Gail is an author, speaker, and advocate with a passion for creating meaningful dialogues that lead to change. She lived in Grenfell Tower from 2011 to 2014 and on the 14th June 2017 withnessed the fire. Seven of her immediate neighbours died. Promising to do whatever she can to help us learn, she wrote a book 'Catastrophe and Systemic Change: Learning from the Grenfell Tower Fire and Other Disasters'. A six episode podcast series 'Catastrophe' accompanies the book. In 2021 and 2022 she was publicly nominated as one of the top most influential people in HSE in the UK.

Her core values are authenticity, compassion, and courage, and my mission is to empower leaders and organizations to navigate systemic complexity and value equality of life and voice.

With over 14 years of experience in strategic consulting and partnership, she has worked with major multinational corporations across diverse industries and cultures, such as Centrica, Shell, BP, Maersk Oil, Novo Nordisk, BHP Billiton, and Biogen.

In 2022 Gail joined Arup University as Transformation Director. Arup is a global engineering and design firm, where she leads initiatives to enhance organizational performance, safety, and excellence.

Gail's presentation, Grenfell, 10 Years On: Are We Getting Better at Learning from Failure? will share cross-sector lessons from that disaster:

The 2017 Grenfell Tower Fire was the deadliest residential fire in the UK since the second world war. 72 people died, including 18 children. In the wake of Grenfell thousands of other buildings were found to be unsafe.

In the 10 years since the fire, countless reports, recommendations and commitments have been made in the name of learning and change.

Yet, according to the Industry Safety Steering Group 'culture change is too slow and industry has not demonstrated sufficient leadership or ownership of reform.'

The challenge facing all high hazard industries is not whether lessons can be identified, but whether systems can genuinely change.

This plenary asks what Grenfell can teach us about the nature of learning in complex systems.

Using Grenfell as a lens, the session will consider what other sectors can learn about culture, power, leadership and system conditions, and why lasting improvement depends on more than compliance with recommendations.

Ultimately, it asks whether we are becoming better at learning from failure or simply becoming better at documenting it.