Lead, Drive, and Sustain Your Lasting Digital Transformation
Tuesday 18 October 2022 ︱London
TECHNOLOGICAL DISRUPTION︱AI︱AUTOMATION︱BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION︱TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP︱METAVERSE︱WEB 3︱INNOVATION︱EXPERIMENTATION
Dr Maurizio Pilu
Managing Director, Safetytech Accelerator
Maurizio is a digital technologist and technology and innovation executive with 30 years experience. After gaining a PhD in Artificial Intelligence at Edinburgh University he joined Hewlett Packard Laboratories in Bristol and Paolo Alto, CA, where he invented, published and commercialized a variety of cutting edge imaging technologies.
After an Executive MBA, he moved on to early stage venture capital where he was in charge of deep-tech investments. After being involved in high profile projects at InnovateUK, the UK’s Innovation Agency, and the UK’s first-ever national digital innovation centre, Digital Catapult, he moved on to Lloyd’s Register as VP of Digital Innovation with the brief to create and run its first ever digital innovation pract
ice and contributing to transforming the business.
As part of that he created Safety Accelerator, where is he now Managing Director. Maurizio has 50 patents, 35 academic publications, secured over $100m of investments for programmes and ventures and his work has featured in the FT, Guardian, BBC.
Caoilionn Hurley
Managing Director of Life Planning and Legal, Co-op Legal Services
Caoilionn joined Co-op Legal Services as Finance Director in 2014. She is now Managing Director and sits on the Co-op Group Operating Board.
Owned by millions of UK consumers, the Co-op operates over 2,500 food stores, over 800 funeral homes and provides products to over 5,000 other stores.
Following a complete restructure of the then loss-making legal business in 2014, and a reset of the legal services strategy in 2015, Co-op Legal Services is now a market leader in estate planning and estate administration. The firm also provides services across family law, serious injury and clinical negligence. Co-op Legal Services is enjoying tremendous revenue and profit growth and returns a strong EBIT margin in the sector.
Caoilionn has led the firm’s transformation to become a digital law firm and continues to drive technological innovation through the business. Relentless innovation for better customer, colleague and commercial outcomes is at the heart of the culture of Co-op Legal Services.
As a member cooperative and community-centred organisation, the profits generated by Co-op Legal Services are channelled into Co-op’s Vision of co-operating for a fairer world.
Before joining Co-op Legal Services, Caoilionn held Chief Executive, Commercial Director, Finance Director and other senior roles in a range of sectors, including legal, events, shipping, technology and property. She holds a law degree, a postgraduate in business and a professional accounting qualification. In her personal time, Caoilionn enjoys creative hobbies and sporting interests.
Tara Waters
Chief Digital Officer, Ashurst LLP
Tara Waters is a partner, the firm's Chief Digital Officer and Head of Ashurst Advance Digital, the technology arm of Ashurst Advance.
As the firm's first Chief Digital Officer, Tara is responsible for the implementation of the firm's digital strategy and the embedding of new digital capabilities across the firm to support that strategy.
As the Head of Ashurst Advance Digital, Tara leads the team responsible for designing, developing and delivering innovative technology-based services and solutions both within the firm and to clients, in furtherance of the digital strategy.
In addition, Tara maintains a legal practice focused on the technology sector and advising high growth companies and their investors.
She founded Ashurst's High Growth & VC team in London, Co-Heads the firm's FinTech practice and Fintech Legal Labs, and is a key member of the firm's Distributed Ledger & Crypto Assets practice.
Tara has written several articles and speaks regularly at international industry events on the topics of digital transformation, legal innovation, fintech and digital assets.
She is a technology specialist having spent seven years architecting and developing digital solutions for businesses in the new media and technology industries in NYC prior to becoming a lawyer.
She is admitted to the Bar of the State of New York.
She was named on Innovate Finance's Women in FinTech Power List 2017, was shortlisted for Legal Innovator of the Year at the 2019 FT Innovative Lawyers Awards and was named to The Lawyer's Hot 100 2020.
She is also a Techstars All Star Mentor.
Neil Turner
Chief Technology Officer, GoCardless
Neil joined GoCardless in 2018 as the VP of Engineering before quickly progressing to become the Chief Technology Officer. As CTO, Neil’s role is to oversee the organisation’s global product development.
