Annual Conference 2022
Inspirational leadership & strategy learning
Our Annual Conference took place on Friday 1st July 2022
The LawNet Conference is our flagship networking event each year and sees over 250 of our law firm leaders and future leaders, come together to learn from inspirational leadership and strategy thinking and share experiences with each other.
Not your ordinary legal conference, each year we develop content designed to challenge existing business thinking in firms and inspire members to make changes when they return to the office.
Keynote speakers
Matthew Syed
Matthew Syed is an author and highly acclaimed speaker in the field of high performance. He has written six best-selling books on the subject of mindset and high performance – Bounce, Black Box Thinking, Rebel Ideas and The Greatest; and has worked with many leading organisations to build a mindset of continuous improvement. He is also a multi-award-winning journalist for The Times and The Sunday Times and a regular contributor to television and radio. In his previous career, Matthew was the England table tennis number one for almost a decade.
Matthew’s work explores a thought-provoking approach to high performance in the context of a complex and fast-changing world. By understanding the intimate connection between mindset and high performance, organisations can unlock untapped potential in individuals and teams, driving innovation and agility to secure a future-proofed environment.
Julian Birkinshaw
Julian Birkinshaw is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the (US) Academy of Management. He has PhD and MBA degrees in Business from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, and a BSc (Hons) from the University of Durham. He has Honorary Doctorate degrees from the Stockholm School of Economics and Copenhagen Business School. His areas of expertise include strategy, entrepreneurship, organisation design, knowledge management, innovation, strategic resilience and agility.
He is the author of fifteen books, including Fast/Forward (2017), Becoming a Better Boss (2013), Reinventing Management (2010), and Giant Steps in Management (2007) and over one hundred articles. He was ranked 43rd in the 2019 “Thinkers 50” list of the top global thinkers in the field of Management. He is frequently quoted in international media outlets and speaks regularly at business conferences in the UK, Europe, North America and Australia on the challenges of corporate reinvention and renewal in today’s fast-changing world.
Sophie Devonshire
Sophie is an experienced business leader, entrepreneur, marketer, and bestselling author.
Across her career she has worked in and with multinational companies (including Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola) as well as high-growth start-ups and agencies (Leo Burnett in the Middle East and Interbrand, London). She has also has personal experience of being a successful entrepreneur, setting up award-winning e-commerce, luxury gifts and consultancy businesses. In June 2020, she was appointed CEO of The Marketing Society, the global network of marketing leaders.
She is passionate about connecting ideas and people and her work helps inspire leaders make a difference to the future of business. An impatient accelerator, she specialised in understanding questions of pace in business and her book Superfast: Lead at Speed reached no.1 in the Amazon charts and was shortlisted for Business Book of the Year.
The venue
Celtic Manor Resort
Home of the 2010 Ryder Cup and host venue of the NATO Summit 2014, the five-star Celtic Manor Resort is set in more than 2,000 acres of panoramic parkland at the gateway to Wales. With a 330-room luxury Resort Hotel, a large convention centre, three 18-hole championship golf courses, exceptional spa, state-of-the-art health club, fishing, adventure golf, treetop high ropes course and tennis courts, the Celtic Manor provides a complete experience for business, leisure and golf travellers.
For the eighth time in nine years the Resort was voted the UK's Best Hotel at the 2019 Meetings and Incentive Travel (M&IT) Awards.
