Professor Cary L. Cooper is a Pro Vice Chancellor of Lancaster University and Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health. Cary's previous roles have included adviser to the UN and to the Defence Committee of the House of Commons.

Cary is the author of over 100 books (on occupational stress, women at work and industrial and organisational psychology), has written over 400 scholarly articles for academic journals, and is a frequent contributor to national newspapers, TV and radio.

Work-life balance has been a major interest of Cary's for many years, as he discovered the increasingly negative effects of the long hours culture in an increasing two-earner society. He has carried out numerous studies which have highlighted the plight of working families and the difficulties they face in juggling their personal, work and family commitments.

In 2001, Cary was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his contribution to organizational health.

James Timpson is Managing Director of Timpson, a family retail business based in Manchester.

Through 650 shops across the UK and Ireland Timpson is the largest shoe repairer, key cutter, engraver and watch repairer. Over 3000 colleagues run the shops within an "upside down management" structure which Timpson has developed to ensure those serving customers are the most important in the business; everyone else is there to help.

James and his father John have created a unique business culture that is based on recruiting personalities and giving them complete authority to run their shops however they want. Timpson is well known as being a great place to work and has recently purchased a seaside hotel to increase the number of holiday homes for colleagues. James works with a number of prisons across the UK to recruit and train in mates so that on release they can join the Timpson business.

James is married to Roisin and with their three children live near Chester.

Craig Jones joined Barclays Wealth as Global Head of Diversity in May 2008. His move into financial services follows a 20 year career in the Royal Navy.

Between 2000 and 2008 he led groundbreaking work to help integrate gay men and women in the Armed Forces and was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 for service to equality and human rights. In addition to his role at Barclays he is the principal advisor on equality in the Armed forces to the Equality and Human Rights Commission and has recently been appointed to the Board of Employers Forum on Disability. He was also a founding member of the Prison Service Race Equality Board.

Craig was a lead contributor to the Stonewall Equality Compendium "The Way We Are Now" and is a well known LGBT figure. In 2009 he featured in Financial News Top 40 Rising Stars. Craig is also a key thought leader in the development of Barclays Group Global Diversity Strategy.

In October 2008 Barclays Wealth was named one of The Times Top 50 Places Where Women Want to Work recognising the development of Barclays Wealth's Women's Network whose membership has increased from 70 members to 800. Barclays Wealth was named diverse employer of the Year in the 2009 Glasgow Business Awards and Barclays PLC is a Stonewall Top 100 Diversity Champion.

Mary Mercer is a Principal Consultant for the Institute for Employment Studies where she leads employer work and research on flexible working and is co-author of the institute’s report The HR Agenda for 2010: Ten top trends as we come out of recession.

Starting her career with Capita, where she led the HR consulting team, Mary has been advising organisations on implementing successful flexible working since the first Right to Request legislation was introduced and has seen that flexible working can be really successful where organisations truly believe in the business benefits as well as the advantages for staff. To demonstrate this, she suggests, organisations have to ensure their flexible workers are treated equally by business processes, particularly the performance management system where they can often receive poorer outcomes and consequently miss out on any performance pay or promotion opportunities.

Mary is married and has been getting to grips with life as a flexible worker since she had her daughter four years ago and began working three days a week.