
What is The Swindon Inclusion and Diversity Network?
The Swindon Inclusion and Diversity Network is a free, member only, network. It is aimed at business leaders, HR Directors, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Professionals, and anyone with the desire and power to effect change within their organisation.
Read more in our Vision and Mission.
What happens?
At The Swindon Inclusion and Diversity Network, we believe that Inclusion and Diversity is about working together collaboratively. We encourage our members to share best practice and hold each other to account for meaningful action. There is plenty of knowledge to go around and who knows, for every tip you give out, you may well receive one back! The Swindon Inclusion and Diversity Network meets monthly for small-group virtual coffee discussion sessions specific to the interests of the members. We focus on peer-to-peer sharing and if you're keen to be involved and to contribute then please contact us at inclusiveswindon@gmail.com.

Meet the Founders
Emma Feltham, Head of IT Delivery, National Trust
Emma has worked at National Trust since September 2012 in a variety of senior leadership roles in IT. She is responsible for the end-to-end IT portfolio for public-facing and revenue-generating IT services, delivering projects and programmes and supporting the associated live services. Emma has chaired the Collaboration, Innovation, Technology Forum (CITF) Gender Balance and Diversity Committee since January 2017. She has been involved in the group since 2015. She was shortlisted for the Women in IT Advocate of the Year Award in January 2018 and nominated for the Everywoman in Technology Leader Award in October 2022.
Emma says, “Diverse teams enable us to be much more effective, bringing different experiences and varied perspectives to everything we do”.
Claire Farrow, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead, Reaction Engines
Claire has worked for Reaction Engines since June 2022. Prior to that she was Outsource’s Diversity and Inclusion Client Partner, working with Clients to create an inclusive culture where everyone is welcome, highlighting areas for improvement in attraction and hiring processes in order to widen the candidate pool. Claire started her career with Outsource in 2009 as a recruiter for a number of key accounts. From there, she moved over to programme manage Outsource’s two largest financial services accounts, supporting with contract, executive and permanent hiring strategies. In 2017, Claire set up the Diversity Matters team to highlight the worrying lack of diversity in technology and engineering. She regularly delivers Client hosted events in order to ‘Inspire Inclusion in the Workplace’.
Claire says, “To adopt truly inclusive recruitment practices, it is necessary to support everyone in their career search. The aim of inclusive recruitment shouldn’t be to target one single group, but to ensure that the best talent is presented for every role, by increasing the candidate pool and reaching out to EVERYONE. By this, I mean enabling the underrepresented to have the same opportunities as the next person and recognising when to adapt the hiring process to ensure equity”.
Nicole Hardiman, Director of Engineering, Flagstone
Nicole has worked for Flagstone since October 2022. Her previous experience includes Technical Lead, IT Practice Manager, IT Engineering Manager and Data Engineering COE Lead at Nationwide, Service Management Lead at National Trust and Global 2nd Line Support Manager for Cloud Solutions within Intergraph. She has evolved a technical career spanning 20+ years to a management one focussed on people as individuals. Her background allows her to speak to the technical teams on their level with a good understanding of their issues. In 2018, Nicole was one of the co-creators of the Nationwide Ada Lovelace Day event, promoting women in IT and encouraging them to consider working in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). She was awarded one of the coveted Nationwide Building Society quarterly awards for her efforts. Keen on coaching and mentoring, Nicole believes that anyone with a passion for what they want to do can succeed.
Nicole says, “Businesses need to recognise that their customer base is very diverse and to represent them effectively the workforce needs to be as well. Our differences make us stronger”.
External Resources
Papers and Best Practice Guides:
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: A Year in Review 2021, whitepaper by Claire Farrow from Reaction Engines.
CITF Inclusion & Diversity Good Practice Guide (2020), with contributions from Emma Feltham from National Trust.
COVID-19 – This could be your opportunity to kick-start or test your inclusion strategy: What have we learnt during lockdown and how can we ensure that our workforce planning post-COVID is as inclusive as possible?, whitepaper by Claire Farrow from Reaction Engines.
External Organisations:
Employers' Initiative on Domestic Abuse (EIDA), a network of businesses with the mission to enable employers to take action on domestic abuse.
Health Watch Swindon, the independent champion for people who use health and social care services.
How Do You Do It, providers of flexible, face to face and virtual programmes and coaching that support the attraction, retention and progression of diverse talent.
Live Well Swindon Hub, offering information, signposting and support to help you make the most of your health and wellbeing.
Mind, the mental health charity.
National Autistic Society, the UK’s leading charity for autistic people and their families.
See Change Happen, an Inclusion and Belonging consultancy, that specialises in working to ensure that organisations are culturally aware and sensitive to the needs of individuals.
Swindon Carers, established to provide help and support to carers in Swindon.
Swindon Equality Coalition, a network of groups and people who are interested in making equality reality in Swindon. It has a role in challenging the Council and our partners about how they make decisions and deliver service from an equality perspective.
Swindon & Wiltshire Pride, our local Pride group.
Thames Water Health and Safety Hub, an online resource-sharing initiative between Thames Water and its partners, including many mental health resources.
Timewise, a flexible working consultancy, helping employers design innovative solutions that attract talented, loyal people and create fair workplaces.
Women of a Certain Stage, offering stress and resilience advice as well as specialising in normalising menopause at work to increase attraction and retention of female talent, support gender equality and improve attendance and productivity.
Diversity and Inclusion Videos: