Bio

Steph Matthews (she/her/hers) is an inclusion and diversity leader who believes in equity for all. As Senior Business Director for Creative Equals, she consults with Fortune 100 brands to deliver strategic business growth, and mitigate brand risk via inclusion. Her clients include Philips, Mars and H&M Group. Prior to this, she spent 15+ years as a global advertising executive, leading marketing campaigns at Virgin and the RAC and creating award-winning advertising insights for Channel 4, ITV and News Corp. Defined by a values based life, she leads with integrity, authenticity, independence, growth and fun. Outside of the day job, she’s active in a number of industry DE&I initiatives including Bloom UK as 2019 President and 2022/23 Board Director, Stonewall’s School Role Model programme and the Media Trust and BelEve’s mentoring programme. Accolades include BIMA Champion of Change (2021), #2 HERoes Future Leader (2019) and WACL Future Leader Award (2017/18). Steph’s a regular keynote speaker on the international and local stage, on topics related to authentic leadership, personal values, mental health and inclusion. Most recently she was invited to speak to Minister Zahawi, MP, Business & Industry on behalf of Creative Equals on how to accelerate racial equality in the UK and mandatory reporting of the Ethnicity Pay Gap. Acknowledged as an emotionally generous writer, she’s written for Campaign, The Drum and the Queer Bible and has been featured in the Guardian’s Observer. In 2020, she made the semi-finals of Penguin’s Write Now competition for her non-fiction writing. Her book is due to be published in 2023.