Learn more about speakers at the Do Business Better Conference 2026, headline sponsored by FPC.
Speakers are listed in alphabetical order by first name.
Carol Mason
Carol Mason is a Partner at Morecrofts Solicitors and one of the region’s most experienced private client lawyers, with more than 40 years’ experience advising individuals, families and business owners. Originally from Newcastle upon Tyne, Carol studied Law at the University of Liverpool before qualifying as a solicitor in 1984. She has held senior leadership roles throughout her career, including heading private client teams and serving as National Group Head of Private Client at a major UK law firm. A longstanding member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), Carol specialises in wills, trusts, inheritance tax planning, estate administration and succession planning for high net worth individuals and business owners. She advises clients across the UK and internationally and is particularly recognised for her expertise in helping families and business owners protect wealth and plan effectively for the future. Carol is a regular speaker on private client matters and has extensive experience advising on trusts, probate, charitable structures and tax planning.
David Wafer
From very humble beginnings sharing a bedroom with the siblings to a senior leadership role in a business turning over £5 billion in the U.K. Playing a huge part in the growth of the business. Winning numerous awards along the way, to leaving and setting up McIver Scott Executive Search. David is a trusted business advisor to some of the region’s biggest success stories. Having served as the longest serving Chair of the Institute of Directors in the U.K and advising LFC Foundation, Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, judging for MWOTY and recently joining the board of City of Liverpool College. David brings his impactful high performing insight as to why – wherever you start then or now – should never determine how far you go. He shares where he found purpose and how you can find yours for you and your business, as well as his thoughts on why emotional intelligence is the biggest opportunity and the biggest risk to your business.
Debbie Edwards
Debbie Edwards is the founder of Love Pioneer Media Ltd, an executive coach, strategist and former tech founder whose work focuses on leadership, performance, resilience and building ambitious businesses without accepting burnout as the price of success. Her background gives her a particularly useful perspective on technology and positive change. Debbie previously founded FDisruptors, a Liverpool tech venture created to tackle gender inequality in technology and encourage more girls and young women to see themselves as part of its future. Today, she is also a lead coach on the Baltic Ventures Accelerator, supporting founders through the personal as well as commercial realities of building and scaling technology businesses. Debbie brings the human side of the AI conversation into the room. As organisations race to adopt new tools, her perspective challenges us to think about the people experiencing that change: leaders, teams, founders and future talent. She offers an important reminder that positive AI is not only about what technology can achieve, but how we design work, leadership and opportunity around it in ways that help people thrive.
Denise Chilton
Denise Chilton CPCC, PCC, founder of Denise Chilton Coaching, is an award-winning business and leadership coach, championing women in business to step up with confidence into leadership roles and build successful, fulfilling lives – both professionally and personally. After 20 years in management and leadership positions in the corporate world, she hatched her escape plan and, since 2002, has run a number of businesses. Today, she has been a professional coach for over 16 years. Her clients include women leaders from organisations across the public, private and not-for profit-sectors throughout the Liverpool City Region and beyond. This gives her a deep understanding of both of the opportunities available to women and challenges they can face when wanting to progress in their career and maintain a healthy life balance. Denise is also a published author and was awarded the Northern Power Women’s Mentor of the Year award for her work supporting women leaders in academia. Passionate about “all things business”, Denise supports women to unlock their true potential so they can lead happy and fulfilling lives.
Donna Scully
Donna Scully, Joint Owner and Director of Carpenters Group, has spent nearly 30 years helping to build one of the UK’s leading insurance and legal services providers, always carrying her Dublin roots with pride. A lawyer, speaker, podcaster and ‘accidental influencer’, she’s a recognised voice on motor claims, insurance fraud, and civil justice reform, earning numerous industry awards. Alongside John Carpenter, she has grown Carpenters Group across eight UK locations. Beyond work, Donna is deeply committed to social justice – running a homeless breakfast club every Sunday, supporting foodbank initiatives, and mentoring young women. Her community impact and philanthropy have earned multiple honours, including Merseyside Woman of the Year 2024. Warm, values‑driven and unafraid to speak up, Donna blends expertise and heart in championing better outcomes for consumers, communities and the industry.
