2021 INCLUSION SUMMIT - SPEAKERS

Andrew Parsons has served as the IPC President since September 2017. During his first term, he made strengthening the IPC’s relationship with the IOC a top priority. In March 2018, together with IOC President Thomas Bach, he signed a long-term IPC-IOC agreement through to 2032 which increases the co-operation and support between two organisations.

As President, Andrew has also introduced a third pillar of activities to the IPC which focuses on how the IPC and Paralympic Movement’s work can advance the human rights of persons with disabilities.

Before becoming IPC President, he served the IPC in multiple roles including as Vice President and Governing Member.  He was also formerly the President of the Americas Paralympic Committee after serving as its Secretary General. Between 2009 and 2017, Andrew served as President of the Brazilian Paralympic Committee (CPB) after working as CPB Secretary General from 2001-2009.

In October 2018 Andrew was elected an IOC member and currently he represents the IPC in the IOC Coordination Commissions for Tokyo 2020 (since 2013), LA 2028, and Brisbane 2032.  He is also a member of the IOC Marketing Commission and is on the Board of Directors for the Olympic Channel and is a member of the WADA Foundation Board.

Angelika Inglsperger is the Global Head of People Product House for Allianz Group. In her role she is leading the center of excellence for employer branding, sourcing, recruiting, talent management, DEI and Health across Allianz Group. Prior to that she was responsible as Head of Global Talent Development at the operating entity Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty for all global talent and  learning topics, employee engagement, including the set-up and running of the Corporate Academy.

Before joining Allianz she worked several years as principal and HR director at BBDO consulting. Prior to that she was a senior consultant at McKinsey & Company. She started her career as CRM consultant and account manager in the advertising agency Young and Rubicam. Angelika holds a master of business administration from the LMU in Munich. She also studied Business Administration at the Robert Schumann University in Strasbourg and completed a Systemic Coaching certification.

Carla Qualtrough is the Member of Parliament for Delta, British Columbia. She has been a Cabinet Minister since she was first elected in 2015, first serving as Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities and then as Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Minister of Accessibility. She currently serves in the senior role of Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion. She is active on a number of Cabinet committees and has been at the centre of the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She is responsible for many emergency measures, including the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, the Canada Recovery Benefits, Employment Insurance and the one-time payment for persons with disabilities. As Canada works to recover from the effects of this pandemic, Minister Qualtrough is leading the charge on creating jobs, upskilling workers and implementing a historic Disability Inclusion Action Plan.

Prior to entering politics, Minister Qualtrough practised human rights law at the provincial and federal levels and was a vice chair with the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal. She also has an impressive background in sport, having competed for Team Canada in the sport of swimming, and she has won a number of world championship and Paralympic medals. She has volunteered extensively at the local, national and international levels, focusing on inclusion and equal access for all. She has been inducted into the Canadian Paralympic Hall of Fame and has been recognized as one of Canada’s most influential women in sport on a number of occasions.

Minister Qualtrough has been legally blind since birth and is a passionate advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities. She led the creation of the Accessible Canada Act and is internationally recognized for her work in disability inclusion. She has received a number of awards for her advocacy, including from the Disabled Women’s Network of Canada, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, the British Columbia Aboriginal Network on Disability Society, the Abilities Centre and the International Paralympic Committee. She is also the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Minister Qualtrough lives in Ladner with her husband Eron, her two youngest children and her mother.

Chapal Khasnabis is a Prosthetics and Orthotics Engineer from India who holds a Masters degree in Rehabilitation Science from Strathclyde University, UK.  He is in the process of completing PHD from Trinity College, Dublin.

In 1979, he started his career with the Ministry of Health and then Ministry of Social Welfare (Government of India).

In 1994, he founded Mobility India, Bangalore to enable, empower and include people with disabilities, everywhere.

Since 2003, he is working in the World Health Organization (WHO). He worked in 10 countries and his work took him to more than 100 countries.  In 2010, he published WHO Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) Guidelines in partnership with the International Labour Organization; the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; and the International Disability and Development Consortium.

In 2012, organised 1st CBR World Congress in Agra, India. Founded CBR Global Network and introduced the concept of the Community-Based Inclusive Development (CID).

