Workforce, Skills and Employment Rights Event

I’ve spent over 20 years in hospitality and operations, working across the UK and US, and I’m currently at Harri supporting some of the world’s biggest hospitality brands.

Previously, I’ve held operational and leadership roles at Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group and Starbucks, so I’ve lived the realities of running sites, managing labour, and delivering great guest experiences under pressure.

Today, I sit at the intersection of hospitality, customer experience, and data. My focus is simple: helping operators turn what’s happening on the floor into clear insight and better decisions. That might be improving retention and renewals, fixing reporting blind spots, or showing where technology is genuinely adding value versus getting in the way.

Over the last 15 years, I’ve built and led high-performing teams, scaled customer success functions, and worked closely with operators to connect people, process, and performance. My approach is grounded in listening first, using data to validate what teams feel day to day, and moving fast on what actually matters.
I’m passionate about practical, human-centred use of data in hospitality. Not dashboards for dashboards’ sake, but insight that helps leaders run better shifts, protect margins, and build stronger teams.

Dawn Browne is the Chief People Officer at Fuller, Smith & Turner – the premium pubs and hotels business – where she leads on all aspects of Human Resources for over 5,000 colleagues in the business.

Dawn joined Fuller’s in August 2011 as Group Development Manager, having previously held positions at British Airways, Qantas and Compass Group. Dawn broadened her field of expertise with a promotion to Head of Operations for Fuller’s City Division, before returning to her primary passion in 2019 when she was appointed People & Talent Director. In 2023, Dawn joined the Fuller’s main board, becoming the Company’s first female executive director.

Dawn is originally from Lincolnshire and now lives in Surrey with her two children. She has a first class honours degree from the University of Huddersfield, and her positive energy, business acumen, and passion for people are backed by a credible combination of commercial retail experience, large scale operational leadership and a master’s degree in People and Organisational Development.

Karen Elliott is Head of Human Resources at McDonald’s UK & Ireland, leading people strategy across one of the UK’s largest and most complex hospitality workforces. She oversees HR operations, talent management and employee relations, with a strong focus on inclusion, skills development and employee experience.

Karen began her career at McDonald’s as a crew member in 1996, working her way up to Business Manager before progressing through a range of senior people roles across the organisation. Her previous positions include Education, Learning & Development Manager, People Relations & Insights Manager, and Human Resources Business Partner, where she played a key role in strengthening leadership capability, learning frameworks and evidence‑led people decision‑making.

A passionate advocate for training, apprenticeships and internal progression, Karen brings a practical, frontline‑informed perspective to discussions on workforce engagement and the future of people strategy in hospitality

Lauren is a Partner at RWK Goodman specialising in employment law.

Lauren has extensive experience across a wide range of employment law matters and is a trusted advisor to many local, national and international businesses as well as individual employees particularly at senior executive level. She qualified as a solicitor in 2007 and joined RWK Goodman’s employment and immigration team in May 2013.

Lauren’s work includes advising businesses on discrimination issues, complex disciplinaries and grievances, employment tribunal claims, business re-organisations, large scale redundancy exercises and business transfers. Lauren regularly works with a number of pubs, restaurants and hotels.

Lauren is an ambassador for training HR professionals and the wider workforce, most recently focusing on the prevention of sexual harassment and the anticipated reforms in the Employment Rights Bill.

Feedback from Lauren’s client’s include:
“Lauren provides excellent, practical and comprehensive advice in what an often seem like an employment law minefield”.
“Lauren is a fantastic partner to our business and truly feels like an extended member of our HR function. Her pragmatic advice, responsiveness and calm approach are hugely valued.”

Lauren’s recent work includes:-

- Successfully enforcing post termination restrictive covenants for a client.
- Advising a US headquartered international business on a major restructuring project which included site closures in the UK.
- Devising and presenting widescale training on the prevention of sexual harassment.
- Leading a team of solicitors to provide settlement agreement advice to over 500 employees of a large UK business as part of ongoing restructuring.

I have always had a passion for helping businesses navigate their way through complicated issues. I am straight talking and ensure my advice is clear and understandable. It is really important for me to get to know my clients, and their businesses, always understanding their culture and values, and of course their approach to risk. Employment law can often prove somewhat of a headache for businesses, and my aim is to remove that pain by providing advice in a balanced way that is easy to understand.

Mark Holmes is Deputy Director, Security of Work at the Department for Business and Trade. He is a member of the senior team that has been leading work on the Government’s Employment Rights Bill and the wider Plan to Make Work Pay. He is responsible for work on policies including unfair dismissal, zero hours contracts, employment status and agency workers.

Mark is a career civil servant and has also worked in consultancy. He has led teams at DBT and its predecessors since 2008. In a previous role in the same directorate he was responsible for work on labour market participation and parental leave entitlements. In other previous roles he has worked on science and innovation policy and, more recently, audit and corporate governance. He holds an MBA from Cranfield University.

