Judges

Debi O'Donovan
Employee Benefits
Debi is the editor of the UK’s leading benefits magazine Employee Benefits. Prior to that she was editor of the magazine for six years. She is responsible for editorial strategy across the Employee Benefits brand, as well as for new product development. Debi is a regular contributor to Corporate Adviser magazine. She joined Centaur Media as deputy

editor of  Employee Benefits in 1998. Before joining Employee Benefits she worked on a women’s consumer magazine in Cape Town.

Debbie Lovewell
Employee Benefits
Debbie is the deputy editor of Employee Benefits magazine and is responsible for writing, editing and commissioning features as well as overseeing supplements and research, and providing input on www.employeebenefits.co.uk. She joined Employee Benefits magazine in 2003 as a staff

writer, progressing to features editor within two years, and by 2006 was made deputy editor. She has become a recognised writer in the field of benefits and reward.

Paul Bissell
Cable & Wireless
Paul is an acknowledged expert in the field of reward with over 30 years experience in the Financial Services and Telecommunications sectors.  Prior to his current role as Head of Reward for Cable & Wireless Worldwide, he was Head of Rewards for Nationwide Building Society for more than 10 years.  He has won numerous industry awards, was

instrumental in Nationwide winning the Sunday Times “Best Big Company in the UK to Work For” award in 2005 and has been highly commended by the Government for his work on equal pay. A former CIPD Vice President – Reward, Paul sits on the Institute’s Reward Forum Committee and is a member of the Reward Faculty which oversees professional training and examinations.  He is a much sought after conference speaker, occasional lecturer and has published and contributed to numerous articles in specialist publications.

 

Neal Blackshire
McDonalds
Neal is the Benefits & Compensation Manager for McDonald’s Restaurants Ltd, where he has worked for over 25 years having started on the shop floor as a crewmember whilst completing his A level studies. 
Over the last 9 years, Neal and his team

has continued to drive improvement and innovation in the range of benefits offered to McDonald’s employees with some recent examples being the ‘on YOUR bike!’ scheme, the Employee Discount Card benefit and the ‘Your Personal Benefits’ total reward statements – all of which have been shortlisted in Employee Benefits magazine’s annual awards Neal is the Benefits & Compensation Manager for McDonald’s Restaurants Ltd, where he has worked for over 25 years having started on the shop floor as a crewmember whilst completing his A level studies.  Over the last 9 years, Neal and his team has continued to drive improvement and innovation in the range of benefits offered to McDonald’s employees with some recent examples being the ‘on YOUR bike!’ scheme, the Employee Discount Card benefit and the ‘Your Personal Benefits’ total reward statements – all of which have been shortlisted in Employee Benefits magazine’s annual awards.

Duncan Brown
Institute for Employment Studies (IES)
Duncan Brown is Director of Reward  Services at the Institute for Employment Studies, a leading independent think tank and research body on employment and HR issues. He has more than 20 years' experience in reward consulting with firms including PricewaterhouseCoopers and Towers

Perrin. He also spent five years as Assistant Director General at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.  

John Chilman
FirstGroup
John has a strong financial, reward and change management background, and has a flair for transforming strategic vision into practice.
After graduating from Oxford University, John then qualified as a Chartered Accountant. From there he lead significant M&A work during the deregulation of the Gas and Electricity industry, before

heading up the Management Information Consultancy and Management Accounting teams at Shell. John joined FirstGroup in 1999, consolidating and changing pension arrangements and introducing employee share schemes. He was Head of Reward at HBOS for 2 years, before returning to FirstGroup to lead the Pension & Reward functions. John is a Trustee of the Railways Pension Scheme, Chairman of its Investment Committee, and a Trustee of pension arrangements in the UK, USA and Canada.

Debra Corey
Quintiles

Charles Cotton
CIPD
Charles Cotton, reward and employment conditions adviser, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)
Charles is the CIPD’s reward expert and has worked with some of the UK’s leading private, public and voluntary sector

organisations to create a range of good practice reward products and diagnostic tools for HR practitioners. He manages the CIPD’s annual reward survey, which shows the current trends and developments in UK pay and benefit practice. Charles’s areas of expertise include: pensions, flexible benefits, short and long-term incentives, performance based pay and reward communication and education.

