Tech Policy Expertise: Inclusion & diversity

  • Ashlie Tarpley

    Ashlie Tarpley is an experienced consumer financial services attorney with over a decade of practice advising financial institutions and government agencies on complex compliance and contracting challenges. Her career spans litigation, regulatory counseling, and policy development, giving her a unique perspective on how laws and regulations impact day-to-day business operations.

    Ashlie’s experience includes:

    – Leading federal regulatory compliance examinations;

    – Counseling clients on privacy, data security, and financial services compliance strategies;

    – Advising on the rollout of innovative products and services;

    – Designing organizational policies and procedures;

    – Overseeing contracting programs and negotiating commercial agreements;

    – Developing and delivering compliance training; and

    – Shaping financial services and housing policy in government.

    In 2025, Ashlie founded Tarpley Templates and Legal Research (TTLR) to make high-quality legal support accessible to organizations navigating growth, innovation, and regulatory risk. TTLR provides attorney-drafted contract templates, practical legal research, and fractional counsel support tailored to tech-driven businesses.

    With her combined litigation, regulatory, and policy experience, Ashlie helps clients anticipate risks, structure stronger contracts, and build compliance frameworks that support sustainable growth. Through TTLR, she is committed to empowering organizations to negotiate smarter, comply with confidence, and achieve lasting success in an evolving financial and regulatory landscape.

  • Rumbidzayi Pfende

    Rumbi Pfende is a seasoned entrepreneur and leader with over 23 years’ experience scaling startups and driving growth across tech and media. She is the Co-founder and COO of MAMA.codes, the UK’s leading coding school for children, where she has helped over 5,000 young people—many from underrepresented groups—gain vital digital skills. A passionate advocate for inclusion, Rumbi has advised organisations including Lucasfilm on diversity and culture, and champions initiatives that widen access to education and technology. She is a thought leader, regularly sharing her journey as a Black female founder committed to building opportunities that empower the next generation.

  • Lu Jackson

    Lu Jackson is the founder of Craic™, the global operating system for comedy and leader in comedy industry technologies, including Craic CRM and Craic Health, the pioneering Comedy-on-Prescription® platform. She is also the founder and chair of CRAFT, the newly established national comedy council and first policy-driven organisation of its kind for comedy.

    A digital media and tech innovator with over two decades in createch, Lu previously co-founded VidZone, the world’s first online and mobile music streaming subscription service and the first independent digital music distributor globally.

    Now driving a cultural shift in comedy, her mission is to position it as both entertainment and a force for social impact and wellbeing.

  • Kirsten Nelson-de Búrca

    Kirsten Nelson-de Búrca is a product policy manager at Mozilla, where she leads work on ads, age verification, and AI product launches globally – shaping how emerging technologies intersect with public interest and trust. With a background spanning global tech companies, startups, and the non-profit sector, she brings a rare blend of policy insight, operational know-how, and product expertise.

    Before joining Mozilla, she drove global digital policy engagement for a European scale-up, HelloFresh, and at Meta she launched trust & safety product lines and political advertising transparency tools in over 100 markets. She has also advised governments, political organisations, and civil society organisations (UN entities and EU institutions) on leveraging new technologies responsibly, and navigated the fast-moving fintech startup world from a regulatory risk perspective.

    A passionate advocate for responsible innovation, Kirsten speaks about the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of technology, policy, and society – with a focus on AI governance, online integrity (especially when it comes to elections, politics and social issues), and platform accountability.

  • Zoe Jay Hawkins

    Zoe is Co-Founder & Deputy Executive Director of the Tech Policy Design Institute (TPDi): Australia’s new independent non-partisan think tank dedicated to technology policy.

    Featured in the Australian Financial Review’s 2025 Women to Watch list, Zoe has experience leading international tech policy initiatives from government, big tech, academic and think tank perspectives. Zoe worked for the Australian government across communications, innovation, and foreign policy portfolios, as a ministerial adviser and in the public service. As a member of Amazon’s International Public Policy Team, Zoe drove whole of amazon digital policy initiatives and represented the company in international organisations.

    An engaging communicator, Zoe speaks internationally on tech policy issues and her work has been featured by The New York Times, TIME Magazine, The Economist, Forbes, POLITICO, and Vogue. Zoe is a Research Associate at the University of Oxford and an expert researcher for OECD.AI, having started her career at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

    Zoe is passionate about helping bring the next generation of women up behind her by role modelling confident authentic leadership and actively mentoring young women across international relations and responsible tech policy in Australia and around the world.

  • Umera Asmat Rana

    Involved in process of policy driven decisions and forming regulations at government level that shape telecom/Internet landscape in my country. I am also active on regional forums of Internet Governance including APrIGf, APSIG, ISOC islamabad Chapter and pkSIG.

    Involved in educating people on policies and reforms done to make Internet available for everyone as well as safe and protected use of Internet.

  • Umaima Haider

  • Tayyaba Iftikhar

  • Sian Wilson

    Sian Wilson is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Day One- a global leader in early careers. Sian is a global leader with over 25 years of experience in growth, skills, tech, policy and strategic organisational development in tech and skills-based businesses.

    Sian is a Fellow of the RSA, Chartered Institute of Marketing, Institute of Employability and Chartered Member of CIPD. She is the Chair of Tech UK’s Skills and Inclusivity Council, sits on the EdTech and Education Council at Tech UK, is a member of the Women in Tech Policy Group, member of the London Corporation taskforce for Women pivoting into Tech, member of the North Est Connecting for Impact Group and Non-Executive Director of Society Matters CIC in Gateshead.

  • Safyah Akhtar Malik

    Digital Marketer with over 10 years experience, managing
    monthly budgets ranging from £5000 up to £2.1M, leading
    high performing teams and driving organisational vision.
    Data-driven approach with a laser focus on ROI.

    Providing cross-functional strategic direction, with
    winning digital marketing strategies and applying subject
    expertise across e-commerce, EdTech, FinTech sectors as
    well as spearheading non-profit growth.
    Self-motivated, worked remote and hybrid, in local and
    international teams. British and Canadian.