Leadership Summit

Chair of the Bar 2025 & joint head of chambers at 4PB

Barbara Mills KC is chair of the Bar 2025. Barbara is joint head of chambers at 4PB and practises in family law specialising in difficult and complex children cases, often with an international element. Barbara is an arbitrator and a mediator, sits as a deputy High Court judge, and has been a recorder on the South Eastern Circuit for over 10 years. Barbara is also a governing bencher at Inner Temple.

Deputy CEO, Litigation, Arbitration, and Employment at Hogan Lovells

Michael Davison is Deputy CEO of Hogan Lovells. For close to 30 years, he has been helping clients avoid disputes and from 2014 to 2020 he was the sole head of the firm's global Litigation, Arbitration and Employment practice, comprising 200 partners and 800 lawyers across 45+ offices. The team has advised 73 of the Fortune 100, 40 of the FTSE 100 and 24 of the DAX 30. As a London arbitration lawyer he has handled some of the most complex international cases. Michael has tried cases under the rules of all 10 major arbitration centres – in Latin America, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East, and South East Asia. Before relocating to London, Michael worked in the firm's Paris office for six years, where he qualified as a French avocat. He is also a Solicitor Advocate and trained mediator.

Michael acts regularly in arbitrations for clients in the automotive, aerospace, defense, energy, and telecom industries. He has a particular interest in energy and commodities law. Michael sits as an arbitrator, acts as a mediator, and lectures on arbitration topics.

Partner Litigation, Arbitration, and Employment at Hogan Lovells

Dually qualified in New York and England & Wales , Akima Paul Lambert is a solicitor advocate who focuses on high-stakes, bet-the-company commercial litigation and arbitration often with a multijurisdictional element.  Clients describe her as ‘professional’ ‘brilliant’ and ‘dedicated to the task’,  ‘responsive and diligent’ , ‘very capable of handling complex matters’ and ‘always delivering what she promises’.

She has worked across almost every industry and sector including for corporates, pharma, health, products, tech, banking and finance. Her cases range from solicitor professional negligence in the Bahamas, earn-out M&A disputes, multi million dollar environmental remediation litigation, ICSID arbitration in the energy sector, and large scale fraud in Ukraine.

Associate, Hogan Lovells

As an Associate in the firm's Global Products Law Practice, Farheen focuses on product regulation and compliance, product-related commercial issues and consumer law, with a particular interest in technology, artificial intelligence, consumer products and automotive industries.

Farheen represents international clients on a range of regulatory matters, helping them to navigate all stages of the product lifecycle from launches to corrective actions, balancing evolving legal and regulatory requirements with commercial considerations.

A supporter of Girls Human Rights Hub since the beginning.

Trainee solicitor at Hogan Lovells

Sarah Tayara is a trainee solicitor at Hogan Lovells. Sarah is of Syrian origin, which has influenced much of her motivations and interests in human rights in conflict zones in the Middle East. 

She has worked with humanitarian and non-governmental organisations based in Geneva and Lebanon, and has written for human rights platforms about the human rights situation in the Middle East. She has also worked with survivors and refugees of the Syrian civil war. Sarah has spoken at the United Nations Human Rights Council on numerous occasions, and was a panellist at a side event hosted at the 57th Session of the Human Rights Council on the role of Economic, Social and Cultural rights in post-conflict transitions.

Programme Lead at Native Scientists

A Syrian science communicator and activist working at the intersection of science communication and social justice. A graduate of both Imperial and UCL, Hania is a Programme Lead at Native Scientists. Her work connects Arabic-speaking migrant children and scientists through science outreach activities in the Arabic language, with a particular focus on refugee and asylum-seeking communities.

Prior to working at Native Scientists, Hania was a Public Engagement Specialist at the Royal Society of Chemistry where she led and delivered flagship public engagement projects and developed the 'Diverse Engagement for Diverse Publics' programme. 

Hania has given talks and keynotes about her work at multiple events and conferences in different European cities. These include UCL, Loughborough University London, University of Luxembourg "GirlsInScitech" campaign, the Natural History Museum Explorers Symposium, Society for Experimental Biology Conference Prague, amongst others.

Head of Research at Rare and Diversity & Inclusion Expert

Naomi Kellman is Rare’s Head of Research. She joined Rare in 2011 and founded Target Oxbridge, a programme that has helped over 500 Black African and Caribbean students secure Oxbridge offers. Naomi spent 2012 to 2015 working on education policy at the Department for Education and the Treasury. She has co-founded the BAME Fast Stream Network and the Oxford Black Alumni Network and has made appearances on national news channels to discuss diversity in education and recruitment. She is a Director of the Institute of Student Employers and a Trustee for the PRIME Commitment.

