Peter has returned as Chair of the Judges for this year's Firm Awards. 

Peter heads up the Implementation and Workforce Planning practice at Udder, focusing on supporting businesses that aim to get a competitive edge by augmenting their teams with technology and using data to drive better people decisions.

Peter brings to Udder a wealth of experience and knowledge in the HR & Talent Acquisition space, a deep understanding of how technology can be an enabler of better performance, and an incredible ability to solve the most complex problems in the simplest of ways.

Emma is Director of Marketing Operations for Capita’s Recruiting Partnering Project with the British Army. Responsible for marketing engagement across all owned channels, taking those with awareness and interest and converting them to applicants by showing the breath of the Army offer in a fresh and exciting way.

She was previously a Resourcing Partner and member of the Resourcing Leadership Team at LV= where she was responsible for Employer Brand, attract and social strategy, working to ensure the group brand and employer brand and strategy aligned. Prior to this Emma was a Recruiter and Resourcing Partner for Defence company QinetiQ. Emma started her career as an HR generalist, but she soon realised where action was and moved into Recruitment and the heady world of attraction and talent.

Jennifer's background spans over 24 years of broad Talent and HR experience across a breadth of industries from FMCG, food ingredients and agriculture to financial services, telecommunications, retail and manufacturing. Jennifer is the Global Director, TA Strategy and Performance at Cargill, a global food and ingredients agriculture company with $165 billion in annual revenues and 160K employees working across 70 countries. She holds a broad remit to establish and lead the strategy across the 400+ global TA professionals, Employer Branding, Talent Intelligence and Performance, TA Operations and Executive TA.

 Jennifer was formerly the Global Head of Talent Acquisition and Employer Brand for Mondelez International, one of the world's largest snacks companies where she brought the team to new heights winning awards for Global Onboarding, their Global Employer Brand launch and Global Exec TA. For 10 years prior to Mondelez, Jennifer acted as the Global Head of Talent Acquisition for SABMiller, the second largest global brewer and one of the world’s largest bottlers of Coca-Cola drinks prior to its acquisition by ABInBev.

Mark Thomas is a seasoned global HR leader with a proven track record in driving business transformation, talent strategy, and leadership development. With extensive experience at the executive committee level, he has shaped and delivered award-winning people capability strategies that have enhanced business performance, employee engagement, and leadership diversity. Most recently, as Vice President of Talent at Abcam, Mark played a pivotal role in scaling the company’s global workforce, strengthening leadership capability, and fostering an inclusive, high-performance culture—contributing to Abcam’s rapid growth and successful acquisition by Danaher. Prior to this, he held senior HR leadership roles at Tesco and Marks & Spencer, leading large-scale talent, resourcing, and organisational change initiatives across multiple markets.

Passionate about innovation in talent management, Mark has led teams that have received multiple industry accolades, including Glassdoor’s ‘Top 10 Best Places to Work’ for three consecutive years, as well as awards for diversity, learning, and recruitment—such as The FIRM’s Operational Effectiveness Award and the Tiara Award for Innovation in Recruitment. A frequent contributor to industry discussions, he serves as an advisory board member for The Talent Labs and has contributed to published works on career development and organisational design. Outside of work, he enjoys travel, history (with a special interest in the Roman era), supporting West Bromwich Albion, and spending quality time with his family.

Georgie is the MSC Talent Acquisition Lead for Europe at Mondelez International, one of the world's largest snacking companies with brands including Cadbury, Oreo and Philadelphia, with 2022 net revenues of $31.5 billion, over 90,000 employees and operations across 80 countries globally. Georgie leads the Talent Acquisition strategy for the Manufacturing & Supply Chain functions in Europe, she is transforming talent acquisition to be more proactive, strategic and innovative, evolving these teams into forward thinking talent partners to the business. Alongside her role, Georgie partners the Global MSC leadership team on their talent acquisition strategies, providing recommendations based on regular insights and analytics. In her previous role she led a team of 25 as the BU TA Lead for Northern Europe and prior to joining Mondelez, she worked agency side for an international executive search firm. Her biggest focus outside of work are her family & friends, she especially enjoys time away with her Husband and their 7 year old Daughter and 1 year old Son, most recently exploring the Greek islands.

