Michael Williams

Bank ABC

Head of Talent 

BNY Mellon

EMEA Chief Administrative Officer, Technology Services Chief of Staff, Senior Vice President

EMEA Technology Workforce Transformation Lead, Chief of Staff - Poland & CEE, Associate Director

Recruitment Team Leader, Associate Director

HSBC

Senior Recruiter, UK&CI and Zurich

Various Specialist Recruitment Firms

Senior Recruiter (UK & Europe)

Talent Acquisition Lead ✦ RL100 Member ✦ Views are my own

A results-driven HR and Talent Acquisition professional with International experience. I specialise in aligning people strategies with business goals to fuel growth and performance. With extensive experience in global banking, financial services, and technology, I have a deep understanding of the complexities of talent management, workforce planning, and regulatory compliance within the financial sector.

✔ End-to-End Recruitment Expertise: Successfully hired top talent across Front Office, Middle Office, and Corporate Functions within banking, managing searches at all levels up to Managing Director (MD).

✔ Talent Strategy & Workforce Planning

✔ HR Transformation & Change Management

✔ Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) 

✔ Leadership Coaching & Performance Management

✔ HR Analytics & Data-Driven Insights 

✔ Regulatory Compliance & Risk Management

I am passionate about building future-ready workforces, driving innovation in talent acquisition and HR strategy, and fostering environments where people and businesses thrive.

Head of Talent

Recruitment Lead responsible for all lines of business hiring from entry to Board level, covering Corporate Functions through to the FrontI office. 

2021 Achievements:
→ Recruitment Framework & Governance Implementation 
→ IR35 Lead (Successful HMRC Audit)
→ Reduced time to hire to 41 days

2022 Achievements:
→ ATS Implementation 
→ Talent Management Framework Design
→ Gender Diversity recruitment policy implementation 

2023 Achievements (YTD):
→ Direct recruitment model implementation 
→ Direct Recruitment (91% YTD)
→ Internal Mobility (63% increase YTD)
→ Branding

Key Placements:
→ European Chief Risk Officer, London
→ Chief Risk Officer, Paris
→ European Head of Internal Audit
→ UK MLRO / European Head of Financial Crime
→ European Chief Financial Officer
→ Head of Market Risk & Reporting
→ Head of Credit Risk
→ Head of Enterprise Risk Management 
→ Head of Operations 
→ Head of Business Management
→ European Head of Banking
→ European Head of IT
→ Head of Communications - Europe
→ European Head of Treasury & Financial Markets
→ Business Manager to the CEO, IB

EarReality

Narrative Designer 

Screenwriter

Paralect

Full writing support for the needs of the company:
- Writing articles and guest posts
- Creating case studies and video scripts
- Writing ads for various online channels
- Interviewing
- Supporting sales, product and marketing activities

Left the company to study full-time for MA Serial Storytelling in Germany

Copywriter

StockBattle

Worked on several web and mobile games aimed at crypto and stock market education. 
- UX writing
- Social media writing
- Blogging

Media Manager

FBS Inc.

- Managing a creative team (6 people) of the traffic department, later - of the FBS Global product, team lead.
- Copywriting for websites, landing pages, offline and online materials of the company in English.
- Creation of creative concepts, UX copywriting
- Editing and proofreading of materials for novice copywriters, training for copywriters

Creative Team Lead / Copywriter 

Heads and Hands

Content marketing and PR for Russian and International markets:
- Strategy planning
- Content marketing (blogging, SMM, ratings, etc.)
- PR
- Online Marketing

Marketing and PR specialist

Reksoft

Marketing Manager

Marketing Assistant

All my life I’ve been a fierce force of imagination, persistence, and hard work: like a dragon hunting for gold. But instead of treasure, I’ve been searching for stories to tell and ways to make an impact.

Born in Belarus, I studied journalism in Bulgaria and worked in marketing in Russia, but storytelling has always been my true passion. I create narratives that allow people to explore fresh perspectives in a safe, immersive way.

As a queer, neurodivergent woman from a patriarchal country, I’m passionate about shedding light on complex topics through my work. Over the years, I’ve designed more than 100 LARP games, written 10+ original tabletop campaigns, and worked as a script supervisor on the short film Mein Name Akim (2024), which tells the story of transgender refugees in Germany.

During my MA in Serial Storytelling at IFS Cologne, I honed my skills across genres, working on solo projects as well as collaborating in Writers' Rooms.