He has over 20 years of engineering experience and, prior to joining GoCardless, he held senior roles at Capital One and Amazon.
Patricia Haynes
VP Technology Operations and Delivery, Zopa
As VP Tech Ops & Delivery at Zopa, Patricia is responsible for the smooth running of technology teams from Data to Delivery.
Having joined Zopa in January 2020 as VP Engineering, Patricia took on a wider role to lead the Technology and Engineering teams during Zopa's bank launch with a focus on expanding our products and establishing Zopa as an exciting and supportive environment in which to grow a tech career.
Patricia is passionate about supporting our D&I initiatives and creating opportunities for new paths into technology. She is a leading member of the Zopa Women in Tech Community often seen in panel discussions and hosting events both internal and external.
Patricia has over 20 years of experience across tech and engineering. She previously worked at Octopus Labs where she held the position of Head of Engineering.
Harsha Tharkabhushanam
Head of Data Science and AI, BP
Kabir Patel
Global Head of Finance IT and Transformation, AstraZeneca
Matt George
Director and SME - Digital Transformation, Equinix
Matt joined Equinix in 2012 and is one of the company’s Global SME’s (Subject Matter Experts).
He covers several industry sectors including Content & Digital Media, Manufacturing and Retail/wholesale supply chain transformation. Sitting as an overlay between the sales and technical teams he advises companies on ways to improve connectivity, global reach, end user experience and cloud enablement through deployment on Equinix’s global interconnection platform.
Prior to joining Equinix, Matt worked as a Digital Transformation Consultant for companies including Sky Germany and Ladbrokes.
He started his career in the UK cable TV industry in the mid 90’s. He has led a number of senior marketing and business development positions at Flextech, TiVo, Sky and BT.
Vimal Parekh
Head of Digital Innovation, Oxford University Press
Vimal is a people focused leader of progressive, digital, customer-focused innovation.
Innovation is a machine that needs to be designed, built, and maintained. Vimal is driven by creating and managing these innovation mechanisms in organisations to improve customer/user experience.
Vimal’s innovation capability was born from a project delivery background. He’s experienced delivering outstanding insights grounded in robust logic with energy and passion. This was enabled through his Business Analysis and Lean Six Sigma experience. Later with Capita, he adopted the Service Design methodology to ensure human centred design principles are at the foundation of his recommendations.
Previous, Vimal headed up Digital Product Innovation within FTSE 250 company- Capita. Vimal built the innovation mechanism in Capita and oversaw a steady stream of Digital Products which Capita used to use to support their outsourcing business.
Vimal has now moved onto Oxford University Press as Head of Digital Innovation where he is building a similar innovation engine.
Dan Cooper
Director, Global Innovations, Movember
More than a decade of international experience in communications, innovation, partnerships, business development, CSR and brand marketing, working with some of the world’s most recognised brands and entertainment platforms. Currently leading Innovation at Movember building the brands presence in Web3.
Matthew as Head of Software Development and Integration at Aston Martin Lagonda is in charge of the teams that build all internal Software, Integrations and Business Intelligence solutions, currently transforming and moving to a new ERP solution in Infor LN from AML’s legacy home grown COBOL Solutions.
Working at AML since 2008 starting as a Junior .Net Developer and touching most technical solutions within that time, gaining a lot of insight on Automotive processes and how IT has changed during that time.
More recently Matthew is a founding member of the Diversity and Inclusion network at AML, here they are involved in organising events internally and externally to ensure a more inclusive working environment. As part of this work they are involved in modernising the office space for our new way of working, ensuring the workspace is inclusive of everyone who works and may work in the future at AML.
Felicity is the Executive Director of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI). The CDEI is a government expert body enabling the trustworthy use of data and AI. Felicity's role is to lead the CDEI's multidisciplinary team of specialists, and its overall strategy to deliver, test and refine trustworthy approaches to data and AI governance, working in partnership with public sector and industry bodies.
Before CDEI, she was the CBI Director of Innovation and Digital, leading the organisation’s policy work to create the conditions that enable businesses to come up with new ideas, invest in research and development (R&D) and adopt new technologies. At CBI, Felicity also worked on technology adoption, public spending on R&D and labour markets. Felicity's background is in economic policy, with a focus on business growth.
