Meet Our Blueprint Trainers

Elizabeth Bananuka

Founder & CEO of BME PR Pros / Blueprinted

Elizabeth is a senior comms consultant and the founder of BME PR Pros. She developed and initially managed every aspect of the initiative in her spare time including the popular BME PR Pros / PRWeek Mentoring Scheme, the website and the social media channels.

She has delivered diversity workshops for agencies; lobbied industry publications to diversify their judging panels, speakers and commentators; and in 2019 organised the first BME PR Pros conference with nearly 30 speakers from Black, Asian, Mixed Race and Ethnic Minority backgrounds.

In 2020, Elizabeth launched The Blueprint diversity mark and The Pros Winter Series (an online event series with more than 70 speakers). In 2021 she developed and launched The Xec. leadership scheme for Black, Asian, Mixed Race and Ethnic Minority PR and comms pros.

Elizabeth is listed in the PRWeek PowerBook 2019, 2020 and 2021 and 2022. She was also one of Provoke Media’s 15 to Watch 2020 and PRovoke Media Innovator 25 2021.

Photo credit: Rob Greig

Marcia Hazzard

Independent Consultant

Marcia Hazzard is a highly skilled, dynamic, human resources, EDI, workforce and organisational development professional with 35 years+ experience gained in the public and private sectors. Marcia has a depth of consultancy expertise in working with organisations to develop high performance and inclusive cultures.

Marcia has worked with FTSE100s, large government agencies and SMEs in managing organisational change, formulating and embedding EDI strategies, and maximising workforce capacity and performance. Previous clients include Coop, Macmillan Cancer Care, The Pensions Regulator, University of Oxford, London Fire Brigade, Cinven (financial services), Rathbones (investment management), Tesco, GSK, Joseph Rowntree Trust, The Open University, Davita Healthcare, Office of National Statistics, Cloudflare (tech), London Air Ambulance, London Borough of Havering, Shearman & Sterling (law).

Marcia has written several articles about workforce transformation, and recently about new working practices during and post pandemic. As an academic, she has undertaken quantitative and qualitative, data led, EDI research projects to inform strategic performance.

As well as a seasoned facilitator and coach using neurolinguistic programming (NLP), Marcia has expertise in tackling workplace discrimination, having over 20 years’ experience sitting as a panel member on UK Employment Tribunals. She has been a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD for over 22 years. In July 2022, she received an honorary doctorate in business administration (DBA) from the Claude Littner Business School, University of West London, for her services to EDI and business transformation.

Louisa Joseph

Founder, BAME to Boardroom

Louisa’s work prioritises those from Black and Asian heritage and individuals who experience barriers to recruitment & progression in the workplace compared with their white counterparts. Louisa’s approach to coaching and mentoring relationships focuses on meeting life and workplace challenges using a range of techniques that enable participants to identify and address barriers to progress and success.

Louisa works with organisations to develop inclusive leadership, helping to level the playing field to ensure sustainability of inclusive organisational cultures. She has specifically developed a “Race at Work Dialogue Workshop” based on David Bohm’s work on dialogue. This uses the process of dialogue to enable a free-flowing exchange of thoughts, ideas and points of view. Increased consciousness and deeper understanding, create breakthroughs followed by sustainable action and results.

Louisa is also a Trustee of Magic Me, a charity focused on intergenerational arts activities in communities.

Louisa has IAPC&M accreditation; is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) and a CIPD Mentor; a member of the British Psychological Society; an accredited assessor of Personality and Ability; a certified NLP Practitioner.

Sara Thornhurst

Consultant and Trainer, Inclusive PR UK

Sara Thornhurst Chart.PR is a disabled PR practitioner and trainer who ran her own agency for several years. She has been a visiting lecturer in digital marketing at Leeds Trinity University and was cited as one of the Shaw Trust’s top 100 influential people with a disability in 2018. She has spoken on disability inclusion, accessibility and diversity issues at multiple industry events and runs regular training sessions and workshops for agencies and PR events to help them overcome issues around ableism employing and retaining disabled talent. She is also the Chair of the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire CIPR Committee.

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