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Joanne Lockwood is a keynote speaker and inclusive culture expert who helps organisations build workplaces where people belong, leaders lead inclusively, and technology serves humanity rather than replacing it.
Her route to the stage is unusual – and it’s the source of her edge. Joanne spent over two decades in IT and STEM, serving in the Royal Air Force and running her own successful technology businesses, before pivoting into HR and People Consulting. That genuine technical grounding is why her newest work – on the human side of AI in the workplace, lands with leaders: she understands what’s actually under the bonnet, and she’s still hands-on with the technology today.
As Founder and CEO of SEE Change Happen, Joanne works with HR, Talent Acquisition and L&D teams to move past box-ticking and create deep, sustainable change – what she calls #PositivePeopleExperiences. Her keynotes weave behavioural psychology, emotional and cultural intelligence, psychological safety and belonging into practical steps leaders can act on, all guided by her mantra: Smile | Engage | Educate.
Joanne is a Fellow and Chair of the Board of the Professional Speaking Association UK&I, and a Fellow of the Institute of Equality and Diversity Professionals. She has appeared on Channel 4’s The Making of Me, hosts the Inclusion Bites podcast, writes for HRZone, The HRD and TrainingZone, and has served as a Trustee for LGBT+ youth homelessness charity akt.
As a transgender woman, Joanne brings lived experience and hard-won authenticity to every stage – but it’s her blend of professional expertise, storytelling and warmth that keeps audiences of 10 or 1,000 engaged from the first minute to the last
Artificial intelligence is already reshaping how people communicate, apply for jobs, learn, make decisions and resolve conflict. The real challenge isn’t the technology — it’s human. Used
passively, AI reproduces the exclusion already in the room; used with care, it can widen participation and strengthen trust.
In this practical, grounded keynote — no hype, no doom — Joanne reframes AI as a belonging, culture and leadership issue rather than a technical one. She looks squarely at AI bias, AI-assisted grievances, recruitment risk and the emerging AI readiness divide, and at where human judgement, governance and ethics have to hold. The line that stays with the room: AI doesn’t create a culture — it amplifies the culture it enters.
Key takeaways
• Understand the inclusion risks and opportunities of AI — bias, over-reliance, hallucination, and the amplification of existing inequalities
• Recognise the AI readiness divide — where confidence, competence and critical thinking decide who takes part and who gets left behind
• See how AI is changing recruitment, employee relations and communication — and where the human has to stay in the loop (increasingly a legal requirement, not just good practice)
• Identify practical ways to use AI for belonging — inclusive prompting, psychological safety and human-centred decisions
Who it’s for: conference and all-hands audiences, belonging/EDI and culture events, leadership and HR.
Flexes to fit: 15–30 min keynote, 60 min webinar, or 60–90 min interactive workshop; in-person, virtual or hybrid. Also available as focused sessions on AI bias, AI & grievances, AI in recruitment, or the AI readiness divide — and as a leadership boardroom cut, Inclusive AI Leadership: Bridging Trust, Talent and Transformation.
Employee engagement and job satisfaction are directly linked to the culture leaders create — yet many leaders freeze, afraid of getting it wrong. In this session Joanne explores the traits that define a genuinely inclusive leader, and how those skills turn a group of individuals into a team with shared passion, purpose and belonging.
She introduces the foundations — emotional intelligence (EQ) and cultural intelligence (CQ), the basic engagement “hygiene factors”, and the 6 Cs of inclusive leadership — and gives leaders the practical changes that build connection across teams and departments. In a workplace now shaped by AI, she adds a contemporary dimension: the inclusive leader as a visible, responsible user of AI — modelling good judgement, giving people permission to experiment, and noticing where automated decisions could quietly leave someone out.
Key takeaways
• Recognise the 6 key traits (6 Cs) of an inclusive leader, and how to nurture them
• Understand why EQ and CQ are the foundation of engagement and communication
• Get the engagement basics right before reaching for motivation
• See how different perspectives and motivations shape employee experience
• Model responsible AI use as an inclusive leadership behaviour, not a technical one
• Lead beyond the fear of getting it wrong
Who it’s for: leaders, managers and HR teams focused on culture and engagement.
Most inclusion efforts are broken — not because intentions are bad, but because organisations bolt on initiatives without building the culture to hold them. Hiring diverse talent into a culture that isn’t ready simply doesn’t work.
Joanne challenges conventional thinking and reframes inclusion as a conscious, deliberate practice. She helps audiences locate where they sit on the Continuum of Inclusion, and shows
how small, intentional changes compound into lasting cultural change and genuine belonging. Conscious inclusion now extends to how an organisation uses AI, too — because AI amplifies the culture it enters, and biased output can pass as neutral fact if no one is looking.
Key takeaways
• Why “just hire diverse talent” fails without a culture fit for purpose
• How to challenge yourself to think and act inclusively, on purpose
• How tiny changes drive significant movement toward your inclusion vision
• How to measure and nurture positive cultural shift
Who it’s for: HR, L&D and leadership teams building an inclusion culture.
That voice telling your people they don’t belong, that they’ll be “found out” — it quietly drains confidence, engagement and contribution across an organisation, often from your most talented people.
In this honest, interactive session, Joanne shares her own battles with imposter syndrome and limiting beliefs, and turns them into practical tools. She connects the personal experience of self-doubt to the organisational conditions — psychological safety and belonging — that let people bring their full selves and their best work. She also names a very current trigger: AI anxiety — the fear that everyone else is fluently using AI while you’re bluffing, or of being “found out” for using it (or for not keeping up) — and shows how psychological safety around experimentation defuses it.
Key takeaways
• What imposter syndrome is, and why we feel it
• The real impact of imposter feelings on engagement and performance
• Recognise “AI anxiety” as a modern face of imposter syndrome — and how permission to experiment safely defuses it
• Practical steps to address it in yourself, right now
• How to build the psychological safety and belonging that help others do the same
Who it’s for: all audiences; especially powerful for emerging talent, ERGs and leadership development.
Language has the power to divide or to unite — and how we label others, and ourselves, shapes the people around us. The fear of saying the wrong thing is one of the biggest barriers to inclusion, leaving people silent rather than connected.
Joanne brings together the power of words with emotional (EQ) and cultural (CQ) intelligence to help audiences become self-aware of their own behaviours and triggers, and step confidently into celebrating difference rather than fearing it. Drawing on her own journey — and the moment she claimed her own “I am” — she shows the strength that comes when everyone is genuinely listened to.
Key takeaways
• Understand yourself, your triggers and the dimensions of diversity
• Use EQ and CQ to embrace difference and communicate with care
• See how language includes or excludes, often without us realising
• Challenge your own biases and perspectives
• Practical ways to step up as an effective ally
Who it’s for: all-staff audiences, culture and awareness events.
I have never seen this call of 110 people so silent and still — they were enthralled. The Leadership team said Joanne was the star of the call.
Many of our team members have described these workshops as the best training they’ve ever received. We’ve made a significant stride forward in our inclusion ambitions.
