Chairs and speakers include:

• Jonathan Rees
  Deputy Chief Executive, Health and Safety Executive
• Ben Willmott
  CIPD
• Matthew Young
  Policy Advisor, Association of British Insurers
• Mark Hunt
  Partner, Reed Smith LLP
• Kathryn Glendinning
  Head of Occupational Health, Proctor and Gamble
• Dr. Paul Kanas
  Occupational Health Advisor, Cadbury Trebor Basset

Speaker profiles:

Mark Hunt - Partner, Reed Smith LLP

Mark Hunt is a Partner in the Employment Department Reed Smith and, from January 2007 will be co-head of Reed Smith Richards Butler’s European and Middle Eastern employment practice with Robin Jeffcott.  He advises on all aspects of UK employment law and assists clients with wider international employment issues in collaboration with specialists in the firm’s international offices and contacts at other firms in jurisdictions where Reed Smith is not represented. 

Mark is an expert in dealing with the employment aspects of acquisitions and disposals, outsourcing transactions and corporate restructuring exercises, particularly where collective and individual redundancies, transfers of undertakings, collective consultation processes and senior executive severance arrangements need to be addressed.  He also regularly deals with preparation and negotiation of complex terms and conditions of employment, general employee conduct and capability issues, unfair dismissal and discrimination claims, enforcement of restrictive covenants and other tribunal, county court and high court claims. 

Examples of significant matters that Mark has advised on include:

• the establishment of a UK employee consultation forum for a US company in compliance with the requirements of the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations;
• the removal of various senior executives of UK subsidiaries of US corporations, involving the negotiation and agreement of mutually acceptable severance terms;
• managing the employment aspects of the merger of various newly acquired businesses, which involved running employee consultation exercises required in relation to the business transfers and resulting redundancies;
• advising on a claim relating to the transfer of pension rights under the Transfer of Undertakings regulations which was ultimately resolved in the European Court of Justice (Beckmann v. Dynamco Whicheloe MacFarlane).

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Kathryn Glendinning - Head of Occupational Health, Proctor and Gamble

Kathryn Glendinning is the Occupational Health Adviser at Procter & Gamble’s Newcastle Technical Centre.  She has worked in this area of nursing for 33 years, 24 of them in the Defence Industry.  She has a particular interest in “Healthy Living” initiatives, engaging with employees and their families to preserve and improve the quality of their health and wellness – when the employee and their family are healthy this is healthy for P&G business.

During her time at P&G she has lead the Company to winning several National Health and Safety awards. In 2006, because innovative programmes that Kathryn put in place, the Company was judged to the winner of the Think Fit Challenge 2006 and named “Healthy Employer of the Year.

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Dr. Paul Kanas - Occupational Health Advisor, Cadbury Trebor Basset

Paul Kanas is Head of Occupational Health at Cadbury Trebor Bassett.  Paul has worked in full-time occupational health for the past 25 years.  He initially worked with Michelin tyre PLC in Stoke-on-Trent before joining Cadbury in 1987.

Paul works closely with the HR Department in the management or employee sickness absence.

Paul is a Fellow of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham.  He regularly gives presentations at various academic institutions to trainee occupational health doctors and environmental health officers on health issues relating to the food industry.

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