Hannah Awonuga
Hannah Awonuga is the Founder and CEO of Illume Executive Consulting. She works with boards, executive teams and People leaders on how the decisions organisations make shape their culture, trust and performance, and founded Illume after seeing, across her career, how often culture sat outside the way organisations are governed and led.
Culture is shaped by the decisions organisations make.
“In audit, risk or finance, no one would decide not to look. When it comes to culture, organisations too often do.”Hannah Awonuga
Hannah’s work starts from a single position: culture is infrastructure. It is built through the decisions leaders take every day, about who is promoted, who is sponsored, which concerns are investigated and who is accountable when they are not.
Employee sentiment and HR initiatives matter, yet neither changes culture on its own. Culture changes when the decisions that shape it are visible to the board, owned by named leaders and reviewed with the same discipline organisations already apply to finance, risk and strategy.
This perspective underpins Illume’s work in Cultural Governance: bringing culture into how organisations are governed, led and held to account.
Explore Cultural Governance →Experience across leadership, culture and financial services
Before founding Illume Executive Consulting, Hannah Awonuga spent nearly two decades in financial services, building a career that began in frontline banking and progressed into senior international leadership roles.
Her experience spans banking, talent and organisational development, diversity and inclusion, and culture transformation across global organisations. She has worked across more than 40 markets and held senior roles including Global Director and Group Head of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Culture.
In 2021, Hannah was appointed a Non-Executive Director of the UK government-backed Banking Competition Remedies Board. She founded Illume Executive Consulting in 2025, bringing her experience of leadership, culture and organisational decision-making into her work with boards and executive teams.
A recognised voice on culture and governance
The Illusion of Inclusion
A practical guide to building cultures that thrive
Uncovers the hidden dynamics that shape workplace culture, drawing on Hannah’s own journey to the boardroom.
- Recognition Inspirational Role Model of the Year British Diversity Awards, 2023
- RecognitionTop 25 Most Influential DEI PractitionersHR Magazine
- MediaThe Daily Telegraph · The Sunday Times
- SpeakingKeynotes, board sessions and international panelsHost of Inclusion Re-engineered, Illume’s LinkedIn Live series
Hannah’s thinking in practice
Beyond Black History Month: When Progression Becomes a Governance Issue
Hannah and Dr Tola Oloyede examine what happens before progression decisions are made, from manager discretion and sponsorship to the evidence leaders use to identify wider patterns.
Watch Article · Leadership AccountabilityFive Questions HR Should Be Asking Their CEO about Inclusion
Why inclusion stalls when it is delegated to HR, and the questions that put ownership with the executive team.
Read Article · Inclusive PracticeWhen Inclusion Is an Afterthought, Culture Pays the Price
What happens to trust and performance when inclusion is added after decisions are made.
ReadWorking with boards and executive teams on the culture they are accountable for.
Explore how Illume works with organisations to strengthen culture, leadership and governance.