I have been within the talent acquisition sector for the last 14 years. My current role at The Morson Group focuses of leadership of embedded recruitment delivery teams, to ensure we meet client growth targets and exceed our commercial obligations. I work closely with Heads of Talent Acquisition to form the strategic direction of our partnership. In the last 3 years, I have partnered with clients in the nuclear sector on significant growth trajectories; with 5 years prior RPO experience in the Financial Services sector, including tech and digital disciplines. Before that, I spent over 5 years in internal talent acquisition in the engineering consultancy space. I was delighted to be awarded Recruitment Manager of the Year by The FIRM in 2024 and I have followed this organisation throughout my career in recruitment. My team was awarded RPO Team of the Year and the award for Recruitment Effectiveness. It was great to be collectively recognised for the change programme delivered with my client Urenco.

Outside of talent acquisition, I am most passionate about health and fitness, competing regularly in HYROX, as well as music. I try and see as much live music as I can!

Today I am the VP of People at RS Group for all of our Enabling and Accelerating Functions as well as leading the Global Talent Acquisition Team. I have over 25 years experience in international organisations with strong experience in business partnering, talent and leadership development. Two years ago I took on the TA function as part of my role within RS and very proud of how far that team has come winning the Large Recruitment Team of the Year award which was hugely unexpected. Outside of work I am passionate about food, gin, wine, wild swimming and lots of travel and adventure and I enjoy spending weekends outdoors with my other half and our big dog, Dave.

Elisha is Softcat Plc’s Recruitment Manager and has worked for the FTSE 250 organisation within the tech space for 10 years. Born and raised in Manchester by a single working mum, with an innate and undeniable passion for people from day one, it was no big surprise when Lish ended up pursuing a career in People and Talent. In recent years, Lish’s passion for enabling others, specifically supporting and empowering other women in business, has skyrocketed. As a result, she has been recognised with the technology industry award for CRN Outstanding Returner, was named Recruitment Leader of the Year in 2024 by The Talent Labs and was asked to deliver Softcat’s keynote speech at the tech industry event - CRN Women in Technology Festival - titled ‘The Power of Vulnerability in Leadership’. Lish’s biggest love in life (outside of her tornado toddler, Max) is getting people excited about the things that she’s excited about, the main one of which is exploring the impact that strong and effective leadership and community can have on the enablement and empowerment of women in the workplace and supporting other women to realise their full potential.

I have worked in HR for over 20 years in both private and public sector organisations and am currently the Group Head of Talent and Culture at the Mortgage Advice Bureau. My role covers all aspects of HR including Talent Acquisition, Talent Management and Talent Development and my team are on a mission to drive a high performance culture by helping the business understand how to manage talent effectively and drive productivity. In my spare time I am an avid reader and read 50 books last year. I also play netball three times a week and love the team dynamics and camaraderie. Whilst I am not playing netball. I enjoy long walks with my three dogs and spending time with Grandson.

My previous TA team had a membership with the Firm and found it to be great for both best practice sharing, innovation and networking. Since the expansion of the new Talent Labs brand I was keen to explore the other areas of focus. My team all now have access to the platform and are sharing and using material from across the 3 labs and the online panel and in person events are proving to be really insightful. I was so excited to be asked to judge the awards as I have been involved in TA and Talent Management throughout my career and think it’s really important to recognise and learn from organisations that are making a real difference in this space.

Natalie Jones has nearly 20 years’ experience working in talent in both the private and public sector. Her experience spans across talent acquisition, talent management and development, and early talent. Natalie has been at National Highways for nearly eight years and is currently Head of Talent where she leads a team responsible for early talent, education engagement, talent management and development as well as leading a career returners programme and Armed Forces engagement. Natalie is a keen supporter of apprenticeships and T Level’s and is the Vice Chair of the T Level Ambassador Network where she is part of the leadership team of a network that helps to raise awareness and understanding of T Levels.