Elaine Bowker
Elaine Bowker is the Principal & Chief Executive of The City of Liverpool College Group, and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Further Education (CIFE). Delivering high-quality skills and apprenticeships linked to local and national government priorities, the college is the largest further education college in the Liverpool City Region. She has a strong background in skills delivery, policy and transformation, with previous roles including Strategic Director of Transformation at Manchester City Council, Area Director for Greater Manchester at the Learning & Skills Council and Executive Director for Greater Merseyside Learning & Skills Council. Elaine is a member of the Liverpool Strategic Partnership and the advisory board for the Centre for Educational Leadership at Liverpool John Moores University, as the champion for skills and education. Elaine is also a Trustee of Options for Living, a local charity that supports, empowers and enables people with disabilities to live their lives to the full.
Ellie Kerr
Bringing strategic insight, energy and purpose Ellie Kerr is our host and curator. Drawing on more than 30 years’ corporate network and multi award winning experience, she helps female CEOs and organisations strengthen senior leadership, operations and processes. Ellie is Founding Director of the Merseyside Women of the Year Awards (MWOTY), a year-round platform that champions women across the region. The Awards’ first recipient in 2003, she has led MWOTY for 16 years and champions its ethos: “a movement, not a moment.” Outside work, Ellie is mum to a 21-year-old son known in the family as the “International Man of Mystery” for his worldwide adventures.
Flatdot Marketing
Flatdot Marketing is a Liverpool-based SEO agency that has worked with businesses across the North West and beyond since 2019. From its studio on Jamaica Street, the team covers SEO, content, technical auditing and AI visibility. Search has changed. Buyers now ask ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews before they ever reach a results page, and most websites have no idea whether they are being cited or ignored. Flatdot tracks how AI systems read, quote and recommend the sites it works on, and builds pages that earn those citations. Learn more about Andy and Jack on LinkedIn.
Gavin Sherratt
Gavin Sherratt is the founder of GoodShip*, a Liverpool-based purpose and impact agency bringing together creativity, technology, strategy and community to help organisations make useful change. With more than 30 years’ experience across digital, creative, technology, agency leadership and product development, Gavin has spent much of his career exploring how emerging technology can solve real problems rather than simply create more noise. He created GoodShip*’s award-winning AI Activator programme, which helps people build confidence, practical skills and critical thinking around AI through live challenges and hands-on creation. He also co-hosts AI & Tech for Good through KinShip and works strategically with Liverpool Chamber, connecting businesses, education and the wider innovation ecosystem. As host, Gavin brings a deliberately human and practical lens to the discussion. His interest is not AI for AI’s sake, but how we use it to increase capability, open opportunity and create positive impact, while continuing to ask the difficult questions about responsibility, inclusion and what we actually want technology to make better.
Ithalia Johnson
Laura Leslie
Laura Leslie is a Partner at DSG Chartered Accountants, advising owner-managed businesses, family businesses, large corporates and international groups on financial, operational and strategic matters. Laura began her career with DSG, completing her training contract with the firm before moving to Deloitte. She returned to DSG in 2018 and became a partner in 2023. She has extensive experience supporting businesses through periods of growth, change and transition, helping owners and leadership teams make informed financial decisions while ensuring compliance requirements are met. Laura is passionate about building long-term relationships with clients and providing practical, commercially focused advice that helps business owners understand their numbers, plan with confidence and achieve their ambitions. She also plays an active role in developing the next generation of talent within DSG.
Lauren Fox
Lauren Fox is a sales transformation consultant who helps B2B Tech & AI founders make sales make sense. With over a decade of experience building and leading sales teams across SaaS, enterprise technology and AI – including as EMEA Sales Director at Peak AI. She now works with founders and leadership teams to simplify sales, strengthen commercial foundations and scale sustainably. Her approach is built around clarity, simplicity and Spirit-led sales.
