Meet our Speakers

Alison McKenzie-Folan

Chief Executive, Wigan Council

Alison is Chief Executive at Wigan Council having worked in Local Government for the last 15 years and previously in the Civil Service for twenty years.  Alison is also the place lead for health and care integration and NHS GM Integrated Care Board.

Alison is the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) lead Chief Executive for Health and Care, Culture and the GM Resilience Forum.

Alison is passionate about public services and determined to make a difference for residents and communities.  She is dedicated to inspiring the next female generation and committed to collaboration, innovation and technology.

Alison is Chair of iNetwork and is a Board Member of Solace (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives) and spokesperson for Solace on the digital agenda.  Alison is also a Board member for Open Data Manchester and Wigan and Leigh College.

In June 2024 Alison was awarded an OBE for services to local government.  Alison was also named in the Northern Power Women Top 50 Power list and one of the most influential digital leaders in Greater Manchester.

Wigan Council was named LGC Council of the Year 2019, Northern Power Women Large Organisation, iESE Council of the Year 2021 and APSE Council of the Year 2023.

Louise Gillam

Dietitian, Torfaen County Borough Council

Louise's career in food began in the public sector many years ago. After graduating in Law, she worked as a Trading Standards professional, enforcing food safety legislation. She later moved into the retail sector, taking on the role of Labelling Law Manager for one of the UK's largest supermarket chains. It was during this time that her growing interest in nutrition inspired her to return to university and retrain as a dietitian.

Following graduation, Louise joined the University of Oxford, where she worked in research investigating the links between nutrition and behaviour within the prison population. She then held a variety of roles within the NHS in South Wales, including Public Health Dietitian, Specialist Adult Weight Management Dietitian, and Catering Dietitian for the local health board.

Louise has now been School Catering Dietitian with Torfaen County Borough Council for over a decade. In this role, she leads on allergen management, special diets, sustainability, and environmental initiatives within school meals. She has played a key role in many of the team's recognised achievements and award-winning projects, including work in sustainable school food provision and the development of catering services that better support pupils with autism

Maria Diffley

Co-Founder, Sustain IQ

Having worked in the sustainability space for well over 20 years, Maria co-founded SustainIQ, recognising the need for a solution which helped organisations to navigate the complexities involved in measuring, monitoring and reporting on their Sustainability and ESG impacts. These data analytics provide organisations with intelligence that wasn't previously being considered in strategic decision-making.

More recently she has been working alongside public sector organisations to create a bespoke product "EcoSense ", to mitigate the complexities they face around GHG reporting to create credible business cases for future decarbonisation investments.