Brighton, England, United Kingdom, January 2026 — Ideal has appointed Emily Bignell as its new Chief People Officer, marking an important step in strengthening the organization’s leadership focus on talent, culture, and long-term people strategy. In this role, Bignell will lead Ideal’s people agenda as the company continues to scale its capabilities across networking, cyber security, cloud, collaboration, and safe AI adoption services.
Emily Bignell has built her career steadily at Ideal, progressing through multiple roles over nearly eight years with the organisation. Most recently, she served as Head of People & Culture for around four years, based in Brighton, England, where she led people strategy initiatives, strengthened employee experience programs, and supported organizational development to align talent priorities with business needs.
Prior to that, she worked as HR & Business Support Executive at Ideal for approximately four years, contributing across HR operations, internal stakeholder support, and people processes that helped build a strong foundation for employee lifecycle management and company culture.
Before joining Ideal, Bignell served as an HR Associate at The RiverStone Group, where she gained experience supporting HR operations within the insurance and reinsurance run-off solutions environment. Earlier, she worked as a Talent Executive at Qualifa, where she played a hands-on role in recruitment, HR administration, onboarding, policy guidance, payroll coordination, and HR system implementation—developing strong fundamentals in end-to-end HR execution.
She also began her early professional journey with roles at Qualifa as a Telemarketing Agent, at the University of Gloucestershire as a Peer Mentor, and at Swissport (London Gatwick) as a Passenger Services Agent, where she developed strong communication, customer service, and operational discipline—capabilities that continue to support her leadership style today.
About Ideal
Ideal specialises in Networking, Connectivity and Advanced Wireless, Cyber Security (SASE), Cloud, Collaboration, and Safe AI Adoption. Positioned as an extension of enterprise customers’ IT teams, Ideal supports organisations through consultancy, design and delivery, and provides 24x7x365 managed services through its UK-based support team—helping customers achieve strong technology outcomes aligned to business priorities.
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