Our annual update and planning event
with added excitement!
Wednesday 2 April 2025
2 – 5 pm
Attendees joined us for our 2025 annual meeting and helped us celebrate IP Inclusive’s first ten years!
Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties we were unable to hear updates from our IP&ME community and our Scotland and South West Regional networks. However, you can read their updates here.Â
You can find Helen Smith’s slides on our initial findings of the 2025 Impact Report here and on our resources page.
Panel discussion:
Why do diversity and inclusion still matter?
Because this meeting was a bit special, we included a panel discussion on an important, high-level topic. With experts from the IP sector and beyond, we explored how businesses and the wider community are likely to view equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) as we move into the future. Will they still care? Will we still care? Will we have the resources to act on that? What challenges will we face – socially, economically, environmentally – that could make it harder for us to champion diversity? And what can we do to make sure the fight for EDI isn’t subsumed by other conflicting factors?
These are existential questions that IP Inclusive can’t afford to shy away from as we look towards our next ten years. So we felt it was important to give airtime to a conversation that all our supporters could be part of.
To give all panellists the best chance to speak openly and without fear of reprisals, the meeting was held under the Chatham House Rule – which allows attendees to use information from a discussion but without attributing it to the speaker or organisation they represent. For this reason the discussion was not recorded. However, you can read a broad overview written by the panel’s chair, Max Walters, Editor at Managing IP.Â
Meet the Panellists
Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews is an Associate Solicitor at Reed Smith, specialising in Entertainment and Media law (with a large IP practice), and is a strong advocate for driving inclusion for disabled and neurodivergent people in the workplace and wider society. A former member of IP Ability, Jonathan has served (among many other roles) on the Diversity Council of the International Trademark Association, UK government advisory boards for disability employment, the Westminster Autism Commission and the UK Law Society’s Council and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and has supported charities such as the UK’s national charity for young autistic people, Ambitious about Autism. Jonathan is recognised as one of the UK’s most influential disabled/neurodivergent individuals and has received national and international recognition, including as the European Diversity Awards’ Campaigner of the Year 2016, a 2017 Queen’s Young Leader, an honorary graduate of the Open University in 2018, the Law Society’s Junior Lawyer of the Year 2019, and the UK’s fourth-most influential disabled person in 2020 (by the Shaw Trust Power List, which he now judges). He was named Top Role Model for Neurodiversity by the worldwide Enable List in 2024.
Sian-Nia Davies
Sian-Nia joined the IPO in June 2021 as Head of Platforms. She became Interim Chief Technology Officer in October 2021 and was confirmed as Chief Digital, Data & Technology Officer in July 2022.
Prior to joining the IPO, Sian-Nia enjoyed a long and varied career at BT, latterly leading on the delivery of complex, multi £million digital programmes. This is also where she built the experience in leading large and cross-skilled technical teams across a broad spectrum of platforms and technologies, covering the entire IT Lifecycle.
Sian-Nia holds a BSc in Applied Biology from Cardiff University and is a fluent Welsh speaker.
*** New panellist ***
Braxton K Davis, JD, CPP
After obtaining his JD, Braxton Davis joined AT&T’s Intellectual Property Patent Development Team where he evaluated inventive ideas, patent portfolios and patent monetisation opportunities based on business strategies. Thereafter, Braxton accepted a position as an Associate before being named Partner with the law firm Amin, Turocy, & Watson. Currently, Braxton serves as Meta’s (formerly Facebook) Associate General Counsel on the Patents, Licensing, & Open Source Team. Braxton has also established the Patent Institute of Training and the National Council on Patent Practicum, a non-profit focused on increasing equality and diversity within the patent profession. Additionally, he founded Metric Mate, a tech startup which aired on Shark Tank, where he applies his degrees in electrical engineering and physics to invent and develop connected devices that track strength training data. Braxton is also the recipient of both the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Georgia State University 40 under 40 awards.
Adrian Howes
Adrian Howes is Head of IP and Standards in Nokia’s IP Policy team and the current President of the IP Federation.
Prior to joining Nokia, Adrian worked as a senior litigation counsel at Mylan/Viatris, a legal consultant for Sony Computer Entertainment and an associate in the intellectual property department of the law firm Bird & Bird. He is an English qualified lawyer, and studied chemistry and law at the Universities of Durham and Cambridge, respectively.
Adrian’s work at Nokia presently encompasses policy and regulation on issues relating to IPR. This includes active involvement in cross-industry and government-level discussions on Standard Essential Patents and software licensing and their place in the next generation of communication and video standards.
Joan Scott
Sadly, Joan is no longer able to join us for this discussion. We hope we’ll be able to entice her to another of our events soon…
Justine Thompson
Justine Thompson is an Inclusion and Culture specialist, with over 20 years’ experience in talent and EDI in the legal sector. She is currently the Executive Director of the InterLaw Diversity Forum and the Head of Market Intelligence for culture specialists Inclusive Group.
Justine has a strong focus on workplace culture, psychological safety, and the impacts of micro-behaviours. In addition to training firms on these topics, she regularly leads culture audits and process reviews aimed at identifying, and addressing barriers and awareness gaps. Justine has played an active role shaping cross-sector and legal-sector initiatives, ranging from the Lord Mayor’s Appeal’s Green Ribbon Campaign and Rare Recruitment’s UK Race Fairness Commitment through to the InterLaw Diversity Forum’s UK Model Diversity Survey.
Max Walters (chair)
Max has worked in journalism since 2012. His first job was for a local newspaper in London before he branched out into trade journalism. He spent three years at World IP Review before moving on to cover other legal disciplines for the Law Society Gazette. He joined Managing IP as a senior reporter in 2019, later becoming deputy editor and then editor in 2023.
World Autism Awareness Day
It just so happened that 2 April 2025 was World Autism Awareness Day. We made extra sure that our discussions embraced the impact of future EDI initiatives on neurodiverse professionals and clients.
Where and when?
As in 2024, this year’s annual meeting was hybrid in format, kindly hosted by A & O Shearman both at their London office in Bishopsgate and online.
Who was invited?
Everyone who works in or with the UK’s IP sector was welcome. It doesn’t matter what type of organisation or department you work in, what role you play there or how senior you are, we’d love you to get involved in IP Inclusive!
Our programme
In addition to the panel discussion, this informal meeting included:
- Updates from our communities, networks, Careers in Ideas task force and other working groups;
- A sneak preview of our 2025 Impact Report;
- News from our management team and Advisory Board; and
- A chance for attendees to input into IP Inclusive’s priorities for the next ten years.
Please visit this page to download the full agenda and other meeting papers.
The IPIM Annual General Meeting
Our annual meeting incorporated the formal AGM for our governing body IP Inclusive Management (IPIM). But we kept that part short. We’re not much into bureaucracy.
Registration
This event was free. So are all our resources. That said, we do need money to keep the show on the road, so if you enjoyed the event please consider clicking Donate now! For more information visit our fundraising page.