Simone Roche MBE
Founder of Northern Power Futures & Northern Power Women.
Speaker profile
Simone Roche MBE is founder of Northern Power Women, the PoWEr Up Collective CIC and the PoWEr Platform. A community of 85,000, organically grown by Simone herself that spans all sectors, genders and socio-economic groups. She also founded the largest celebration of gender equality in Europe: The Northern Power Women Awards celebrating role models and trailblazers. The PoWEr Collective has enabled 20,000 conversations and created almost £1million in social value through running PoWEr Up Mentoring & Networking sessions open to all.
She joined the Royal Navy at 18 as a radio operator, scaling the ranks up to Lieutenant, before taking on roles including conference manager at Aintree Racecourse, head of sales at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, deputy general manager of operations for the build of the new Echo Arena in Liverpool, looking after sponsors for London 2012 as a client services manager and then director for Women 1st. Simone is passionate about gender diversity and championing all talent and believes in the ‘art of the possible’.
Simone was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2018 for services to gender equality and appointed Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy in June 2020 and promoted to Captain in July 2021. Simone has been recognised on the Yahoo Finance Heroes List 2018, 19, 20 and awarded the IOD NW Chairs award for excellence in 2020.