Hughes Hall Law Society: 'Women in Law: Finding resilience in different pathways'

The Hughes Hall Law Society warmly invites you to celebrate International Women’s Day with a roundtable featuring women from around the world sharing their stories of resilience.

Duration: approximately 1.5h.

Food and drink reception: nibbles and drinks will be provided with thanks to White & Case

Recording: the event will not be recorded since we want the conversation to be as honest and open as possible. However, photos will be taken for social media and marketing.

Register now, as spaces are limited!

The speakers

Emily Farnworth - Emily is a Director at the Centre for Climate Engagement. Prior to this she was the head of Climate Change at the World Economic Forum where she was involved in setting up the Climate Governance Initiative and the director and co-founder of Counter Culture. Prior to that, she was the Climate Group’s Campaign Director for RE100 – a global, collaborative initiative of the world’s most influential businesses committed to 100% renewable power. Emily has over 25 years’ experience working with businesses, governments and non-profit organizations to support the transition to a low-carbon economy, including the United Nations International Resource Panel, Department of Energy and Climate Change, WWF, IKEA, and Rio Tinto.

Omnia Gadalla (joining online) – Omnia is an Assistant Lecturer at the Faculty of Law and Sharia at Al-Azhar University (Business Law Department), Editor at Harvard Shari’a Source portal at Harvard Islamic Law, and Founder of the Women in Law series and #HerHonorSettingTheBar #المنصة_حقها. The initiative sought to grant a right for Egyptian women to become judges equally as their male counterparts. In 2022, after nine years of campaigning, in a historic moment, Egyptian female law graduates applied to become judges for the first time since the establishment of the Egyptian judiciary 100 years ago.

Jennifer Gibson - Jennifer is a Legal Director at The Signals Network, a non-profit that provides support to whistleblowers who have shared public interest information with the public. Her clients include, amongst others, Mark MacGann, the “Uber Files” whistleblower, and Anika Collier Navaroli, a former Twitter employee who gave evidence to the January 6th Committee about what she saw in the days leading up to, during and after the attack on the US capitol. Prior to joining The Signals Network, Jennifer worked for Reprieve, where she led the organization’s work on extrajudicial killings carried out under the guise of national security. She worked closely with civilian victims of drone strikes and raids in Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere, investigating their cases to secure accountability. Her work involved litigation before both domestic and international courts, as well as public and political advocacy aimed at holding powerful governments and corporations accountable for their roles in the abuses. Her work at Reprieve built on previous positions at Save the Children UK and the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague.

Dovelyn Mendoza – Dovelyn is a Ph.D. student in Law at the University of Cambridge and an independent researcher, analyst and policy adviser. An author or co-author of two books and more than 50 policy reports and briefs on migration, regulations and labour markets, Ms. Mendoza served for over a decade as Senior Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington D.C. She was also an Edward Weintal Scholar at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy in Washington, D.C. and a Regional Research Officer at the International Organization for Migration in Bangkok, Thailand. She began her career as a factory worker and part-time domestic worker in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Wendy Miles KC - Wendy is a specialist in international arbitration and dispute resolution with a focus on private and public international law. With over 25 years of experience, Wendy has advised on international law matters and conducted arbitrations under all the major institutions and ad hoc. She has advised a wide range of multinationals, including corporates, sovereign States and State entities and multilateral State organisations. Wendy has assisted clients across numerous sectors, including energy, natural resources, banking, insurance, financial services, gaming, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, licensing, telecommunications and construction. She has sat as arbitrator since 2005, as sole, co-arbitrator and chair under most major arbitral institutions. Wendy has been appointed by the United Kingdom to the ICSID Panel of arbitrators and ICSID Panel of conciliators effective from 10 November 2020.

Panpan (Priscilla) Sheng – Priscilla is an attorney specialising in capital markets, M&A, and PE transactions. Panpan has 7 years of legal experience and most recently served as the Deputy Legal Director of FOSUN GROUP, one of the largest international investment groups in China. She supervised legal issues related to the group’s financing, such as bond issuing and syndicate loans, and participated in Fosun’s global M&A and investment transactions. Prior to this, she worked as a senior associate at Zhong Lun and Tian Yuan – both top-tier Chinese law firms. She assisted several companies to go public in different stock exchanges.

The panel will be moderated by Jelena Solovjova, President of the Hughes Hall Law Society.