Jay Swanton is Moneybox Chief Platform Officer and has accountability for the systems, people, and processes that manage customer savings and investments. Jay was instrumental in the development of the Moneybox infrastructure, has previous experience at Janus Henderson, and was the co-founder of outsourcing business Cogent, now part of Paribas.
Mark has a strong pedigree of delivering information systems and technology solutions across the globe. He is a seasoned executive with over 30 years’ experience providing strategy, governance and thought leadership across technology environments and information security disciplines. Mark's broad understanding of technology enables him to navigate the most complex issues and drive consensus to deliver tangible business results.
Mark begin his career as a Technology apprentice within the British Army, and built a successful 27 year military career delivering command and control networks, technology solutions and information systems in support of operations globally. Post his military career, Mark went on to join KPMG UK LLP, initially undertaking a People Operations role. It was during this time that Mark quickly established himself as a subject matter expert in Risk Management, Cyber Security and Information Assurance leading to him being appointed as the Chief Information Security Officer and Head of Information Assurance.
In his current role at HFW as the Global Director of IT, Mark is driving transformational change and is focused on delivering best-in-class technology solutions and acting as the driving force behind HFW's digital transformation focusing on people, process and technology. The mission of his team is to provide an outstanding service to HFW by delivering and supporting robust, secure, flexible and intuitive solutions and to add value to the firm and its clients as a strategic partner through the innovative use of technology.
Mark has a passion for business-led innovation, encouraging understanding, exploration and adoption of new technologies through collaboration across the firm, with HFW clients and external Partners. He is also a champion and industry commentator for greater diversity and inclusion in technology, as well as being incredibly active in promoting the transition and employability of military veterans.
Andy is the Vice President of Product Management at GoCardless, leading a department of highly skilled product managers who are responsible for driving forward the organisation’s product and feature innovations. Andy joined GoCardless in 2020, but has a long and demonstrated history of working in the subscriptions industry for both digital and consumer goods.
Prior GoCardless Andy was the Direct of Product Engineering and Growth at Paws.com, as well at the Director of Payments at Spotify. During his time at Spotify he headed up the payment division and was responsible for global payment acceptance strategy and execution (online and offline) whilst also leading a team of payments operators who managed revenue
streams north of 2 billion transactions/ year.
Andy also has a Master’s Degree in Engineering from the University Cambridge.
Leon Gauhman
Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Elsewhen
Brandie Deignan
CEO, Pier Health Group
Brandie is a sector agnostic leader, having held leadership roles in 4 different sectors so far in her career. She is a mentor, a guest lecturer, a trustee, a non-exec director, a JP, an advisory board member and a CEO by the day oh, plus a twin- mom most of the time!
In early 2021 Brandie joined primary care within NHS as Chief Executive Officer, highlighting that leadership is leadership, and cuts across all sectors. Prior to this role, Brandie was Managing Director at Marco Pierre White Restaurants, cementing her c20 years’ experience in the consumer service delivery industry across hospitality, retail and aviation. Before her MD role, Brandie held senior leadership positions at British Airways Plc, Tesco Plc, Whitbread Plc, Travelodge and Hilton Hotels, where she started her career as a graduate trainee and worked her way up.
A true trailblazer, Brandie was the first female MD to hold her MD role at MPW Restaurants. As of 2020, Brandie was the first black female MD within branded restaurant groups in the UK. Brandie was named as one of the top 15 BAME high fliers in travel and tourism industry and was a finalist at the Black British Business Awards, Senior Leader, Consumer and Luxury. Brandie was voted No 41 of the Top 50 listening leaders and also nominated in the National Diversity Awards for positive role model, gender diversity. Recently, Brandie was nominated in the SheInspires
Awards as an agent of change.
Peter Dignan
Head of Engineering and Customer Engagement, PistonHeads
Pete is currently serving as the Head of Engineering and Consumer Engagement at the enthusiast car website PistonHeads. He is passionate about strategies and innovation to help make the car buying, selling and ownership process less bewildering and easier for people who are looking for premium, performance or collectible cars.
Previously Pete has worked as Head of Architecture for fintech company, Collinson, the leading airport experiences programme implementing bank and credit card benefit solutions across global markets and as Head of Architecture for Haymarket Media Group building unique content to specialist audiences. Pete started his career (after failing at being a professional racing driver) for University of Surrey building one of the first global distance learning MBA experiences back in the early 2000s.
