The judges for this year's Manchester Young Talent Awards will be announced in the coming months. Check out our judges from 2021 below
JUDGES 2021
Wayne Bennett
Wayne Bennett is a Director with Fairmont Recruitment and a specialist in recruiting professionals within the Technology, Business Change & Transformation markets for over 25 years. His experience in the industry encompasses, Marketing, Finance and Technology discipline.
Wayne has worked with organisations ranging from, major corporates, SMEs and technology led start-ups. This has given him great insight into the ever-changing requirements for hiring talent with often niche skill sets. His passion for female empowerment and diversity in the workplace stems from his family background. Coming from a large family where he is the oldest of ten children (6 women), and having two children and five grandchildren himself, he is constantly reminded by his family what strong role models’ women are.
Naomi Timperley
Co Founder of Tech North Advocates. Proud to be in the top 50 Computer Weekly Most Influential Women in UK IT 2018, 2019 and 2020. Naomi is an experienced growth and innovation consultant with established relationships across the UK.
She has extensive experience working with start-ups and growth businesses particularly in the tech, digital and creative sectors. Naomi has been a mentor for 8 years and mentored several hundred businesses. She an Honorary Industry Fellow at the University of Salford Business School and chair of the Industry Advisory Board. Naomi also sits on the board of charity Digital Inc and social Enterprise PIE.
She is Project Director of FreelanceHER100 a programme for female founders and freelancers.
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Carol ann whitehead
Working with a bank of freelancers on a project by project basis, The Zebra Partnership founded in 2000 is a publishing, campaign and events agency that can white label, co-produce or work under their own logo. They also have Zebra Comics which is books, graphic novels and comics. Two of their publications are in the official Pankhurst Centre Library.
The Zebra Partnership is headed by Carol Ann Whitehead, a Royal Society of Arts Fellow and award-winning magazine publisher, Carol Ann is a communications expert with experience organising a variety of events from 8 to 8000, U.K. and overseas, plus organising five royal visits since 2004.
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A former Associate Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and Trustee of Walk the Plank Arts Charity, Carol Ann is also an advocate for equality and diversity she has organised International Women's Day events since 2013. She is co-founder of the Ada Lovelace Day Zebra Wikieditathon, which aims to increase women’s global presence on Wikipedia from 17% and contributors from 10%. #ZebraTribe #Wikieditathon is very proud to be on History Pin.
Luthfur Rahman
Councillor Luthfur Rahman is Executive Member for Skills, Culture & Leisure for Manchester City Council. He is a strong advocate for the role of culture in the development of the city and believes that all members of the community should be able to participate in the broadest range of cultural activities. He initiated the city's first Culture Awards in 2019 and the Festival of Manchester - a large scale community event in Platt Fields park, which showcased the vibrancy and diversity of culture and creativity in the city.
Previously Luthfur served as the Assistant Executive Member for Culture and Leisure, Neighbourhoods, Environment, Finance and HR and was also Lead Member for Race.
Luthfur works very closely with the community supporting various voluntary organisations and charities; he is particularly passionate about empowering young people and women. To further these goals, he is a board member of the Young Foundations Uprising programme, Manchester International Festival, HOME, Young Manchester, and the National Football Museum.
Luthfur was awarded the Community Champion of the Year at the LGIU Councillor Awards for 2011 and is an Entrepreneur and qualified Financial Adviser.
Michelle hill
Michelle is the Chief Executive Officer of relationships charity TLC: Talk, Listen, Change.
Michelle is a voluntary and community sector representative on Trafford’s Health and Well Being Board and sits on the Leadership Team for the Stockport Prevention Alliance. Michelle was a Clore Social Fellow 2017 and was awarded Highly Commended Charity Director of the Year in the 2017 and 2018 North West Charity Awards. She is also listed on The Guardian in association with Just Giving as one of 2017's and 2018’s Social CEOs of the Year and was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year at the MYTA’s 2019.
Lisa morton
Lisa if founder and CEO of Roland Dransfield PR, a business she created 24 years ago. Over the years Roland Dransfield has helped to create hundreds of close and long-lasting business and personal relationships between brands, businesses, clients, media, charities, fellow teammates and ourselves– and that in doing so, we have created our own unique story.
During my career, she has been privileged to meet so many incredible people with fascinating stories to tell – whether this has been success through adversity, a genius invention, a burning ambition, a desire to bring about change or a wish to help others less fortunate. She loves helping to take these stories to an even wider audience and use them to make connections which can have long-lasting and often invaluable impact.
Ann-Marie Atkins
Ann-Marie is a multi-award winning chartered financial planner, named on the Power List 2020 via the Northern Power Woman awards and heads up Financial Planning to Ultra High Net Worth and Business Owners nationally, with her roots embedded in the North West. She is the only female Managing Partner in Tilney, contributes regularly to national publications and coaches internal and external individuals.
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Ann-Marie works with many business owners/entrepreneurs and complex families to ensure they are linking planning in all areas to meet their long term objectives and getting the foundations and infrastructure right from the start. Part of this means that Ann-Marie spends much of her time working with Solicitors and Accountants collaboratively ensuring clients experience a superior outcome with a joined-up approach starting with the end in mind.
JUDGES 2019
Joe Averill
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Carol Ann Whitehead
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Chris Longbottom
Beth Brown
Sam Jones
Lucy Noone
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