Since 2014, he is leading the WHO’s Global Cooperation on Assistive Technology (GATE) initiative to improve access to assistive technology for everyone, everywhere.

He facilitated formation of the Global Partnership for Assistive Technology: ATscale in 2018.

Currently managing activities of Access to Assistive Technology team and Medical Devices and Diagnostics team as Head (a.i) under the department of Health Policy and Standards.

Craig Spence is an award-winning communicator who joined the IPC in September 2010.

He is responsible for all communications functions at the IPC and acts as the organisation’s official spokesperson.

His work in helping to reposition Paralympic sport as high-performance sport has enabled the Paralympic Games to grow into the world’s third biggest sport event

Through using the Games as a platform to transform attitudes towards disability, the Paralympics are now regarded as the world’s number one sport event for driving social inclusion. In 2021, he helped spearhead the launch of WeThe15, a campaign which aspires to be the world’s biggest human rights movement for the world’s 1.2 billion persons with disabilities.

In 2016 he was awarded European PR Professional of the Year, while the IPC Media and Communications team he leads was awarded in-house team of the year at the European PR Excellence Awards.  He was named in the 2015 Leaders in Sport list as one of 40 Global Leaders under 40.

Chris Solly is Director of the World Academy of Sport, as well as Managing Director of IF Education. IF Education is an education service provider, in partnership with a number of International Sporting Federations, establishing educational courses for athletes and sporting administrators.

In 1999, Chris was instrumental in the conception and creation of Olympic Games Knowledge Services (OGKS), a joint venture with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Chris was a member of this company board until late 2004 when the IOC acquired the joint venture company shareholding which he represented.

Prior to this Chris was the inaugural Chief Executive of the Australian Ski Institute as the forerunner to the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia, an internationally recognised high performance centre of athletic excellence. In addition, he has represented Australia at five Winter Universiades, on four occasions holding the position of Chief de Mission. He has also held prominent roles in the University sporting world on the board of directors of Australian University Sport for a number of years during his academic career.

Based in Switzerland, Chris holds a BSc (Hons) and is regularly working with many of the International Sporting Federations on their athlete and executive education programmes. He was an executive committee member of the 2004 and 2008 Australian Prime Minister's Olympic Dinner Committee.

David Evangelista is responsible for the growth and development of the Special Olympics movement across 58 nations across Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He has extensive global experience in the areas of government relations, industry engagement, international development, and global partnership building in support of marginalised populations. He was a founding member of the Sports Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), and a current member of the Centre for Sports and Human Rights.

David was a former member of the High-Level Group on Sports Diplomacy for the European Commission and is a member of the Board of Directors for Access Challenge. A Progressive Melvin Jones Fellow of the Lions Clubs International Foundation, David is Founding President of the Washington, DC Special Olympics Lions Club.

Facundo Chávez Penillas is the Human Rights and Disability Advisor of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, based in Geneva, since 2013. He is a lawyer with graduate studies on business law and human rights law. Before his current position, Facundo worked in the Disability Department at the Ombudsperson Office of the City of Buenos Aires in Argentina and in a corporate law firm. He was member of organizations of persons with disabilities at national, regional and international levels before working for the United Nations.

Gareth Whalley describes himself as a human being with passions for language and beautiful design, and a personal purpose to make work life better for as many people as he can. He has spent 20 years in generalist and specialist HR leadership roles in a number of UK and multinational organizations. He joined The Coca-Cola Company in 2014, and moved to the Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team in 2019. Gareth is currently focused on inspiring a sense of inclusion, belonging and connection among the employees and other stakeholders of Coca-Cola worldwide. He’s principled and values-driven, a strong relationship builder, a safe space, a wellbeing advocate, and is determined to help people not take everything so seriously.

Husnah Kukundakwe made her Paralympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics and was the youngest athlete to compete at the Games, aged just 14.

At Tokyo 2020, she became Uganda’s only second ever Paralympic swimmer.

As a result of her hard work, Husnah was awarded the 2019 'Most Inspirational Athlete of the Year' by the Uganda Swimming Federation and the 2019 'Most Disciplined Athlete of the Year' by the Uganda National Paralympic Committee. Furthermore, in 2019 Husnah was the youngest competitor to take part in the World Para Swimming Allianz Championship in London.

