also Global Co-Leader of the Banking Sector.

Sayo Ogundele is an English qualified corporate lawyer based in London with more than 10 years’ of legal experience.  He has advised international investors and corporations on a wide range of operations including corporate acquisitions and disposals, joint venture arrangements and project finance, with a particular focus on jurisdictions in Anglophone Africa.  Prior to joining Barrick Gold Corporation, Sayo had worked at several prominent UK and US law firms.

Kyle is co-chair of the Structured Investment Products Committee, a member of the Deposit Pricing and Acquisition Subcommittee and counsel to the Goldman Sachs International (GSI) Asset and Liability Committee and the GSI Bank Asset and Liability Committee. Kyle is also co-chair of the Firmwide Black Network in Europe. Prior to moving to London, he worked in Treasury Legal in New York for four years. Kyle joined Goldman Sachs in 2006 as a vice president and was named managing director in 2013.

Prior to joining the firm, Kyle worked for Davis, Polk & Wardwell, a law firm in New
York City, in the capital markets and structured products practice groups.
Kyle serves on the Board of Advisors for Washington University School of Law.
Kyle earned a BA in Finance from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, in 1996 and a JD from Washington

Pamela Dusu is a Senior Lawyer at Globeleq, where she advises on the legal aspects of energy projects in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and other sub-saharan African countries including traditional and renewable energy technologies.

Pam read law at the University of Cambridge and spent the early part of her career in private practice at Shearman & Sterling and then DLA Piper.  After nearly 4 years at DLA, Pamela moved to Rwanda, East Africa to take up a role as Legal Counsel within the PPP Unit at the Rwanda Development Board (RDB). This role involved leading the Government of Rwanda in negotiating complex foreign investment transactions. With RDB, Pamela closed transactions with an investment value of more than $450 million in various sectors including energy, transport infrastructure, ICT, agriculture and leisure.

Pam feels very passionately about supporting the ambitions of those that come after her and is the co-founder of a mentoring programme for black and ethnic minority lawyers called Creating Pathways. Creating Pathways was founded with Akima Paul Lambert in 2014 and is sponsored by Shearman & Sterling and the Black Solicitors Network (City branch).

Egbe Manton wants to disrupt the legal space and bring it into the 21st-century. She is a corporate lawyer and is on a mission to create more equitable access to the legal industry for underrepresented groups.

Egbe is an educator, a regular in the media and a sought-after, dynamic speaker who creates a positive impact by challenging convention, encouraging inclusion and championing social change. Clients and partnerships include: Sainsburys, Foundervine, Startup Magazine, Dell, Hatch and Lloyds TSB.

Isaac Eloi is a two years qualified music publishing lawyer and the cofounder of the Black Men In Law Network, co-founded in 2018 with John Oladeji while he was a paralegal. The 320 member strong network was founded to Increase the representation of attention of black male lawyers in law in the UK.

He has written on the importance of diversity and inclusion within the legal profession in The Lawyer and more widely in the Times Student Review as well as on eastern Caribbean diasporic carnival culture in Black Joy, published by Penguin Random House in 2021.

Natasha is an award-winning barrister and Honorary Doctor of Laws at Garden Court Chambers. She is an elected member of the Bar Council, sitting on its Equality, Diversity and Social Mobility Committee and the Race Working Group. She also sits on the EDI Committee at the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn.  

 Natasha is the Co-founder and Chair of the award-winning Black Barristers’ Network (BBN), which aims to provide Black barristers with support, visibility and to work on community outreach. BBN won Best Network/Group at the Chambers Europe Awards in 2021.  

 Natasha is a Trustee of AVA, a leading charity committed to ending gender-based abuse. She has also sat on the JUSTICE Working Party on Improving Access to Justice for Separating Families.  

 Natasha received the Rising Star award at the UK Diversity Legal Awards in 2021 and Highly Commended – Future Leader: Diversity and Inclusion at the Chambers UK Bar Awards 2020.

Stephanie is a UK Chartered Trade Mark Attorney and Co-Founder of one of the first black-owned Intellectual Property Law Firms in the UK, Neo Percept IP. Stephanie is passionate about working with black-owned businesses, SME’s and start-ups to identify, protect and exploit their trade marks. Prior to setting up her own IP law firm in 2021, Stephanie worked in an International Trade Mark and Patent Law Firm as well as a boutique IP Law Firm. Stephanie holds a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science from St George’s University of London; a Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) from the University of Law; a Post Graduate Certificate in Trade Mark Law and Practice from Queen Mary’s University of London; and a Professional Certificate in Trade Mark Practice from Nottingham Trent University.  

Julian is a legal sector specialist D&I professional, executive head-hunter, and author of ‘The 1% Study’. He is Managing Director at extense, a diversity consultancy that supports leading law firms and corporates through inclusion consultancy services; D&I training; and diverse headhunting solutions.
Julian previously led retained law firm Partner Search mandates for a global Search firm. He continues to support underrepresented lawyers with their lateral strategy at Partner and Associate levels. In 2021, Julian was appointed to the government commissioned Taskforce, to boost socio-economic diversity at senior levels across UK Financial and Professional Services, set up by HM Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.