Muniya Barua is Deputy Chief Executive at BusinessLDN. She leads our Policy, Campaigns and Communications team, with responsibility for our impact, influencing, thought leadership work and membership. She supports our CEO John Dickie in the running of the business and has responsibility for developing the overall business strategy. She was previously Managing Director of Policy and Strategy, and before that she ran our Corporate Affairs team. Before she joined BusinessLDN, Muniya’s previous senior roles include as Managing Director of Corporate Affairs at the award-winning public and communications agency Newington Communications and at the business lobby group, the CBI, where she held the roles of Director of Corporate Communications and Head of News. Muniya began her career as a business reporter at the Liverpool Daily Post before going on to produce news bulletins for ITV News London, CNN and the BBC. Muniya is an independent governor at London Metropolitan University and also sits on its finance and resources committee. She was previously a trustee at the Campaign for Better Transport.

Zahir Bokhari is (City of) London Senior Partner and Vice Chairman of Deloitte. He has spent most of his 30 year career leading the Firm’s relationships with Global Systemically Important Financial Institutions. He is passionate about the City of London role to support innovation; sustainable finance; inclusion and diversity; job creation and long-term economic growth. He currently serves Deloitte’s global clients and has worked extensively in overseas markets, including Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, Dubai, Karachi, Zurich, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels and Oslo. He strongly believes in providing a better future and opportunity to children through his role on the Development Board of Place2Be – a charity which enhances the wellbeing and prospects of children and their families. Zahir is married to Sarah and has two children. He likes spending time in Cornwall and Lahore.

Jack Brown is Lecturer in London Studies and is part of the Strand Group, in the Policy Institute at King’s. Previously, Jack was Researcher in Residence at No. 10 Downing Street, Research Manager at thinktank Centre for London, and studied Contemporary British History at BA and MA level at Queen Mary University of London. His PhD thesis, also undertaken at QMUL, was entitled ‘The London Docklands Development Corporation under Reg Ward and the Emergence of Canary Wharf: 1981-87’. Dr Brown is author of No.10: The Geography of Power at Downing Street (published by Haus), The London Problem: What Britain gets wrong about its capital city (Haus); and co-author of London's Mayor at 20, published by BiteBack.

Zephaniah is a Director in the Local & Regional Government team at Microsoft, looking after the West Midlands and London Region for Microsoft UK. With over a decade in the Technology industry, he has a deep passion for inclusion and community and the role that technology and digital skills plays in democratising opportunity and transforming our communities, cities and country. In his time at Microsoft, he has been the Business Manager for the CEO of Microsoft UK, led the UK Data business, successfully delivering the Marketing, Partnerships and Sales strategy and led the commercial distribution business for Microsoft Surface hardware devices. He is the Chair for the EMBRACE Employee Resource Group at Microsoft UK, focused on Ethnicity, Race and Culture. In 2022 he was appointed as a trustee to the ‘United by 2022’ board – to oversee delivery of the legacy of the Commonwealth Games in the West Midlands, UK and the broader Commonwealth. He is a school governor in his resident city of Birmingham. Zephaniah was born and raised in London and is an Aston University alumnus. He lives in Birmingham with his wife and two young children.

John Dickie is the Chief Executive at BusinessLDN. Formerly the organisation’s Director of Strategy and Policy, he was responsible for the business membership organisation’s public policy development and its member management team. A former Deputy Leader of Camden Council in London, John was a member of the current Mayor of London’s London Finance Commission, the previous Mayor’s Infrastructure Delivery Board and is a member of the King’s College Commission on London. His previous senior roles include Head of Corporate Affairs at the BBC, Regulatory Affairs Director at the European Competitive Telecommunications Association and Managing Director of consultancy Prima Europe, later GPC London, where he provided political and policy advice to major international businesses. John started his career at Swiss Bank Corporation International and has degrees from Oxford University and the London Business School.

Nic is Chief Executive of South Bank Employers’ Group: www.sbeg.co.uk and South Bank BID: www.southbankbid.co.uk. SBEG champions London’s South Bank on behalf of businesses and employees, residents, students, and visitors: setting the agenda, facilitating co-operation, and delivering programmes that bring improvement and change. SBEG set up South Bank BID in 2014 and acts as its delivery agent. Nic is Chair of British BIDs - the national membership organisation that supports the interests and values of the BID industry and is the forum for its members to learn, network, share experiences and lead the industry (British BIDs | Homepage). He is a member of London’s Tourism Advisory Group, a Board member of Safer Business Network: https://www.saferbusiness.org.uk/ and an external Governor of Morley College London: https://www.morleycollege.ac.uk/. Nic’s career spans urban regeneration, culture and heritage, and funding and grant-giving, with senior roles at National Trust, Heritage Lottery Fund, Groundwork, and Westway Trust.

