The Hughes Hall Law Society celebrating International Women’s Day with a roundtable featuring women from around the world sharing their stories of resilience.
Speakers include:
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 #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.
Omnia was selected for the Cambridge Platinum Award by Cambridge Law Society – Pro Bono project 2022, “Justitia Award (Pioneers/ Game Changer/ Young Achiever)” by Women in Law Initiative in collaboration with European Women Lawyers Association in November 2020 (Austria); “Future Leader” by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs; one of 20 inspirational women leaders from the MENA by UNESCO, ASFARI Institute and AUB 2022, “Inspirational Egyptian Women” by the National Council of Women 2020, one of the 50 Egyptian Women Heroes by Women of Egypt Initiative and Magazine 2020; one (out of 7) of the most influential people in the legal field by MPL Acadeher- 2020, and shortlisted for the Young Global Leader Program – USA 2019. She is a member of the Voice of Women Worldwide (VOWW) and its Egyptian Representative. She was honoured by the New Woman Foundation for defending women’s right in joining the Judiciary in 2016 and awarded (Borderless Press) prize for one of the top five articles that shed lights on the most vital gender issues in 2017.
Omnia obtained her law degree at Sharia-Al-Azhar University, an LLM from Ain Shams University in International Trade Law, a master’s in law from Al-Azhar University, and an LLM from the University of Cambridge.
Jennifer Gibson – Jennifer is the Legal Director of 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.
Jennifer holds a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School, and a MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar.
Dovelyn Mendoza – Dovelyn Rannveig Mendoza 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.
She holds a master’s degree in foreign service, with honours, from Georgetown University, where she concentrated in international development; and a bachelor’s degree in political science, cum laude, from the University of the Philippines. She has native fluency in English and Filipino and professional fluency in Dutch.
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.
In the field of climate change and finance, Wendy acts as global coordinating counsel to various major corporates in relation to climate change transition, disclosure, reporting, compliance and investment. She regularly advises investors and States in respect of climate related physical, transition and litigation risk. She works closely with a number of States in relation to climate transition regulatory structures to mobilise finance and formulate climate investment policy. She also works closely with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and has represented it at the Conferences of the Parties on climate since 2015.
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.
Panpan is also a CPA in China. Panpan holds a Bachelor’s in Finance from Wuhan University, and a bachelor’s and a master’s in Law, cum laude, from the Wuhan University of Technology. She is currently pursuing an MBA at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
The panel will be moderated by Jelena Solovjova, President of the Hughes Hall Law Society.
The event will take place in person and drinks and nibbles will be served after with thanks to White & Case.
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