Director of Training and Consultancy, Senior Consultant & Mediator at CEDR

Susanne Schuler is an accredited mediator in the U.K., Germany, and Switzerland, with over 25 years of experience in dispute resolution. She has successfully facilitated more than 150 mediations, primarily for corporate clients, while also specialising in Business & Human Rights, community, and family business mediation. Susanne is dedicated to transforming conflict into trust, fostering purpose-driven relationships, and promoting peace-centered equity across diverse regions, from Mongolia to the USA and Finland to Rwanda.

Senior Dispute Resolution Consultant and Lead Trainer at CEDR

Frederick Way is a leading UK Mediator, Senior Dispute Resolution Consultant and Lead Trainer in Mediation, Negotiation and Conflict Management at CEDR. In December 2024, Frederick was named Civil/Commercial Mediator of the Year at the National Mediation Awards, the highest award in UK Mediation.

Having trained as a barrister, Frederick has worked for over a decade as a mediator and has extensive experience of civil, commercial, private client, employment and workplace, professional negligence, property, wills, trusts and probate, arts, charity, appeals and tax mediation.

In his practice Frederick has mediated cases involving disputes between individuals, large corporates, charities and public bodies. He regularly mediates high value civil and commercial claims and cases with complex legal issues or involving allegations of professional misconduct. He is recognised for his ability to provide balance of the commercial and legal drivers, narrow the issues and guide parties towards settlement.

Laura Coryton, British activist and author

Laura Coryton MBE born in Shoreham, East Sussex (born 1993) is a British campaigner, feminist activist and author. She is the founder of Stop Taxing Periods, a campaign to abolish the tampon tax in the United Kingdom and make menstrual products exempt from VAT. Coryton's online petition successfully lobbied the UK Parliament into establishing the Tampon Tax Fund in 2016, through which almost £100m was donated to female-focused charities. Her campaign succeeded in 2021 when the tax on all period products was axed.

Coryton also runs the Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) social enterprise Sex Ed Matters, dedicated to making quality and confidence-building sex education accessible to everyone, for which she won UKRI's Young Innovator Award 2023 and Women in Innovation Award 2024. In the 2024 UK General Election, she stood as the Labour Party parliamentary candidate for Richmond Park. Her first book Speak Up! was published by Harper Collins UK in 2019, and in the USA in 2022.

For her work, she was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to Charitable Campaigning. Coryton also joined the Obama Foundation as a European Leader in 2022, joined the Department for Education's Period Poverty Taskforce in 2020, and was named one of The Observer's and Nesta's 2016 New Radicals. In December 2016, the BBC included her in their list of Five women who aren't on Wikipedia but should be.

Partner Corporate & Finance at Hogan Lovells

Described by Legal 500 as a practitioner who is "approachable and pragmatic" and one that is “proactive, thinks ahead and provides pragmatic solutions”, Nicola has over 20 years’ experience advising clients on game-changing and often innovative corporate finance transactions.

Nicola’s experience is broad and extends to corporate transactions, domestic and cross-border M&A, joint ventures, the Takeover Code, disclosure and governance issues, securities law and the Listing Rules as well as secondary capital raising and restructurings. She is also often called upon by boards of listed companies to advise on their significant corporate matters. 

Partner Global Regulatory at Hogan Lovells

Ranked as a Leading Partner for Administratrive and Public Law, and described as "an incredibly bright and creative lawyer", Julia helps clients to influence and change their legal and regulatory landscape.

 Working at the intersection of business and government, Julia has a broad public law and policy practice, advising both public and private sector clients from a wide range of industries, including energy, financial services, pharmaceuticals, telecoms and transport. Julia has particular experience of working with innovative businesses on the unique challenges that they face. Clients descibe her as having "a seriously impressive ability to deliver almost shockingly succinct and actionable advice at extremely short notice".

Partner Corporate & Finance at Hogan Lovells

Katie Gill practices primarily in the area of domestic and international banking and finance. With a particular emphasis on acquisition and cross-border finance, she has represented both borrowers and lenders on a wide range of lending transactions, including secured and unsecured lending, bilateral and syndicated loans, senior and mezzanine loans, subordinated debt and intercreditor issues.

She has extensive experience in acquisition financing, corporate borrowing and real estate finance, and has advised clients in a variety of industry sectors. Katie has specific experience in acquisition finance in the Hotels, Hospitality and Lodging Industry, as well as in the Energy and Technology sectors.

Partner Litigation, Arbitration, and Employment

As partner in the London office, Jenna advises clients on a wide range of commercial litigation disputes. These include complex, high value shareholder disputes, frequently with a fraud-related element.

Jenna is currently acting on one of The Lawyer's top 20 cases for 2022, for the Ukrainian bank, PrivatBank, in its $3 billion fraud claim against its former owners, Igor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov.