Meet our incredible speakers
Ash Amirahmadi OBE
Andrew Staniland
Katrin Turvey
Jodie Bolland
Hannah Cargill
Charlotte Forkes-Rees
Jodi Goldman
Andrea Jex
Hannah Lloyd
Rebecca Morgan
Hannah Surtees
Ash Amirahmadi OBE is one of the most high-profile leaders in the UK food sector.
He was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Sofina Foods Europe in August 2023.
Ash started his career at Unilever after graduating from the University of Nottingham with a Mechanical Engineering degree.
Prior to joining Sofina Foods, Ash held several roles with Arla Foods UK. He was also the Chair of the boards of both Dairy UK and The Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD).
After further success in commercial positions, Ash joined the Arla Leadership Team in 2010, assuming responsibility for the cooperative’s relationships with its farmer owners. In 2012 he oversaw Arla’s transformative merger with Milk Link. He later moved on to briefly hold the position of Marketing Director before becoming Sales Director in 2016.
Ash was Managing Director of Arla for around five years prior to joining Sofina Foods.
Ash was appointed to the Government’s Food Resilience Industry Forum, and was part of discussions with Defra, Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, the Department for Transport and others over issues relating to food security and the role of the sector in delivering the UK’s sustainability goals.
Ash was awarded an OBE for services to the dairy industry in the 2023 New Year’s Honours.
Following that accolade, Ash was awarded the Princess Royal Award by The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) in 2024, recognising his outstanding contribution to the sector.
Leading with Ambition: Ash Amirahmadi Tuesday @ 10:20 AM
Andrew Staniland is the Group Trading Director at Morrisons. Joining the Executive Committee in February 2025, Andrew reports directly to our CEO and plays a key role in shaping the products you see on our shelves every day. With a wealth of experience in the grocery retail sector, Andrew previously held senior trading positions at Iceland (including Group Trading Director), as well as valuable roles at Waitrose and Aldi. Importantly, Andrew is no stranger to Morrisons, having previously worked within our buying teams.
In his current role, Andrew is focused on ensuring Morrisons continues to offer you, our valued colleagues and partners, the best possible products and value. He is passionate about the future of Morrisons and our commitment to serving communities across the UK
Panel Session: Honest Conversations – Making Flexibility work Tuesday @ 11:45 AM
Katrin Turvey is an international business leader with more than 20 years of experience across agriculture, animal health, food safety and commercial leadership. She is a member of the Executive Committee at Kersia Group, where she leads Global Key Accounts & Engineering, combining commercial growth, strategic customer development and engineering across an international organisation.
Katrin started her career at the very beginning of the food chain, working in pig production in the UK. From there, her career developed through PIC (Pig Improvement Company) and AHDB, spanning animal health, pork-industry programmes, supply chain and eventually Key Account Management. She later joined LANXESS, where she led EMEA sales and subsequently a global Human Health business line, before joining Kersia in 2022.
She holds an MSc in Commercial Livestock Production from the University of Kiel and an MBA from Warwick Business School. Alongside her corporate career, Katrin is Founder & Executive Lead of FemIndex GmbH, an initiative focused on bringing experienced female executives into critical leadership, growth and transformation decisions.
Turning Ambition into Action: Katrin Turvey VP of Food & Beverage Key Account & Engineering, Kersia Tuesday @ 2:05 PM
Jodie Bolland, Commercial Director at Myton Food Group, brings with her 15 years of experience in the meat industry. Beginning as a degree apprentice in 2011, Jodie built her career across operational, buying and trading across multiple proteins before stepping into her position as Commercial Director in 2025.
Raised on a dairy farm in Malhamdale, North Yorkshire, her work is deeply rooted in British agriculture. She is dedicated to supporting the farming industry to secure a sustainable, long-term future for the British meat sector. Having joined Meat Business Women early in her career, Jodie is a passionate advocate for mentorship and female representation across the food industry.
Turning Ambition into Action with Jodie Bolland Tuesday @ 10:45 AM
Hannah is a Contract Production Manager at Avara Foods, where she oversees the performance and welfare of 30 broiler farms and manages the Nando's customer agriculture relationship. With a career in poultry production that began in 2015 at Cobb Europe, Hannah has built experience across the sector, including genetics, technical, and production in broilers, hatcheries, and breeders. She moved to Banham Poultry in 2017 before joining Avara in 2019. In 2023, she co-founded Women in Poultry Production, a community aimed at providing access to technical knowledge and growth to all women working within the Poultry Industry.
