Biography
Colleen is a tri-qualified solicitor and founder of Ardea International, a specialist company that provides sustainability, business and human rights and modern slavery expertise to enable companies to meet both their legal obligations and develop voluntary best practice standards. She is a fellow of IEMA and a research fellow of the Centre for the Study of Modern Slavery, St Mary’s University, Twickenham.
She has over 25 years of legal and commercial experience of working with business, organisations and NGOs across sectors and provides training and online resources on human rights, modern slavery and sustainability issues. Colleen has a LLM (with distinction) in Environmental Law from the University of Aberdeen. Colleen’s indefatigable passion for combating human trafficking, led her to help found the not-for-profit organisation Finance against Trafficking. Colleen lectures on business and human rights and environmental issues at Birkbeck School of Law and University of Westminster Business School. Her book ‘Strategic Sustainable Procurement: law and best practice‘ is published by Routledge. She recently published a chapter ‘Modern Slavery and Transparency in Supply Chains- the Role of Business’ In The Modern Slavery Agenda: Policy, Politics and Practice in the UK’. She has spoken widely on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, modern slavery and sustainable business.
She sits on the advisory board for LexisPSL Environment, is a committee member of the Social Responsbility Alliance and and is an independent member of the APSCA Disciplinary Board for Member Firms. She is nominated as one of the Top 100 Corporate Modern slavery influencers in the UK in 2018. Colleen was part of the Modern Slavery Garden team which won Gold at the Chelsea Flower Show 2016 and has been nominated for an award by the Anti Slavery Awards group. She has set up an anti trafficking hub at the Towers Convent school in West Sussex.