Keynote SpeakersBaroness Ruth Hunt is a leading advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, equality, and inclusion.
Baroness Hunt has a proven track record of influencing policy, shaping inclusive culture, and driving social change.
From student union president to CEO of Stonewall – the UK’s largest LGBTQ+ charity, and now a life peer in the House of Lords, she champions diversity, inclusive leadership, and the intersection of faith and LGBTQ+ advocacy.
With over 20 years of experience leading campaigns for the LGBTQ+ communities, in 2019, Ruth became the youngest cross-bench peer in the House of Lords. Alongside her Parliamentary work, Baroness Ruth Hunt works extensively with organisations (including the MoD and London Fire Brigade), coaching C-suite teams to understand how collective and inclusive leadership can drive organisational effectiveness and instructing how to mediate, repair relationships, and find resolution when things go wrong.
Ruth is also well-known and regarded for her work as CEO and Director of Campaigns at Stonewall, Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ charity. While at Stonewall, Ruth led numerous landmark campaigns, including tackling homophobia in schools and developing the Rainbow Laces campaign in partnership with the Premier League.
A Visiting Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, Oxford graduate and former President of the Oxford University Students’ Union, Ruth brings academic rigour to her work while remaining wholly accessible to audiences regardless of background and knowledge.
Baroness Ruth Hunt – Equality, Inclusion, and LGBTQ+ Rights Speaker
Ruth Hunt is a respected and influential communicator who, with charm and humour, helps audiences of all sizes and experiences understand how to build successful cultures and brings minority voices into the room.
Ruth’s keynote speaking topics include:
LGBT People and Populism.
Ruth Hunt has been campaigning for LGBT inclusion since she came out at 14 in 1994. Over the last 30 years, LGBT people – their rights and their experiences – have been a lodestone for public attitudes, sometimes reflecting what is best about our country, sometimes reflecting the worst. The international rise of populism has once more thrust LGBT people onto the ‘wrong side’. Reflecting on the last 30 years of progress and her personal and professional experience navigating the culture wars, Baroness Ruth Hunt examines what this means for LGBT people now and in the future and what allies can do to help.
The Future of Work: Distributed Teams and the link between Culture and Effectiveness.
Companies can’t afford to ignore culture – the non-financial risks facing them are devastating. Over the last decade, Ruth has supported multi-national organisations to think about the connection between their ways of working and their bottom line and the approaches that evolve working practices to enable everyone to thrive. Baroness Ruth Hunt reflects on how inclusive home-working is, who wins and who loses when you only meet remotely, and how organisations can maximise flexibility for their staff whilst driving efficiency for their business.
Multi-Generational Workforces.
As we live (and work) longer whilst being divided by an increasingly disparate media, the generational differences are more pronounced than ever in history. Intergenerational workforces have different requirements, and sometimes, it can feel impossible to unite groups of people with a shared purpose. Employers are increasingly expected to navigate the demands and ideas of a workforce that may be at odds with the organisation’s purpose. Baroness Ruth Hunt explores how leaders can strike the right balance between drawing on the different lived experiences and insights of an increasingly diverse workforce whilst maintaining the necessary authorities and hierarchies for organisations to thrive.