Outside of work, Hannah is kept busy with her young family, her dogs, and a never-ending house renovation project.
Panel Session: Honest Conversations – Making Flexibility work Tuesday @ 11:45 AM
Charlotte Forkes-Rees is a Retail and Consumer Insight Analyst at AHDB, specialising in consumer behaviour, red meat purchasing trends across retail and foodservice, and turning data into real world applications. Her work focuses on understanding the factors that influence beef, lamb and pork demand and consumption, helping industry stakeholders identify opportunities to drive demand and strengthen category growth.
Charlotte leads research across shopper behaviour, eating quality, foodservice trends, marketing evaluation and demand forecasting, providing evidence-based insight to help the beef, lamb and pork sectors better meet changing consumer needs.
Panel: Beyond the headlines: What's hot, what's next and what's being missed? Tuesday @ 1:30 PM
Turn your Ambition into Action Workshop Tuesday @ 2:45 PM
Andrea joined Hilton Foods in 2016 and has held various positions within Procurement before being appointed Procurement Director in 2022. She heads up a global team that is responsible for the procurement of packaging, non-protein food and indirect services.
She has over 30 years’ experience in the food procurement sector having worked for a number of major food manufacturers.
Packaging innovation and sustainability are areas that Andrea is passionate about and she is a very active member of some of the bodies that promotes these areas globally and is determined to make a difference in this area.
Andrea has a First-Class Honours Degree in Food Manufacturing and reached the finals of the 2021 Women in Meat industry awards for the Meat Businesswomen Manufacturing and Processing award.
When Andrea is not at work she enjoys clay pigeon shooting and riding motorbikes but obviously not at the same time!
Panel Session: Honest Conversations – Making Flexibility work Tuesday @ 11:45 AM
Hannah is Director at Pinstone, a specialist PR communications agency working across the food, farming and environment sectors. With a background in strategic communications and campaign development, Hannah works with brands and organisations across the food and farming supply chain to translate insight into more effective communications and engagement. Her work focuses on bridging the gap between industry ambition and on-farm reality, working with all stakeholders to ensure communications resonate with farmers in a way that is credible, practical and grounded in their world.
Hannah is junior chair of the Veterinary marketing association, long time member of the Guild of Agricultural Journalist and a committed supporter of Meat Business Women.
Panel: Beyond the headlines: What's hot, what's next and what's being missed? Tuesday @ 1:30 PM
Rebecca Morgan is an Associate Director at Pinstone, specialising in communications across the farming, food, and environment sectors. As Pinstone's AI taskforce lead, Rebecca has spearheaded the strategic integration of AI tools within the agency, developing robust protocols that balance innovation with essential guardrails.
Panel: Beyond the headlines: What's hot, what's next and what's being missed? Tuesday @ 1:30 PM
Hannah Surtees is a commercially grounded strategy leader with more than 20 years’ experience turning insight and ambition into business performance across the produce, horticulture, fresh food and international protein sectors.
Her career has spanned strategy, commercial leadership, insight and innovation from concept to launch, category and marketing, communications, investor relations and executive leadership support. This breadth of experience gives her a strong enterprise perspective, knowledge and expertise of how strategy, people, operations and stakeholders must connect to deliver sustainable business performance.
Hannah creates value by bringing clarity to complexity, aligning people around a shared purpose and converting strategic ambition into practical action. Her collaborative and delivery-focused approach helps teams move from ideas to outcomes.
Today, at Hilton Foods, Hannah draws on this breadth of experience to lead key strategic opportunities across the international business, having played a key role in developing the new business strategy. She is a strong advocate for developing people and creating the conditions in which individuals and organisations can fulfil their potential, while inspiring her two daughters to pursue their own dreams and ambitions.
Panel Session: Honest Conversations – Making Flexibility work Tuesday @ 11:45 AM
I am currently within the Myton group in the operations team. I graduated from Newcastle University gaining a B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Mathematics.
I have since held appointments in a variety of industries and succeeded in various roles before establishing myself in the FMCG environment. As my career progressed I continued to study and became a qualified CIMA accountant. I also became a Mum of two during that journey. I acquainted myself with the meat industry over 16 years ago by accepting the role of a Financial Controller, working for ABP.
Further career progression ensued when Danish Crown presented me with the opportunity to become the Finance Director of four primary processing plants.
I then made the move into Karro/ Sofina as a Site Director running a full end to end pig processing facility of 1400 employees (kill, butchery to bacon and gammons).
I am now 9 weeks into my career with Myton running a multi species abattoir and boning facility