Sam Stamp
Chief Commercial Officer, Makers
Tom Clarke
Chief EV Officer, Abacai
Tom is the Chief EV Officer for insurtech Abacai, where he leads the group’s work on revolutionising insurance for electric cars. He has over a decade of experience in financial services and has been working in the electric vehicle space since 2018. Tom is passionate about the decarbonisation of transport through electrification and was previously Head of EV strategy at LV= General Insurance. He also sits on the advisory board for electric car subscription provider Voltric. Tom has an MBA from Cranfield School of Management and is a chartered fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.
Nermin Magued
VP Digital, Herbalife
15 years of experience in driving digital change, passionate about great digital experiences, change management & leading with purpose. Apart from being a digital expert, Nermin is a certified change management practitioner (APMG) and has vast experience in driving change through digital transformations , business innovations and process simplification.
James Fullarton
VP Commercial IT, Smith & Nephew
James is VP of Commercial IT for Smith + Nephew where he is responsible for all customer experience, commercial excellence and digital health technologies. He believes that technology is at the heart of every business strategy and is driving transformation of how S+N do business by integrating digital technologies and experiences seamlessly across the value chain from marketing right through to the operating theatre and beyond into patient recovery. James has a background of complex transformation having provided digital technology leadership at TUI Travel, Tesco, HMRC, Accenture and Capita.
Jamie Crummie
Co-Founder, Too Good To Go
Jamie Crummie trained as a lawyer before pursuing his mission of fighting food waste. He is the co-founder of Too Good To Go, the world’s largest marketplace for surplus food. The app lets consumers buy unsold food from restaurants and retailers so that it doesn’t go to waste.
Too Good To Go is now active in 17 countries. The market-leading app has 72 million users and 180,000 food businesses signed up, who have rescued over 167 million bags of food collectively.
Jamie was named Sustainability Entrepreneur of the Year at the GB Entrepreneur Awards 2022, a Trailblazing Activist in the 50 Next class of 2021, One Young World’s Entrepreneur of the Year in August 2020, one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in Europe in February 2019.
Rikesh Shah
Open Innovation and Open Data Expert, PA Consulting and Ex-Head of Open Innovation, TfL
Natalia Konstantinova
Architecture Lead in AI, BP
Natalia Konstantinova is a great enthusiast with over 15 years' experience in the application of Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, IT and machine learning technologies to real world problems.
She is currently a Staff Data Scientist at BP and her role is to develop standards and best practices to accelerate the adoption and implementation of AI enabled solutions, and doing so with the right level of compliance and standards within BP.
Natalia got her PhD from the University of Wolverhampton and worked in various fields such as machine translation, ontologies, information extraction, dialogue systems and chat bots.
Natalia is a strong believer that modern technology can transform businesses and our everyday life.
David Venter
Former VP CH Separation Lead, GlaxoSmithKline
Alex Cottrell
Principal Innovation Lead, Zurich
Alex is an experienced product leader with extensive knowledge of developing innovative products directly within large corporations and in consultancy roles. He has 20 year experience of working with global commercial enterprises over multiple industries and also major government agencies. Having co-founded Zurich’s Innovation function he has thorough experience of what it takes to create, mature and lead a successful innovation team inside a large company as well having a wealth of experience of the many pitfalls and complexities. He is passionate about how innovation practices can provide the business with the competitive edge by exploring and developing many more value propositions & business models using customer-centric and evidenced based Lean UX and Product Management approaches.
Lydia Hawthorn
Delivery Director, Cprime
Damian Smith
Chief Technology Officer, Podium Analytics
Damian is one of the most notable technologists within international sport, an expert in Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning and one of the Top 100 most influential people in data and analytics over a 25 year career in Technology across a range of sectors including Defence, Telecoms, FMCG, Sports, Media, Financial Services and Financial Regulation.
Previously, Damian was the Head of IT at the England and Wales Cricket Board where his team pioneered the use of cloud technology, big data and analytics, and artificial intelligence to grow the game, deliver fantastic customer experience and improve athletic performance. Damian tenuously claims responsibility for England winning the 2019 Men’s Cricket World Cup and the 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup. Before Damian realised that his future lay in information technology, he ran pubs, climbed mountains and starred as a body double for Tom Cruise in Hollywood movies.