Currently, I’m co-developing a visual novel game with a co-author as a passion project.

Now that I've completed my degree, I’m eager to bring my creativity to TV and gaming, crafting stories in both English and German.

Dragons never stop breathing fire. And neither do I, with an endless flow of ideas and stories I can’t wait to share.

Alena Lysiakova 🐉 🔜 GAMESCOM

In audio games, players can’t scroll back. 


They can’t “check the log.” They’re usually listening while cooking or commuting, not taking notes like a detective.

So if your story relies on the player remembering a random detail from minute 3 to survive minute 22, good luck. Your plot may be brilliant, but the format will eat it alive.

🐲 Audio narrative design has to support memory.

 Not through exposition dumps, but through systems that anchor recall:
+ Recurring motifs (a phrase, a sound, a location)
+ Audio cues that repeat at key moments
+ Mirrored consequences that call back to earlier actions

💡 These are structural tools, not flavor text. They let players remember without needing a rewind button. Because if your story only works when someone can reread it: you didn’t design for audio. You designed for a book.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames #StoryArchitecture

Alena Lysiakova 🐉

Narrative designer and screenwriter ▶️ Let's create stories that make an impact

If your characters agree too often, something is wrong. 🎬

Harmony might be great in real life (depending on who you ask), but on the page it’s story poison. When everyone shares the same opinion, makes the same choice, or nods politely in every scene… there’s nothing to watch. No movement. No friction. No reason for us to lean in.

Stories don’t run on plot twists alone 👉  they run on pressure.

Tiny disagreements. Conflicting priorities. One person wanting something now while the other wants it later. A silent “no” that derails a plan without a single shout.

Characters don’t need to scream at each other to create tension. 💡 They just need to want things that don’t align. Even slightly. That’s enough to make a scene feel alive.

🐲 So if your dialogue reads like everyone attended the same group therapy and agreed to be mature about it, throw in a value clash. A boundary. A secret. A refusal that doesn’t look like one.

#Screenwriting #Storytelling #GameWriting

After six truly amazing months, my internship at EarReality has come to an end: and what a journey it’s been. 🎧✨


During this time, I grew both as a writer and a writing coach, learned the ins and outs of storytelling for audio games, and wrote six different games (with one more on the way!): three of them based on original IPs.

🖤 My story Heart for a Hunter was even featured as part of Gamescom Cologne Epixx, and several more of my projects are now in production.

I’ve had the absolute pleasure of working with incredibly talented people across Europe and the US: special thanks to Christian Mahnke 🔜 Bookfair Frankfurt, Jörg Benne, and Felix Kowalzik for their support and guidance, and to all the amazing coaches and interns who made every brainstorming session worth it. 💜 

🐲 Now it’s time for a new chapter. I’m opening up for freelance gigs as a narrative designer or game writer for the upcoming months: ready to bring more worlds, characters, and choices to life.

Let’s make something unforgettable. 💥

#NarrativeDesign #GameWriting #Storytelling #InteractiveFiction

Everyone loves to say “Give the player more freedom.”


🐲 Sure. And then we all end up writing five alternate universes that nobody will ever see because the player got lost halfway.

Here’s the thing: agency isn’t about quantity — it’s about weight.

If every choice feels the same, none of them matter. A single, emotionally-loaded decision can hit harder than twenty pointless ones that change nothing but dialogue color.

💡 In interactive audio, especially, too many meaningless branches can confuse the listener. You want them to feel in control, not like they’re running customer support for a malfunctioning narrative.

Give the player the illusion of freedom — but design it like a magician, not a chaos gremlin. 🎩

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames #Storytelling

Good writers know how to write a scene. Great writers know when to walk away from one. 🎬


Transitions don’t get enough love. 😿  Everyone’s obsessed with the big stuff:  dialogue, emotion, plot twists; but it’s the in-between moments that actually make a story flow.

A strong transition is like good editing: invisible but vital. It’s what turns a “script” into something cinematic. Jumping from heartbreak to a ringing phone. From chaos to silence. From “game over” to “what now?”

That’s where rhythm and emotion live: not in the line, but in the cut.
So yeah, write your transitions like a director, not a novelist. 

🐲 Because pacing isn’t just about words; it’s about knowing exactly when to shut up and move on.

#Screenwriting #StoryStructure #Storytelling #GameWriting

Some interactive stories love throwing choices at players like confetti.


A choice here, a choice there: none of them actually do anything, but hey, it feels interactive, right? 