Sunaina Sethi is the Co-founder and Chief People Officer of JKS Restaurants, the group behind many of London’s most acclaimed dining experiences. Today, JKS encompasses 30 brands, including 20 restaurants and 3 pubs, collectively holding 7 Michelin Stars and 3 Michelin Bib Gourmands. A graduate of Nottingham University, Sunaina initially pursued a career in finance that led her to Germany before returning to the UK to join her brothers in running their first restaurant, Trishna and to pursue her love of wine. She played a key role in expanding the business, particularly across Operations and Beverage. Her industry recognition includes being named a Zagat '30 Under 30' trailblazer and Imbibe’s Restaurant Personality of the Year in 2016. She earned her WSET Diploma in Wine and Spirits in 2017 and went on to establish JKS as an approved WSET programme provider.

Currently, Sunaina oversees People strategy across the business overseeing HR, Recruitment, and Learning & Development, with an aim to encourage growth and progression of all JKS employees. She is also a Non-Executive Director at Tate Enterprises Ltd, where she advises on all aspects of the business.

Stephanie Molyneaux is the Apprenticeships Manager at WSH, with a strong focus on attracting and developing young talent within the hospitality industry through business degree apprenticeships.

Drawing on years of Operational and Learning & Development experience, Stephanie brings a practical, hands-on perspective to conversations around inspiring young people to pursue careers in hospitality and supporting them in building secure, long-term career pathways.

Guy Youll is Chief People Officer at Loungers Ltd, the operator of over 300 café-bars across Lounges, Cosy Clubs and Brightside, employing about 10,000 team members.

Guy joined Loungers in December 2022 having previously worked in a number of senior roles in blue chip orgnisations including: CPO/CHRO positions at Inspired Education and Superdry; Head of Global Business Development for Superdry, based out of Hong Kong, plus a number of senior HR roles at Whitbread. Guy originally started out on the Whitbread HR graduate programme in 2010 after graduating with a 1st class Psychology Degree.

As Chief People Officer, Guy is responsible for shaping and delivering a people strategy that supports Loungers’ strategic priorities, growth ambitions, with a significant emphasis on ensuring Loungers retains its unique employee-centric culture as it grows rapidly.
Guy is local to Loungers HQ in Bristol and has two children, Lomax, 2 and Lowenna, 5, plus a chaotic and ever energetic dog Lara.

Joe Thornewill joined Freemans Event Partners in September 2024 and serves on the company’s Executive Board. As Chief of Staff, Joe is responsible for developing and executing business-wide strategies and processes that support the next phase of the company’s expansion.

Prior to this, Joe held senior positions across HR and Commercial Operations with several renowned global brands, including Premier Inn, Whitbread Restaurants, KFC, Subway, Costa, CH&Co, Domino's Pizza, and Coffee#1. His extensive experience spans multiple international markets, including the USA, Middle East, Nordics, and mainland Europe.

Lisa Dearing is an experienced hospitality learning leader with a career spanning luxury, lifestyle, and heritage brands, including time with Langham Hospitality Group and Lore Group, before moving into her current role at Imperial London Hotels. As Learning and Development Manager, she oversees apprenticeships and leads the operation of the group’s Training Academy near Russell Square, delivering learning experiences both at the Academy and across Imperial London Hotels’ Bloomsbury properties.

Dame Diana Johnson is Minister of State for Employment at the Department for Work and Pensions and has served as the Labour MP for Hull North since 2005, becoming the first woman to represent a Hull seat in Westminster. Following the 2024 General Election, she now represents Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham, and previously held the Policing and Crime Prevention brief at the Home Office.

A qualified barrister, Diana studied Law at Queen Mary University of London and worked in Community Law Centres before entering Parliament. She has held a range of government and opposition roles, including in Children, Schools and Families, Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and Health. She was appointed Dame Commander in 2020 and joined the Privy Council in 2021.

Outside politics, Diana enjoys crime novels, cinema, chocolate cake, strong tea, and black Labradors.

Terry has worked for Acas for over 20 years. In that time, he has conciliated in hundreds of Employment Tribunal cases, worked with employers and trade unions to resolve large scale disputes and mediated in individual workplace disagreements. He currently looks after a team providing advice and training solutions to workplaces across Great Britain.

Loretta Smith, People Experience Director at Greene King. Loretta has worked for Greene King for just under a year, previously working in Senior HR Director roles in Retail, Pharma and FMCG. Currently leading the People Experience team at Greene King, she is also the Business Sponsor for the programme of Work for the ERA across the Greene King estate. Already working with 6 workstream leads and 20 team members on ERA, with more to follow for the Oct and 2027 workstreams, we feel we are well underway in our planning and preparation to launch the Act across our business.

Adam is the Director of Employer Solutions at the CIPD and regularly speaks on the subject of the Future of HR and the Future of Work.

He brings a wealth of HR & L&D knowledge and a unique understanding of how organisations are unlocking success through their people. This includes raising awareness of the critical role modern people functions play, strengthening organisational commitment to professional development, and embedding consistent standards that build credibility and trust. Adam advises teams in reimagining how they design and deliver people solutions, ensuring they are aligned to organisational priorities, informed by data and grounded in contemporary professional principles.

As a regular conference speaker and active advisory board member for the UK government he contributes to shaping the wider conversation about the future of the profession, championing a more strategic, outcomes-driven and respected profession.