Liam Starkey
Liam Starkey is the Founder of Not For Profit Consultancy (NFPC). He brings more than 10 years of corporate experience working with brands including Audi, BMW and RW Invest, alongside 8 years of senior CIC leadership at The Inclusive Hub. This gives him a practical understanding of both how businesses make decisions and the realities facing community organisations. During his time in the third sector, Liam helped secure over £1 million in funding and corporate support. This work has helped create and demonstrate more than £4.3 million in social value across Merseyside. Through NFPC, Liam helps businesses and foundations build credible ESG and community partnerships while supporting CIC’s and grassroots organisations to become stronger, more sustainable and better able to demonstrate their impact.
Miguel Doforo
Miguel Doforo is a creative leader, speaker, consultant and social entrepreneur with more than three decades of experience working across creativity, community engagement, education, entertainment and social impact. Founder of the We Are MD Group, Miguel has built a career around a simple belief: creativity can be a powerful way of bringing people together. His work has taken him from grassroots community spaces and schools to major stages, conferences, television, radio and international events, including Formula 1. Alongside his creative career, Miguel works extensively across community cohesion, equality, inclusion, identity, belonging and representation. He contributes his experience through speaking, facilitation, advisory work and strategic partnerships, bringing together lived experience with more than 30 years of practical leadership and delivery. Miguel has spoken at conferences and events, hosted and presented live programmes, contributed to panels and discussions, worked in radio, judged competitions and supported organisations and communities to turn ideas into meaningful action. In 2027, Miguel will add TEDx Speaker to that journey as part of TEDx Hope Street Liverpool, continuing his exploration of connection, identity and the barriers that labels can create between people. At the heart of Miguel’s work is a commitment to visibility and creating spaces where people feel seen, heard and able to belong.
Moira O’Shaughnessy
Rosie Djurovic
Rosie Djurovic is Head of AI at Brabners, where she leads AI strategy, innovation and adoption within one of the UK’s leading independent law firms. Her work sits at the point where technological opportunity meets the realities of governance, professional responsibility, client experience and organisational change. Rosie has been closely involved in Brabners’ AI-enabled strategy, helping teams develop skills, evaluate emerging tools and explore practical applications of generative AI while keeping human judgement, accountability and client need at the centre. She has also contributed to wider conversations around responsible innovation, including the importance of explainability, sustainability and recognising when AI is not necessarily the right solution. For an audience trying to move beyond AI hype, Rosie brings a valuable practitioner perspective. She can speak to what responsible adoption looks like inside a real organisation, where trust, risk and quality matter. Her contribution connects the possibilities of AI with the governance, critical thinking and human oversight needed to make those possibilities genuinely useful and sustainable.
Stephanie Power
Stephanie Power is a journalist, reporter and producer with more than 20 years’ experience across radio, television and audio, including extensive work with BBC Radio 4. Through Power Productions, she continues to create and explore stories at the intersection of journalism, culture, technology and public life. Stephanie is also co-host of Married To The Machine, a podcast created with Professor David Reid, Professor of AI and Spatial Computing at Liverpool Hope University. The series is designed to make artificial intelligence understandable to people who know they need to engage with it but may not know where to begin. Her recent work has included exploring AI companions, AI in journalism and the growing questions around trust, authenticity and transparency. Stephanie brings an essential journalistic perspective to a positive-AI discussion. She is interested not only in what AI enables, but in how we know what is true, who is accountable for AI-generated material and what happens to public trust when technology becomes embedded in the way stories are produced and consumed. That makes her a valuable voice for keeping optimism grounded in scrutiny.
Sue Chambers
Sue Chambers is a Senior Investment Manager at River Capital, where she plays a key role in deploying funding between £25,000 and £100,000 to regional SMEs through the British Business Bank’s NPIF II Smaller Loans fund. After a 20 year career as a Relationship Manager at Nat West, Sue joined River Capital in 2013. To date she has supported approximately 140 businesses with over £6 million of loans funds across the region, helping ambitious SMEs access the finance they need to start up or grow. She is a familiar face to many within the Liverpool ecosystem and was awarded Financial Services Personality of the Year in 2024.