She strives to inspire many persons with disabilities and encourage engagement in Para sports. As a role model, Husnah participated in the Allianz for Life Future Sessions, featured in the Malala Fund Assembly as one of the Game Changers of 2020, and is an IPC Youth Ambassador for the 2020 and 2021 editions of the United Through Sports Virtual Youth Festival.  She was also a judge for the 2021 UN SDG Action Awards.

Jose Viera worked as the Chief Executive Officer of the World Blind Union but also acted as the Permanent Representative of the Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities. Having been the WBU Human Rights Policy Advisor for two years, Jose supported more than 100 different national associations of the blind in advocacy work to promote inclusive and productive lives of blind people. He has a Master’s degree in Management of Development from Torino University, Italy and a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations.

Juan Pablo Salazar is an expert in the global movement for the rights of persons with disabilities, with emphasis on communications and sports.

He was President of the National Council on Disability in 2015 while working for the Colombian Presidency as an advisor, articulating National Public Policies for this population. Before, and from civil society, he directed the Arcángeles Foundation.  He was also President of the Inter-American Committee for the Elimination of all forms of discrimination against persons with disabilities of the OAS. He currently works as Disabilities Consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank.

Juan Pablo founded the first Wheelchair Rugby club in Colombia, and also served as: Chef Mission of the Colombian Delegation at the Paralympic Games in Beijing (2008) and London (2012), President of the Colombian Sports Federation for People with Physical Disabilities and President of the Colombian Paralympic Committee.

Away from sport and human rights, Juan Pablo is an advertising professional, film director and book author. He has worked as Creative Director in political campaigns for the Senate, House of Representatives and Presidency of the Republic of Colombia. Juan Pablo has received multiple awards for his work as a communicator, including the Peace & Sport Award for best peace event (2010 and 2017), Cannes Lion and Effie Awards (2012), John Caples and Amauta (2011), among others.

Keely Cat-Wells is an entrepreneur and disability activist dedicated to making social, systematic, and economic change.

She is also the CEO and Founder of C Talent and Zetta Studios which represents Deaf and Disabled artists, athletes and influencers globally. C Talent also provides disability and accessibility consulting for the entertainment industry and Fortune 500 companies.

She is an entrepreneur and disability activist dedicated to making social, systematic, and economic change.

She is a Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Entertainment 2021 honoree, an Aerie Change-Maker, an Advisory Board Member at Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, and has been a Disability Subject Matter Expert at Google and Lego.

Mat Goff is the Group CEO of adam&eveDDB, the agency behind the IPC’s #WeThe15 campaign. Mat is driven by building teams that deliver famous and effective work and by creating cultures where everyone feels they belong. He has twenty years experience working in-depth and leading pitches across multiple sectors, including FMCG, Financial Services, Gaming, Tech, Automotive and Charity, to name a few. The agency has been named Cannes Agency of the Year twice, Ad Age International Agency of the Year three times and Campaign Agency of the Decade (with an unprecedented six Agency of the Year wins).

Neil Milliken is Vice President & Global Head of Accessibility & Digital Inclusion at Atos, an invited expert for the W3C Cognitive Accessibility Taskforce, member of the Atos Scientific Community & Atos Distinguished Expert.

He is co-founder of AXSChat Europe’s largest twitter chat with a focus on Accessibility & Inclusion.

Neil is a member of the Board of Directors for World Institute on Disability, Non Exec Chair of the Board at Genius Within, member of the advisory board of the Valuable500 & Chair of the Diversity Board for Institute of Coding.

Neil was named in the top ten of the Shaw Trust Disability Power 100 list in 2018 and was named D&I practitioner of the year in the 2019 Disability Smart Awards.

Neil is dyslexic and has ADHD, he advocates for people with neurodivergent conditions as well as other disabilities and additional needs.

Professor Luc de Witte is a Chair in Health Services Research within the Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare (CATCH) at the University of Sheffield. He joined the University of Sheffield in October 2016.

Luc trained as a medical doctor but has always worked on practice oriented research in the field of rehabilitation and long term care, including elderly care, care for people with mental or physical disabilities and care for people with chronic diseases. Before moving to Sheffield in October 2016 he was Professor of Technology in Care at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences and Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and director of an innovation centre (EIZT: www.eizt.eu) connecting about 35 partners in healthcare, industry and academia. He also chaired the national Centre for Care Technology Research in the Netherlands.

