Speaker Series: Raising Resilient Girls

For our next South Hampstead Speaker Series event, you are warmly invited to hear experts share their views on a range of salient issues including adolescent friendships, neurodiversity, eating issues, academic and emotional resilience, mental health, and parenting more broadly. The evening will be chaired by the journalist and broadcaster Jenny Kleeman, a South Hampstead alumna. Jenny will be joined by Zeinab Chaudhary, Dr Saadia Arshad, Tanya Manchanda and Dr Sophie Nesbitt, specialists in their respective fields who will bring a wealth of knowledge and meaningful experience to the conversation. Refreshments will be available from 6.30pm with the discussion starting promptly at 7pm.

Raising Reslient Girls Panel Biographies

Zeinab Chaudhary

South Hampstead alumna Zeinab Chaudhary has over 13 years of consulting experience from Capgemini and Deloitte, specialising in human centred transformation. Zeinab is passionate about creating a more balanced society and works with clients to create greater social and environmental value by embedding purpose across their operations. Zeinab was “Highly Commended” by the MCA Awards 2021 as Thought Leader of the Year and is a Board Trustee for the UK pan-disability charity Scope. Zeinab lives with Osteogenesis Imperfecta and chronic pain and has spent much of her life trying to balance her drive with her chronic health condition whilst breaking the glass ceilings set by those around her. Zeinab strives to challenge the stigma associated with ‘disability’ and to improve the landscape for others.

Dr Saadia Arshad

Dr Saadia Arshad is a consultant psychiatrist practicing in London. With over 18 years of experience, Dr Arshad is specialised in assessing, diagnosing and treating people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders, Autism Spectrum Conditions, and other Neurodevelopmental Disorders. At present, she is Associate Medical Director and Consultant Psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust where she strives to bring latest research into safe clinical practice while working towards empowering individuals with Neurodevelopmental disorders to access services and opportunities without being placed at a disadvantage.

Jenny Kleeman (Chair)

South Hampstead alumna Jenny Kleeman is a British journalist, author and broadcaster. Jenny is the author of The Price of Life, published by Picador in 2024. Her first book, Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, has been translated into eleven languages. Jenny’s long form writing appears regularly in the Guardian, the Sunday Times, the New Statesman and the Financial Times Magazine. She presents programmes on BBC Radio 4 and has reported for Channel 4's foreign affairs series Unreported World and BBC One's Panorama. She regularly writes for The Guardian and The Sunday Times Magazine.

Tanya Manchanda

Tanya Manchanda is a PhD student in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on adolescent development, the social brain, and mental health, with an emphasis on understanding the relationship between friendships and mental health outcomes. She examines how factors such as gender identity, age, and neurodiversity influence these relationships. Tanya is also exploring school-based intervention programs designed to improve mental health outcomes by engaging adolescents’ authentic social groups.

Dr Sophie Nesbitt

Dr Nesbitt is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with over 20 years of experience in NHS child and adolescent services. Sophie now runs her own private practice working with young people and offering consultancy to healthcare services. Her specialities include eating disorders, anxiety, depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and attachment and adjustment difficulties. Dr Nesbitt has written three books: Hunger for Understanding, Emotion Regulation for Young People with Eating Disorders, and What Does Eating Disorder Recovery Look Like? and has done extensive academic research into mental health. For more information on her services and writing visit her website.

Dr Kathy Weston

Dr Weston is one of the leading national experts on parenting and parental engagement in children's lives. In 2018, she established Tooled Up Education, a holistic bank of evidence-based resources for whole-school communities on all aspects of parenting, family life and education. Tooled Up now supports 130 schools in seven countries, including South Hampstead. Kathy believes that 'there is an instruction manual for parenting' (the research evidence) and believes that children are most likely to thrive when there is a strong partnership between home and school. Kathy holds a law degree as well as a Masters and PhD from Cambridge University. She is originally from Northern Ireland and is a parent to two teenage boys and a cat called Blinky.