Helen Cooke

elen Cooke, CEO of MyPlus, is recognised as a leading expert in disability employment with a particular expertise in student recruitment; she is also an engaging keynote speaker. Helen founded MyPlus with the vision of ensuring that having a disability or long-term health condition doesn’t prevent anyone from having the career they want to have. She is passionate about developing the confidence of employers and disabled individuals when it comes to employment.

Through MyPlus Helen works with organisations to provide them with the expertise to be disability confident in their strategy, their processes and their engagement, and realise the possibilities of hiring and retaining more people with a disability. Clients include: BP, EY, Enterprise Holdings, J.P.Morgan, Linklaters, and the BBC.

Helen is also behind the MyPlus Students Club which is an innovative website providing students with disabilities with the advice, support and confidence to successfully navigate the recruitment process and go on to realise new possibilities with progressive employers.

The uniqueness of Helen’s approach comes from her expertise in HR and recruitment combined with her first-hand experience of disability; Helen is a wheelchair user as a result of a childhood spinal injury. She started her career on the Marks & Spencer graduate management programme before moving to Mars where she spent 10 years, mostly in HR and Resourcing, before setting up MyPlus in 2005.

Helen is listed in the 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022 SHAW TRUST Disability Power 100 List of Most influential disabled people in the UK; and on Cranfield University’s School of Management Women to Watch for 2021.

My Plus has been appointed as a member of the Valuable 500 Directory and is accredited as a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader of the UK Government’s Disability Confident scheme. The MyPlus Students Club website won the National Online Recruitment Awards 2021’Best Innovation in Online Recruitment award’.