Meet Our Speakers
Prof. Jo Maher - Pro VC (Sport) Loughborough University
Keynote Speaker
Jo spent 10 years practising as a Sports Psychologist, working with athletes across a range of sports to Olympic standard. She has been a member of the FA Council since 2019 and has built on Loughborough’s sporting success securing a £12.5m world class sports hall and supporting 15 national sports governing body partnerships with over 2,000 elite athletes per year.
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Jane Pendlebury - CEO, HOSPA
Introducing new Hospitality professional development course
As CEO of HOSPA, Jane is an enthusiastic supporter of hospitality and always remains a positive advocate for the industry!
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Jason Gutteridge - Director of Sales & Operations, venuedirectory.com
Panel discussion
Jason hosts a no-nonsense panel of straight-talking M&E experts, setting the tone for the day's HOME Conference. Expect sharp insight, real challenges, bold opinions, and honest debate that will energise the day.
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Peter Heath (Host) - Venue Performance
Your MC and compere
Venue Performance is a future-focused benchmarking service for meetings and events venues & hotels. The platform benchmarks your performance in relation to the market and your competitors using over 18 bespoke reports, including revenues, lead times and activity.
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Angela Sanders - Edgbaston
Your people aren't leaving hospitality, they're leaving you.
It’s not a labour shortage - it’s a leadership shortage. They’re not walking away from the industry, they’re walking away from poor leadership, broken cultures, and empty promises.
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Jennifer Paylor - RBH
The real reason people stay? It's not their pay, it's their purpose
You can’t buy loyalty with a raise. It’s purpose, not pay, that keeps people proud, driven, and in your team.
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Katie Niland - The Belfry
Redesigning roles around purpose and pride
Great hospitality isn’t delivered by clock-watchers - it’s created by empowered hosts. Stop filling gaps and start building meaning into the role.
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Fiona Godfrey - Inicio HR
A mini-lab for creating careers worth having
A job spec says “what”. An EVP says “why”. In this interactive session, you’ll start crafting one worth staying for.
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Rob Chamberlain
A 'strategic plan' is just a list. Why most strategies aren't strategy
Tactics in a timeline aren’t strategy, they’re admin. Let’s unpack what strategy really means and why it demands sharper thinking.
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Louise Mitchell - Dalata
Play to win, not just not to lose.
Too many brands just try to survive the year. Real strategy means making bold, winning choices — and backing them.
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James Bland - Travel, Hospitality & Leisure, IPSOS
Forget Loyalty. Build Memory.
Loyalty is rare. Memory is powerful. We’ll show why distinctiveness and emotion win in the long run.
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Kelly Cronin & Chris Orme - Village Hotels
Design your brand's 'where to play/how to win'
Using the Playing to Win framework, you'll define your most valuable battleground — and how to dominate it.
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Rebecca Hawkes - Searcys
You don't yield your way to revenue - you create value first
Revenue doesn’t come from fiddling with pricing. It comes from designing experiences guests are genuinely willing to pay for.
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Alex Drinkwater
It's not UX, it's guest choreography.
Great guest experience isn’t accidental — it’s staged. We’ll explore how to script, guide and elevate every moment.
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Jane Hague - Convene Hospitality Group
Forget frictionless, design for memorability
Removing friction isn't enough. True growth comes from creating moments guests can’t forget — and want to repeat.
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Kelly Andreasson - Manchester Marriott Victoria & Albert
Build your guest-first playbook
This session gives you practical tools to design and deliver experiences that serve both the guest and the business.
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