Welcome to the Partnering with Defence Conference

Lieutenant General Richard Nugee was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1986, serving in served Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Cyprus and Afghanistan. He was promoted to Lieutenant General and appointed Chief of Defence People in April 2016. Chief of Defence People sets the strategy for developing a capable and motivated military and civilian workforce in sufficient numbers. He is responsible for developing a military offer that attracts, develops and retains military personnel from the most junior ranks to the most senior. He advises ministers, the senior military and the Permanent Secretary on strategic and policy approaches to delivering our overall goals for our people.

2Lt Natalie Gardner joined the Army Reserve 11 years ago recently transferring to 335 Medical Evacuation Regiment, Royal Army Medical Corps. She has been deployed to Cyprus and Afghanistan. In her civilian role, Natalie is an Advanced Critical Care Practitioner at Kings College Hospital London. Natalie credits her time in the Reserves with bolstering her NHS career by developing leadership and management skills that have seen her promoted shortly after completing each Army deployment. She says, the Army has developed me as a leader which has had a huge impact on my role as a manager, and allowed me to progress my career in ways I would not have had if I had not been a Reservist.

Sara joined AFF as the new Chief Executive in 2015. She has a strong background in management and strategic policy, specialising in vocational skills growth and development. Prior to joining AFF, she worked as a senior civil servant for the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) working across a range of policy areas with a focus on apprenticeship growth. Before this she held a Director position at UK Skills, a charity which promotes vocational skills. She also has substantial experience in investment banking following five years at Goldman and Sachs investment banking division.

Tim Neal-Hopes was commissioned into the Royal Air Force in 1990. He spent his initial Service years as a University Cadet reading Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Salford University, and thereafter undertook officer and engineer training at Royal Air Force College Cranwell, entering his first tour in 1996. Air Commodore Neal-Hopes has since served in a wide range of Communications Engineer and Intelligence -related appointments, both in the UK and overseas. Cyber operations, intelligence, information operations and information system engineering, interspersed with tours supporting deployed operations, have characterised his career to date.

Luke Sinnott is a retired Captain who served with the Royal Engineers. He was injured on the 20th Nov 2010 while working as a Royal Engineer Search Adviser (RESA) in Afghanistan. Ironically the threat Luke was there to remove was his mechanism of his injury and the explosion from the IED took both of his legs above the knee and caused severe damage to both his arms. Luke has recovered from injury through the use of Sport and has represented his Country in Athletics both for Great Britain and the Armed Forces team at the Invictus Games. As well as training full time for future Paralympics Luke is also a pilot and trustee for Flying for Freedom, where he uses flying to help rehabilitate other Veterans. Luke is also part of the Veterans Gateway and is working to make support for veterans better and easier to access.

Royal Welch fusilier Shaun Stocker was just 19 years old when he lost both his legs, eyesight, testicles and suffered severe damage to his shoulder, arms and hands at the result of an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2010. Today, 28-year-old Shaun is a busy man. He is a professionally trained speaker and goes into secondary schools to tell his story and run resilience workshops with students. Shaun speaks regularly for The Drive Project, and is equally at home speaking to businesses and the First Responder community, as much as his work with schools. Shaun was awarded a British Empire Medal in the 2019 Queen’s New Years Honours. Shaun says of the award:I wouldn't have been able to do everything I've done without the help of my friends and family and so many people I don't know who have donated to supported all the charitable causes I've been involved in over the years. I'd really like to thank those people who gave up their time and money to help such worthwhile charities.

Tobias Ellwood was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence on 14 June 2017. Tobias served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from July 2014 to June 2017. He was elected Conservative MP for Bournemouth East in May 2005.