Drawing on his lived experience with neurodivergent friends, family and colleagues, Mark will give an overview of the neurodiversity movement, and how this is shaping a new understanding of how conditions like dyslexia, Autism and ADHD are not only disabilities but can also be strengths if they can be better understood and accommodated.

He’ll explain the essence of each of these conditions, and how they can be seen in a similar way to other forms of cognitive diversity such as personality differences. This will include insights from the community as gathered from the survey.  There will be time for Q&A at the end, in which he will be able to draw on his experience as a manager of technical colleagues to comment on how to use these ideas particularly within knowledge-working teams. 

Event details

This event will be taking place Online on Thursday 27th Feb 2025 from 6 till 7pm.

Neurodiversity Survey

Mark will be presenting his thoughts on Neurodiversity, along with findings from the SLA Survey on Neurodiversity. The survey is now live and I would invite you to complete it as soon as possible.  It will only take 5 minutes and the deadline for completion is 5pm on Monday the 27th January 2025.  We are hoping to get at least 150 responses in order to provide a robust sample for Mark’s analysis – please help us exceed this by clicking below:

Complete our Neurodiversity Survey today!

Biography – Mark Ainsworth

Mark’s 25 year career has been all about helping people make decisions with data, starting from his degrees in Psychology from Oxford and Operational Research from Southampton, and then applied in various industries.

These include British Airways, race strategy at the McLaren F1 team, Tesco’s Customer Insight and Site Research teams (where one big project was rebuilding the Tesco Gravity Model using the 2001 census data), as Technology Director of Talent Innovations (a psychometrics business), and as Head of Analytics at Smart Steps the mobility insights business in Telefonica.

From 2014-2022 he set up and grew a 30-strong data science function in Schroders the Investment Manager. He recently joined ProblemShared (a mind healthcare business) as their Chief Data Officer.

Over recent years Mark discovered that many members of his family and his team had neurodiverse conditions including dyspraxia, ADHD and Autism, and in educating himself on these, he discovered the power of understanding and harnessing neurodiversity in life and work, as well as establishing a deeper understanding of himself.

How to book

This event is taking place online and is free to attend for all SLA members.
Please join the SLA before booking or you may not be allowed admittance to the event online on the evening.

Please reserve your place on this event here by clicking on the button below:

Any questions?

Please email info@thesla.org if you have any questions.