Andy Beale

Co-Founder and Principal

Andy is an experienced technology leader and former Chief Technology Officer of the UK Government and Guardian News & Media. He helped set up Government Digital Service as a reform function for technology in government. Delivering significant financial savings and culture change across the civil service, he worked extensively on issues such as cyber threat, commercial reform and data science both domestically and internationally. He was lead author of the UK government’s technology strategy and is a member of the British Library Advisory Council.

Andy Woods

Associate

Andy is an expert in programme delivery, information and knowledge management and enterprise data. He has spent over 15 years delivering multi-million pound programmes and organisational change in both the private and public sector. He has helped organisations including HS2, UK Parliament, Maritime and Coastguard Agency and Public Health England derive value from their investments in data and information. Prior to that Andy’s experience in pharmaceutical R&D at AstraZeneca included global leadership on information and knowledge management driving consistency and removing duplication.

Cassian Young

Associate

Cassian is an experienced technologist, advisor and programme director. He has held senior positions in high profile or regulated government and corporate settings including Home Office, Government Digital Service, Royal Bank of Scotland and Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. Most recently leading on the technology strategy for the border in the run up to EU Exit.

He is an expert on Wardley Mapping techniques for strategy development and a successful troubleshooter of large scale scale delivery or transformation programmes.

Catherine Breslin

Associate

Catherine is an experienced machine learning scientist, with a background encompassing academic research, product development, and consultancy. She works to bring cutting-edge technology to market, previously in organisations like the University of Cambridge, Toshiba Research, and Amazon Alexa. Her work includes AI strategy, technical specifications for business requirements, product roadmaps, managing data science teams, and leading large & global distributed projects. Catherine speaks regularly at events such as CogX, Rework and AI Summit, and is a recognised expert on AI, voice and language technology.

Erena Langley

Associate

Erena advises on regulatory change and compliance. She is an expert in areas where technology and regulatory interests intersect, drawing on her extensive legal training and experience working in banking and healthcare compliance, combined with her long history delivering software development projects at large companies. Erena helps businesses weed through legislative corpus and then leads in devising workable roadmaps. Erena holds an LLB in English Law and an LLM in Banking and Financial Law from Boston University School of Law. She was extremely honored to be a law clerk for the Third Judicial District in New York State.

Fran Bennett

Associate

Fran is an experienced data science and AI leader. She has held a number of internal advisory and decision support roles to large corporates and government bodies while continuing to deliver machine learning in practice.

She is a recognised expert in the data science field, speaking at O’Reilly Strata (invited keynote), OSCON (Chair), Imperial College London, and representing the UK as part of delegations for the G7 and for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She has recently been appointed to the Board of the Ada Lovelace Foundation to support their mission to ensure data and AI work for everyone and is an expert adviser to the European Commission on its big data funding decisions, the AI expert for the QCon London conference programme committee, and has been a member of the Royal Statistical Society’s Data Science Committee and the Cabinet Office Data Science Advisory Group.

James A. Duncan

Co-Founder and Principal

James is a technologist and entrepreneur with experience spanning web-scale start ups, government and large businesses. He is a former Chief Technology Officer of the Public Services Network and Joyent, and has held senior technology positions at the Home Office, HSBC and Fotango. James has been closely to the heart of many technology transformations over the last 20 years, with involvement in Node.js, Cloud, and 3D printing. He’s helped mentor startups at the Canadian incubator FounderFuel and holds multiple patents for cloud computing. He speaks regularly at conferences around the world about technology issues that affect everybody and contributed to the 2008 book “Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace”.

James Findlay

Co-Founder and Principal

James is the former Chief Information Officer at HS2 Limited and Technology Leader for the Department for Transport. James is an engineer by background and has worked both in the private and public sectors in the UK and overseas for over 25 years, as a systems engineer and programme director delivering national and international IT and communications systems and business change programmes, with significant use of Agile techniques. He led the team which delivered the first digital legislation in the UK.

Jerry Fishenden

Co-Founder and Fellow

Jerry is a technologist, writer and composer. He is the former Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft UK, and has been an IT business leader at the City financial services and investments senior regulator, Parliament, and the NHS. He has an extensive track record of digital technology leadership, delivery and implementation. Jerry was the specialist advisor to the House of Commons for their ground-breaking inquiry into Government technology. He is the co-author of the successful business playbook “Digitizing Government: Understanding and Implementing New Digital Business Models“, described as “the most comprehensive and approachable account of the digital government movement, its recent developments, and future potential.” He is also a CIO 100 judge and a Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey’s Centre for the Digital Economy.

Renate Samson

Associate

Renate advises on privacy, security and data, including GDPR. She is the former Chief Executive of Big Brother Watch and a leading voice on privacy and data awareness and protection, including the use and misuse of surveillance technologies and biometrics. Renate was previously a member of the UK Cabinet Office’s Privacy and Consumer Advisory Group and the Surveillance Camera Commissioner’s Advisory Council. As a regular on TV, radio and in the press, Renate is a well-recognised expert on the changing landscape of digital policy, technology, regulation and legislation.

Sarah Taylor

Associate

Sarah has a background in delivering large technology transformation programmes across both the public and private sector having worked with Sainsburys, the NHS, Home Office and HS2.

With a focus on process re-engineering she has worked extensively on delivering operational effectiveness across organisations including national IT systems, cross government policies and comprehensive organisational change programmes.

Steve Purkis

Associate

Steve is a technologist, strategist & complexity thinker with a hands-on technical background. He initiated the Agile Transformation at Net-a-Porter, managed multi-million-pound programmes of work, and has acted as a strategic advisor. He oversaw the development of the world’s first Platform-as-a-Service and architected large-scale systems for the likes of eBookers, MultiMap, and Deutsche Bank. He is passionate about organisational design and choosing the right methods, and integrates both Cynefin & Wardley Maps into his work on strategy & delivery. He holds an Executive MBA from Hult Business School and speaks regularly at conferences and universities about complexity, methods and technology.