Matthew Fell is Director of Competitiveness at BusinessLDN. He is responsible for a programme of work on competitiveness, including regulatory, fiscal and economic measures that support growth and make London a compelling destination for investment. Matthew is also a Commissioner on the Low Pay Commission, responsible for advising the government on the national living wage. He has considerable experience of engaging with Government, regulators and senior business leaders.

Mark is Membership Director, leading our cross-organisational member retention and engagement strategy. He also leads the policy work of our People Team, including skills, immigration, employment, inclusion and diversity and education, as well as the Leadership Exchange. His team has account management responsibility for our members in the education, financial services, legal services, health, and hospitality sectors. Mark works to ensure London business has access to the talent it needs, by working with members and stakeholders on high profile and integrated policy and campaigning activity, including ReNew London and previously our successful London Skills Commission and #Full Strength coalition. He has built an extensive network across business, education, policy and government. He works closely with the Greater London Authority including his role on the Mayor’s Anchor’s Institution Charter skills sub group. He is also a member of the London Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network run by the Department for Education, the Home Office’s National Advisory Group and the London Higher Board. Prior to BusinessLDN, he was a retail property consultant for eight years, developing asset management strategies for blue chip property companies, and spent four years in local government providing policy advice and training programmes to councillors as well as leading on community engagement activity. Mark joined BusinessLDN from the Association of Colleges where he ran the London region.

Chris leads the Corporate Affairs and Sustainability teams at Landsec. Chris joined from Portland Communications where he was a Senior Partner, leading its local engagement and real estate specialism as well as jointly leading the agency’s flagship corporate practice. He has worked in leading communications agencies for the last 10 years and before that worked in London local government.

Amy has served as London’s first Night Czar since 2016. She has a long and successful track record as a leader and collaborator in culture and creative industries, communities, and broadcasting. Amy served as Mayoress of the London Borough of Camden in 2010-11 and spent her year highlighting the history and culture of live music and nightlife in the area. She co-founded one of London’s most legendary club nights, Duckie, and hosted it for over 25 years. She currently presents weekend mornings on BBC Radio 6Music. Her debut book, From Prejudice to Pride: A History of the LGBTQ+ Movement – the first LGBTQ+ history book for children – was published by Hachette in June 2017. In 2018, Amy was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from University of East London and appointed Honorary Professor at University College London. In 2022 she was recognised as a National Treasure as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Originally from New Jersey, Amy has been a proud Londoner for 30 years.

Eleanor is a former Director at world-leading cyber AI company, Darktrace, where she spent six years as Global Head of the organisation’s Industrial Division. Prior to this, Eleanor founded and ran Darktrace’s African operations. With a wealth of experience in scaling fast-growing technology businesses, Eleanor oversees Luminance’s product development and leads the company’s continued global expansion. She is a winner of Law.com’s prestigious ‘Innovation Trailblazer Award’ and was named in Management Today’s ’35 under 35’. Eleanor is a member of the Forbes Technology Council and has regularly featured in leading publications, including The Financial Times, the BBC and The Guardian.

Natalie Lovett is General Manager, UK & Ireland for WeWork, the leading flexible space provider, and oversees operations and member experience across WeWork's 70 UKI locations. She joined the company in 2019 as part of the Finance team and was most recently Head of Finance & Business Operations, EMEA. Her career prior to WeWork was property-centric, and included business partnership roles at the Westfield Shopping Centre Group in London and in Shopping Centre Management for Jones Lang LaSalle in Australia.

John, a Senior Adviser at BCW, is a highly regarded communicator and campaign strategist who works with political and corporate clients around the world. He has worked widely in government – advising prime ministers in four countries.

Andy was appointed CEO of Tideway in 2014 and was formally appointed to the Tideway Board on Licence Award in 2015. He joined the project from Crossrail where he was Programme Director and a Board member. He has worked around the world, including on developments such as Hong Kong Airport and Hong Kong West Rail. He also worked for Network Rail, where he was Project Director for its Southern Power Upgrade project and Senior Programme Director of the Thameslink Programme. Andy is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Institution of Civil Engineers, and former Chair of the Infrastructure Industry Innovation Platform (i3P) and Infrastructure Client Group (ICG). He was also the Co-Chair of the Construction Leadership Council from 2018 to June 2022 and in 2020 he was named Personality of the Year at the Building Awards in recognition of his efforts working with government to prepare for Brexit and to support the industry through the coronavirus pandemic. He was honoured with a CBE for Services to Civil Engineering.

