Speakers – 2022/2023

Bishop Rowan Williams

Bishop Rowan Williams (Baron Williams of Oystermouth) is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet. He was the 104^th Archbishop of Canterbury, a position he held from December 2002 to December 2012. Previously the Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales, Williams was the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times not to be appointed from within the Church of England.

Having spent much of his earlier career as an academic at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford successively, Williams speaks three languages and reads at least nine. After standing down as Archbishop, Williams took up the position of Chancellor of the University of South Wales in 2014 and served as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge between 2013 and 2020. Now retired, Bishop Rowan is much in demand as an author and speaker.

Dr Eve Poole

Eve started her career at the Church Commissioners for England, after gaining a BA in Theology from Durham University. She returned to education to gain an MBA from the University of Edinburgh Business School where she won AMBA Student of the Year. She then honed her business skills at top consulting firm Deloitte, specialising in change management in the financial services industry. In 2010, Eve combined her two careers by gaining a PhD in Capitalism and Theology from Cambridge University. Currently, she focuses on her leadership practice, where she has held roles as Third Church Estates Commissioner, Chairman of Gordonstoun, and Interim CEO of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was awarded OBE for services to Education and to Gender Equality in 2022.

The Revd Roy Searle

Roy Searle is a Companion of the Northumbria Community and a Pioneer Ambassador with the Baptist Union of Great Britain.  A Geordie by birth and persuasion he moved to Harrogate and was a pupil at Harrogate High School. He comes from an unchurched background, coming to faith in the Cairngorms of Scotland as a trainee outdoor pursuits instructor. Life taking a different trajectory he became an ordained church minister. His first church involved pioneering on an urban housing estate on Teesside before moving on to lead a large charismatic, evangelical church in the city of Sunderland. He moved on from local church ministry in the early 90’s to be one of the founders of the Northumbria Community, a new monastic community that now has Companions and Friends across the world.

Roy’s ministry and interests have taken him far and wide across Europe, working in many different contexts, primarily within the church and charitable sectors but speaking also into the ‘public square’. A popular speaker, writer, leadership mentor, spiritual director, retreat leader and advisor, he is passionate about encouraging people to know the transforming love of God, helping them to realise their potential and encouraging people to love both God and neighbour, listen well, think deeply and live generously and authentically. A graduate of Lebanon Bible College, Berwick-Upon, Tweed, and Cardiff and Newcastle Universities, he is a Fellow of St. John’s College, Durham, is an Associate Tutor at Spurgeons College, London and is a member of the Renovare Board in Britain and Ireland.

He is happily married and lives in his beloved Northumberland and is chuffed to bits to have four children and eight grandchildren, all of whom he loves and with whom he enjoys spending, together with his many friends. He has a wide range of interests, including leadership, missiology, new monasticism, Celtic spirituality, post-Christendom culture, politics and is currently writing a book with the Canadian missiologist Alan Roxburgh on leadership in a changing world. He enjoys walking, photography and most sports and is thankful still to be able to play tennis, badminton, golf, curling and, with the aid of an electric bike, tackle some of the hills along with the beautiful coastline of Northumberland. As a loyal and long-suffering Middlesbrough football supporter he has come to appreciate the notion of purgatory!

The Revd Dr Lucas Mix

Lucas Mix serves as project coordinator for “Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science.” He holds a PhD in evolutionary biology from Harvard University and works with NASA on the search for life beyond Earth. His books include Life in Space: Astrobiology for Everyone and Thinking Fair: Rules for Reason in Science and Religion. A priest in the Episcopal Church, he has served as an inner-city pastor and a college chaplain. He cares deeply about spreading the good news in a world where science is part of the vernacular.