Innovation Festival

Fiona Murchie has over 25 years’ experience in management and HR publishing and global mobility. From this unique perspective, she combines understanding of the HR and global mobility market with knowledge of business drivers and an appreciation of management thinking and the wider influences on company and regional growth brought about by changing global markets, demographics, economics and geo-political factors.

She launched Relocate magazine in 2004, to promote creativity and best practice in mobility, explore new topics, and stimulate debate on relocation-related subjects. Relocate Global has become the leading multimedia for international managers, HR, global mobility and relocation professionals, with a growing international reputation for thought leadership, innovation and people support.

Valérie Besanceney (MA, MEd) is an international education and transition consultant, passionate about helping families thrive through transitions. Author of two children’s books, B at Home: Emma Moves Again and My Moving Booklet and founder of Roots with Boots, she currently consults for families, schools, and organizations. She is Dutch by birth, Swiss by nationality, and well-versed in cross-cultural awareness. Having moved often as a child, Valérie understands the challenges and impact of early transitions on your sense of identity and belonging as an adult. Valérie has been an international educator for the past 18 years in international schools and organizations across four continents. Valérie serves as the Executive Director of Safe Passage Across Networks (SPAN) and is the co-creator and co-facilitator of the SPAN certificate course on the Laws of Transitions. Together with her husband and their two daughters, she lives in Gryon, Switzerland.

Demetra is a Director in the KPMG  Global Mobility Services team in London. She has over 13 years of experience supporting organisations set up their Global Mobility programmes and improve their existing programmes, in alignment with broader business and talent priorities. Demetra has worked with numerous organisations across all industries, supporting with key areas like Global Mobility strategy, policy design, process and technology optimization, as well as training, communications and change management activities which go alongside any programme transformation/change.

Agnieszka is a Senior Manager in the KPMG Global Mobility Services team in London. She has 12 years of experience supporting organisations in the design and delivery of their Global Mobility programmes. Agnieszka’s experience includes working with FTSE100 companies, start-ups and individual senior executives, within industries ranging from Media and Technology, through to Energy and Manufacturing.

Susan Stewart is Director at Articulate Multilingual Ltd. With a foot in both local UK communities as well as global expatriate communities, Articulate Multilingual supports and advises multilingual families as they make choices about schooling and home language use.Susan has lived and worked in Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Belgium, Oman, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Susan, who has raised two bilingual global-nomad children, speaks (to varying degrees) English, French, German, Afrikaans, Swedish and Arabic.  Susan has a particular interest in the area of language policy as a driving force in promoting multilingualism within families, communities, organisations, and schools. With a background in international education, Susan’s work centres around building an understanding of diverse multilingual families and children and how these can be nurtured and developed. She delivers regular parent workshops around the questions of raising multilingual children, locally and internationally. Susan has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Linguistics and French from the University of South Africa and an MA in Applied Linguistics and Communications from Birkbeck College, University of London.