Henry is a partner in Ashurst's real estate department in London. Henry has over 20 years' experience in commercial property matters, including developments, acquisitions, lettings and financings. Henry has advised on some of the largest development and regeneration schemes in London, including the Shard and the Place at London Bridge, Westfield's development schemes at White City, Stratford City and Croydon, and the commercial developments above Elizabeth Line stations. He was on secondment as acting Head of Legal at a major London developer for more than a year.

As managing partner of McKinsey’s UK, Ireland and Israel offices, Tunde brings deep experience in supporting a range of financial services, private equity, consumer facing and public sector institutions on strategy, digital transformation, analytics, operations, organization and culture. Tunde was previously the firm’s Global Chief Technology and Platform Officer, overseeing client and colleague-facing technology assets across the world including ensuring their cyber and operational resilience. Tunde also sits on McKinsey’s global Board of Directors.

Sarah Olney is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for the Treasury and Business and Industrial Strategy Sarah takes an active role in holding the Government to account over their management of the economy and their handling of public finances. She is passionate about fostering thriving high streets and supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs. Sarah wants to see a real focus on achieving net zero by 2045. She is pushing the government to seize the opportunities of a green transition to create a better, cleaner and more sustainable future for everyone.

Lucy Pryce, Head of Development, joined Making The Leap, the societal change charity, in 2005 and has played a key role in its success and continues to do so, helping to transform the lives of thousands of young people from less-advantaged socio-economic backgrounds. In her role, she leads on establishing and maintaining relationships with key supporters of the organisation, including Trusts and Foundations, companies and individuals. Lucy is experienced at developing multifaceted charitable partnerships with businesses, helping them to meet their priorities around diversity and social inclusion. She has previously undertaken a number of roles at Making The Leap directly delivering their soft skills and career programmes to support secondary school students with their development and older young people into employment. Lucy is passionate about tackling inequality and advancing social mobility to ensure every young person has the opportunity to succeed and fulfill their potential.

Professor Geraint Rees is a neurologist and neuroscientist and UCL’s Vice Provost for Research, Innovation and Global Engagement. His leadership portfolio includes £2.26bn of research grants, £2.2bn of external investment in spinouts raised over the last five years, a vibrant student entrepreneurship culture and the largest research output of any UK university with the world’s five leading knowledge-producing economies. Creating a social and economic impact for the UK valued at £9.9bn per annum, UCL is a global top ten university.

Ryan is the Founder and Chief Executive of Bright Blue. He became the Chief Executive at the start of 2014. Under his leadership, Bright Blue has grown significantly in size, reputation and impact. The organisation has been shortlisted for the 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 UK social policy think tank of the year and UK environment and energy think tank of the year in the prestigious annual Prospect Magazine awards. Ryan is a writer, thinker and entrepreneur. He was named as ‘One to watch’ in 2015 by The Observer. His research focuses on education and social policy. Many of his policy ideas have been adopted by the UK Government over the past decade. He appears regularly in the national press and broadcast media. Ryan was previously a Research Fellow for the think tank the Social Market Foundation and was part of the team that won Prospect Magazine’s Think Tank of the Year in 2012. At the SMF, he authored ten research papers and designed innovative policies on childcare, welfare, public service reform, higher education and health. Prior to 2010, he was a researcher for Rt Hon David Willetts MP when he was Shadow Education Secretary, where he authored the Conservative Party’s Childhood Review, and an adviser to the Conservative Party on families and education, formulating party policy and managing media relations. Ryan is a Senior Visiting Fellow at King’s College London. He is a trustee of two What Works Centres – the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) and Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO), and was previously a trustee for the Young Women’s Trust (2014-2019) and the Daycare Trust (2010-2015). He sits on the advisory council of the University of Bath Institute for Policy Research, National Council for Voluntary Organisations, and Shelter’s Big Conversation on Social Housing. He is a mentor for the Social Mobility Foundation and a governor of a new secondary school in East London.

Andy Silvester is editor of City A.M., London's business newspaper, and has been at the paper since 2019. An award-winning journalist, he previously worked at The Sun and in Westminster across a variety of policy and communications roles.

Allen is an expert in business growth and economic development. From 2018 to 2023 he was at London & Partners, the business growth and destination agency for London. He worked as Managing Director of Strategy and Operations, and in 2021 as Interim Chief Executive as London recovered from the pandemic. Previously, Allen spent six years at Barclays Bank where he led the bank’s business finance policy team, focusing on trade, SMEs and scale-ups, including as Chair of the SME committee of the pan-European wholesale banking group AFME. During the financial crisis, Allen worked at the London Stock Exchange as an adviser to the Chief Executive and Chairman, protecting London’s position as the world’s leading financial centre. He has served in a number of government roles within the UK Parliament, and civil service.