Luc has been involved in a large number of research and development projects. They all had a practice-oriented character and aimed to generate knowledge to support care practice and policy. Main themes in his research are: assistive technology service delivery, development and evaluation of e-health applications, care robotics, technology-supported care innovations for low resource settings. His work is largely international. He is president of the Global Alliance of Assistive Technology Organisations (GAATO) and active board member of the Association for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe (AAATE).

An expert in economics and international financial institutions, Rémy Rioux has held high-level positions in a career devoted to development and Africa. After serving as chief of staff of the French Economy and Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, he was appointed by Laurent Fabius Deputy General Secretary of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Development, and coordinated the 'finance' agenda for the French presidency of COP21.

Rémy started heading the French Development Agency (AFD) in 2016 and was reappointed by President Macron in 2019. In 2017, he also became Chairman of the International Development Finance Club (IDFC) – the leading group of 26 national and regional development banks and a large provider of development and climate finance globally.

In November 2020, Rémy hosted the Finance in Common Summit in Paris gathering, for the first time ever, the 453 public development banks of the world, which now form a global coalition to collectively shift their strategies, investment patterns, activities and operating modalities to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the objectives of the Paris Agreement, while responding to the COVID-19 crisis.

Rémy is the author of Reconciliations, an essay in which he calls for a reinvented development policy designed to meet the SDGs and the Paris Agreement.

Stephen Frost is a globally recognised diversity, inclusion and leadership expert, and founded Included, a global, impact-led diversity and inclusion consultancy, in 2012. He leads the team and works with leaders around the world to embed inclusive leadership in their decision-making.

From 2007-2012 Stephen designed, led and implemented the inclusion programmes for the London Olympic and Paralympic Games as Head of Diversity and Inclusion for the London Organising Committee. From 2004-2007 Stephen established and led the workplace team at Stonewall. Stephen has also led D&I at KPMG and worked in advertising and consulting.

Stephen was a Hertford College Scholar at Oxford and a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard. He remains a Visiting Fellow of the Women and Public Policy Program. He has won various awards from the 2010 Peter Robertson Award for Equality and Diversity Champions and 2011 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum to one of Management Today’s Change Agents for his race and gender work.

He has taught Inclusive Leadership at Harvard Business School, Singapore Management University and Sciences Po in France and advised the British Government, Royal Air Force and the White House. He is author of The Inclusion Imperative (2014), Inclusive Talent Management (2016) and Building an Inclusive Organization (February 2019).

Victoria Austin is the CEO and co-founder of Global Disability Innovation (GDI) Hub, a social business based at UCL on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, east London. GDI Hub was founded following London 2012, for which she led the legacy programme to continue work on tech enabled disability-inclusion.

GDI Hub now works in more than 35 countries, including the UK, on almost 40 projects, with more than 70 partners, though it only launched in Rio in 2016. The portfolio extends to approximately £50 million.

The largest programme Vicki directs is AT2030, an FCDO funded project seeking ‘what works’ to get access to Assistive Technology (wheelchairs, hearing aids, eye glasses) to the more than 900 million people that need it around the world. Working partners including WHO, UNICEF and the Clinton Health Access Initiative the team have reached 12 million people since 2018 when they started counting. She is also currently leading a technical assistance for Asian Development Bank on mainstreaming inclusion, and a research for World Bank on ICT for inclusive education.

Before GDI Hub, Vicki was responsible for the London 2012 £10m Paralympic Legacy Programme including co-creating National Paralympic Day Festival which ran for five years alongside Liberty, and was Head of Sport post-London 2012. 

Vladimir Cuk is the Executive Director of the International Disability Alliance (IDA). He is responsible for coordinating the IDA Secretariat and IDA advocacy towards the UN System. In particular, Vladimir is engaged in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Vladimir is a member of the Policy Board of the UN Partnership to Promote the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as well as the Inter Agency Support Group to the CRPD. IDA was instrumental in establishing the Global Action on Disability (GLAD) Group - a disability inclusive donors coordination mechanism. Vladimir is based in the IDA New York Office.