🐲 No.

 That’s writing pretend-agency. It’s a novelty menu. It’s decorating the game with buttons that aren’t hooked to anything. 

Real narrative design is systemic.
👉 Choices should connect to variables that influence:
+ relationships (trust, fear, loyalty)
+ difficulty (risk, scarcity, knowledge)
+ consequences (routes, scenes, endings)
+ pacing (when info drops, when tension spikes)

If your branching doesn’t change the system, it’s not interaction: it’s decoration.

💡 Players don’t remember how many buttons you gave them. They remember how their choice changed the world, the character, or the story’s tone. We’re not designing “options.” We’re designing impact.

#NarrativeDesign #GameWriting #AudioGames

Writers love to obsess over genre:
 “Is it a drama? A thriller? A dark comedy?”


👉 Here’s a secret: your tone decides that long before your logline does.


Take this:
 A couple argues in a car during a thunderstorm.
 💔 In a drama, it’s the last fight before they break up.
 😂 In a dark comedy, lightning strikes right as one says, “At least things can’t get worse.”
 🔪 In a thriller, someone’s bleeding in the trunk and the argument’s just a cover.

Same setup. Totally different story: all because of tone.

Tone tells your audience how to feel about what’s happening, even before the plot fully unfolds. It’s the lens through which they interpret every line, every silence.

🐲 So before rewriting your script for the tenth time, don’t change the plot. Change the tone. Sometimes it's even more effective.

#Storytelling #WritingTips

Everyone loves saying “games are the new IP goldmine”, until it’s time to adapt one and suddenly half the story disappears and the other half gets rewritten into something no fan recognizes. 🎮📺


So I wrote about what makes good adaptations work.

How to translate gameplay into story, treat worldbuilding like a character, and keep both longtime fans and newcomers hooked without bending the source material into something unrecognizable.

👉 Game Over for Bad Adaptations 
https://lnkd.in/ejp-QaQF

If you care about storytelling across mediums,  this one’s for you.

#Adaptation #Storytelling #Screenwriting

Open article: Game over for bad adaptations by meer.com

EarReality is hosting a free webinar for anyone curious about interactive audio.

🐲 And yes, I’ll be one of the hosts.

Here’s what we’re diving into: 

✅ The TWIST Engine: A clean, no-nonsense intro to the tool we use to build interactive audio stories (the same one I used to write all my audio games).

✅ Business & Publishing Opportunities: self-publishing, collaborations, monetization: the whole ecosystem and how you can actually earn from your stories.

✅ Live Demo: we’ll start with a 30-minute listening session so you can hear what interactive audio feels like before we break down how it’s made.

If you’ve been meaning to try this format, want to explore it for your professional projects, or you’re just audio-curious, this webinar will save you weeks of trial-and-error.

🗓️ The LinkedIn Event link is right below. Seats are capped at 100, so grab yours before it fills up. And if you want to support the event, a like, share, or repost would make my day. 😎

#EarReality #TWIST #NarrativeDesign #Storytelling #InteractiveAudio

Helping Media Companies, Game Studios & Brands Expand Their IP Through Interactive Storytelling | CEO @ EarReality | TWIST Game Engine | Transmedia Strategy | In-Car, Mobile & Web Experiences

🎤 🎧  Finally, we’re hosting a FREE webinar for authors, narrative designers, and brand marketers who want to understand how interactive audio works and how to create it. 🕹️

What the session covers:

✅ TWIST Engine
A clear introduction to the tool we use to create interactive audio stories.

✅ Business Opportunities
How self-publishing, collaborations, and monetization work on TWIST and TWIST Tales.

✅ Practical Demo
We begin with a 30-minute listening session so you can hear an interactive audio story before learning the production workflow.

If you want to create interactive audio, evaluate the format for professional use, or explore future publishing opportunities, this session gives you the essentials.

This webinar is listed as a LinkedIn Event.
The registration link is directly beneath this post.
Seats are limited to 100 participants, so register early to receive the meeting link.

If you want to support the event, feel free to like, share, or repost 😎 

#EarReality #TWIST #marketing #storytelling #games #gaming #stories #audiobooks #audio #RPGs #writing #books #narrativedesign

Christian Mahnke, Ilaria Fravolini and 20 other attendees

View event: EarReality Webinar: The Business of Interactive Audio & TWIST - Part 1

EarReality Webinar: The Business of Interactive Audio & TWIST - Part 1

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