Jim Cowan
RBS
Having fulfilled a number of “proper jobs” at RBS Jim initially entered the world of Reward through Job Evaluation, quickly becoming manager of that function. A key member of the team who introduced the Total Reward approach to RBS he’s now heavily involved in the change programme 

as RBS lead the reform of Reward in the Banking Sector. Jim is currently responsible for employee benefits and recognition at RBS group in the UK and Europe as well as overseeing the communications programme supporting the Reward approach.  

Sara Davies
Ladbrokes
Sara has worked for a number of large organisations including Staples Office Superstores, Wickes, Focus DIY and Travis Perkins in HR and specialist Reward roles. At Ladbrokes plc she is responsible for delivering

strategic reward programmes for over 14,000 employees in the UK in both the retail and remote gaming businesses. Her role also leads the teams delivering Payroll, HR Administrative services, Management Information, Systems and Resourcing for the business.

Gillian Hibberd
Bucks County Council
Gillian joined Buckinghamshire in late 2005 and is Corporate Director (People  Policy and Communications) responsible for HR, OD, Policy, Performance and Communications across the organisation and its 14,000 employees. Gillian is a member of the Senior Management Team at Buckinghamshire that has seen the Council

achieve 4 star excellent status. Gillian’s team were awarded the PPMA award for Innovation in HR in 2007 and were shortlisted for a 2007 Municipal Journal award.   Gillian is currently President of PPMA, the national Public Sector People Managers Association. Gillian was named as one of the top 30 most influential people in HR in 2009 by Human Resources Magazine and was named as one of the Top 10 Power Players in 2009 by Personnel Today.

Euan Hutchinson
Skype

Catherine Slattery
Malmaison & Hotel du Vin
Catherine Slattery began her HR career at hospitality and leisure firm Mitchells and Butlers in 1997, working as a training, developing and resourcing manager, eventually specialising in opening up new businesses and training and  preparing new teams to work in them. After progressing to acting HR manager in 2003, she became responsible for all general personnel

duties, including running reward and recognition initiatives. She has been with Malmaison & Hotel du Vin since 2005 and  here she has been lucky enough to be part of an exciting and award winning team including best places to work!

Mike Sullivan
Veolia, PMI
Mike Sullivan is the current President of the Pensions Management Institute having taken office in July 2009. Prior to that Mike had been Vice President for a year and has 10 years service on PMI's governing Council.
In his day job he is Head of Employee Benefits and
Pensions at Veolia Environment UK Limited - a French owned, world-wide, multi-utility business. Mike heads a team of 7 which is involved with nearly 70 different

schemes. Immediately prior to joining Veolia he was an Account Manager at Mercer, spending 20 years with various consultancies.
Mike believes that pensions should no longer be seen as a stand alone employee benefit but should be part of an integrated employee reward offering.

 
Jayne Tory
Asda
Since joining the Reward team in 2003 Jayne has held a number of Senior Manager positions taking the responsibility for reward policies, benefits, expatriates, relocation, incentive scheme design and latterly engagement and recognition. In her role as Reward and Recognition Manager Jayne successfully implemented

an Instant Reward strategy which was awarded ‘Gold Winner’ at the Institute of Sales Promotion Awards.
Since joining the Reward team in 2003 Jayne has held a number of Senior Manager positions taking the responsibility for reward policies, benefits, expatriates, relocation, incentive scheme design and latterly engagement and recognition. In her role as Reward and Recognition Manager Jayne successfully implemented an Instant Reward strategy which was awarded ‘Gold Winner’ at the Institute of Sales Promotion Awards 2009 and was Highly Commended by HR Excellence Magazine 2009. Prior to that she had designed a competition based sales incentive scheme that delivered an additional £1m sales and collected 2 industry business awards from Employee Benefits and HR Excellence Magazines in 2008. Her current remit includes pay processes and expenses management an Instant Reward strategy which was awarded ‘Gold Winner’ at the Institute of Sales Promotion Awards
Since joining the Reward team in 2003 Jayne has held a number of Senior Manager positions taking the responsibility for reward policies, benefits, expatriates, relocation, incentive scheme design and latterly engagement and recognition. In her role as Reward and Recognition Manager Jayne successfully implemented an Instant Reward strategy which was awarded ‘Gold Winner’ at the Institute of Sales Promotion Awards 2009 and was Highly Commended by HR Excellence Magazine 2009. Prior to that she had designed a competition based sales incentive scheme that delivered an additional £1m sales and collected 2 industry business awards from Employee Benefits and HR Excellence Magazines in 2008. Her current remit includes pay processes and expenses management