Meet the Exhibitor: Conscious Culture Coach
We're pleased to welcome Conscious Culture to the iCAN and Howlett Brown ERG Blueprint Conference on 28 April at St Paul's.
Founded by Lydia Puricelli, a transcultural, trauma-informed psychotherapist, executive coach, speaker, and facilitator, Conscious Culture works at the intersection of cultural intelligence, mental health, leadership development, and social justice. The practice works with individuals, groups, and organisations to build environments where people can genuinely thrive, personally, professionally, and culturally.
Lydia brings rare depth to this space. She has led employee affinity networks across global organisations, including Investec and Fidelity, co-founded the Asian Women in Banking and Finance Network, and specialises in supporting Black people, People of Colour, and other marginalised groups as they navigate the systemic and emotional realities of workplace discrimination and oppression.
If your ERG work touches on psychological safety, cultural conditioning, or what it takes to build belonging, Lydia's stand is worth a visit. Ahead of the conference, we asked her a few questions about the thinking behind her work and what she hopes delegates will take away.
Conscious Culture sits at the intersection of mental health, leadership, and social justice. How did you come to work across all three, and why does that combination matter specifically for ERGs?
My work sits at that intersection because people don't experience these areas separately; they live them simultaneously. As a transcultural trauma-informed psychotherapist, I saw how mental health is shaped not just by individual experience, but by the work environments people are in, particularly whether those environments feel psychologically safe and truly inclusive.
In many workplaces, especially for those from marginalised backgrounds, people are navigating chronic stress, hyper-awareness, and pressure to adapt. That's survival mode. As a coach, I saw leaders wanting to create inclusive cultures but lacking the awareness or tools to address what was happening beneath the surface. Social justice provides a lens for understanding why these patterns exist, who they impact most, and how inequity manifests in these power structures.
Mental health speaks to the impact, leadership shapes the conditions, and social justice explains the patterns and systemic issues.
For ERGs, this combination is critical. They are often holding space for experiences that the wider organisation (and society) hasn't fully addressed. Without psychological safety at a systemic level, ERGs can become both a refuge and a pressure point — supporting individuals in survival mode while trying to influence change. Integrating all three allows ERGs to be both sustainable and truly impactful.
You've led affinity networks inside global organisations. What did that experience teach you about the gap between what ERGs are asked to do and what they're resourced to do?
Leading affinity networks showed me that ERGs are often expected to operate like strategic change agents, while being resourced like volunteer communities.
They're asked to drive engagement, shape inclusion strategy, and represent diverse voices, while also holding the emotional weight of members' experiences in environments that may not feel safe or supportive. That's a significant, often invisible load.
In many cases, they are doing cultural repair work, supporting people navigating burnout, exclusion, or identity strain.
Without proper investment in time, training, leadership development, and well-being support, ERG leads can become stuck in cycles of reacting and holding things together. But when organisations step up and create safer environments, while resourcing ERGs as true partners, those groups can shift from absorbing pressure to driving meaningful, strategic change.
A lot of inclusion work focuses on systems and structures, but your approach goes deeper into unconscious conditioning and cultural scripts. What shifts when organisations start working at that level?
Systems and policies matter, but they are only as effective as the people enacting them. If individuals are still operating from unexamined beliefs about power, identity, and belonging, then change remains surface-level.
When organisations and the individuals who run them start working with unconscious conditioning and cultural scripts, the shift is from compliance to consciousness.
People begin to understand how their behaviours, whether that's defensiveness, avoidance, or overcontrol, are shaped by deeper narratives. This reduces blame and increases accountability in a more constructive way.
Crucially, it changes how psychological safety is experienced. Instead of being a concept, it becomes something people feel. That's when trust builds.
And when trust builds, people can move out of survival mode, where energy is spent on self-protection, and into a thriving state, where creativity, collaboration, and authentic leadership become possible. That's where real cultural transformation happens.
What would you want an ERG delegate to walk away from your stand thinking differently about?
Many ERG leads are operating in environments that don't yet fully support psychological safety yet are expected to create it for others. That's a difficult position to hold.
I'd want them to think differently about their role, not just as organisers or advocates, but as culture shapers who need personal and professional support, strategic empowerment, and boundaries to sustain their impact.
And most importantly, I'd want them to leave with a shift in perspective: that the goal isn't just to help people cope within challenging systems, but to influence environments where people can move beyond survival and genuinely thrive. And advocate for themselves as leaders and professionals.
Because when ERG leaders are supported to lead in that way, the ripple effect across organisations and communities is profound.
Conference Exclusive for ERG Leaders and Delegates
Visit the Conscious Culture stand for your chance to win a complimentary 8-session 1:1 Executive Coaching Leadership Programme, designed to support you in leading with confidence, influence, and impact.
Be In the Room Where the Future of ERGs Is Being Shaped
The ERG landscape is changing fast. Expectations are higher, scrutiny is sharper, and the margin for impact without strategy is shrinking.
If you lead, sponsor, support, or influence ERGs, this is not a conversation you can afford to observe from the sidelines.
Join us at the ERG Blueprint Conference this April, where the people shaping the next chapter of ERGs will share what works, challenge outdated models, and raise the bar for impact.
Get in the room with ERG leaders, executive sponsors, culture strategists, and practitioners who are serious about moving ERGs from passion projects to strategic powerhouses.