Jon Jacobs
Portfolio CTO and Delivery Lead, Haleon
Jon is the CTO Portfolio and Delivery Lead for Haleon, delivering transformational change across the whole technology stack within the organisation. Jon was a key member of the team who created Haleon as a new Consumer Healthcare FTSE 20 company, an off-shoot from GSK. Jon’s background before Haleon was working at GSK across many of their global technology change initiatives including Service Now, Automation and the roll-out of one of the largest global single instance of SAP. Previously Jon was a consultant working mainly in Pharmaceutical, Consumer Products and Telecoms industries delivering major change programmes, working for big 5 and smaller consultancy companies.
Bola Adesina
Global Diversity and Inclusion Partner, Legal & General Investment Management
Bola is LGIM’s Global DEI Partner, having previously worked in Technology for 20+ years. Her drive, commitment and advocacy for DEI, cohesion and integration have led to impactful organisational culture transformation.
Bola helps formulate and execute on LGIM’s D&I strategy in alignment with our business priorities through collaborating with global stakeholders in embedding D&I into our core business.
She is founder and Co-Chair of Culture Club, fostering dialogue and creating a safe space for colleagues to share experiences, while enabling an inclusive workplace for future generations.
She is known within the industry for her inclusion work, representing LGIM on industry bodies such as the Investment Association: helping to shape an effective approach to diversity data collection. Bola was also Steerco member and now Ambassador of #talkaboutblack under the Diversity Project. She continues to bring together D&I Leads and Ethnicity Co-chairs to share best practice with the goal of effecting broader sustainable and impactful change. Bola is also a member of the Black Women in Asset Management network, who volunteers on the Impact committee
Bola is a thought-leader, speaker and an award-winning DEI Advocate, who has been instrumental in keeping DEI momentum with the support and commitment of senior leadership.
Matthew Randall
Head of Software Development and Integration, Aston Martin Lagonda
Matthew as Head of Software Development and Integration at Aston Martin Lagonda is in charge of the teams that build all internal Software, Integrations and Business Intelligence solutions, currently transforming and moving to a new ERP solution in Infor LN from AML’s legacy home grown COBOL Solutions.
Working at AML since 2008 starting as a Junior .Net Developer and touching most technical solutions within that time, gaining a lot of insight on Automotive processes and how IT has changed during that time.
More recently Matthew is a founding member of the Diversity and Inclusion network at AML, here they are involved in organising events internally and externally to ensure a more inclusive working environment. As part of this work they are involved in modernising the office space for our new way of working, ensuring the workspace is inclusive of everyone who works and may work in the future at AML.
Lee Wilson
Head of Data Strategy, Royal London
Lee is an experienced leader, passionate about delivering impactful customer, digital and growth strategies for success. She has led strategy and transformation teams in financial services, media, energy, telecommunications, retail to enable businesses to pivot, innovate and scale to access new opportunities within markets.
Lee believes the fusion of shifts in the digital, data and consumer agenda are disrupting every industry. Significant opportunities for value exist for those with an entrepreneurial mindset, and a drive to deliver innovations people will value.
David Johnson
Director of Strategic Architecture, Domo
David Johnson has twelve years of experience delivering and consulting on business intelligence analysis around the world. As Director of Solutions Consulting for Europe, Middle East and Africa, he oversees proof-of-concept and proof-of-value efforts to help customers realise value and derive insights from real-time data.
Prior to relocating to London this past year, David has been based in New York City, Tokyo, and Salt Lake City where his work has spanned corporate and enterprise sales engineering, post-sale technical consulting and implementation, business and marketing analytics, and content development. From breaking ground on the world’s largest (at the time) KPI library to deploying Domo’s product offering to 50,000 people at a multinational conglomerate, David enjoys understanding how companies operate and how he can help them resolve complex issues. This work ethic is also visible in the results he achieves, from helping to double Japan’s share of revenue in six months to landing the first Domo customers and partnerships in Singapore.
Prior to Domo, David planned and delivered field marketing initiatives at Apple. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics with a minor in Business Strategy from Brigham Young University.
James Tomkins
Chief Architect, Met Office
James leads the architecture function at the Met Office which includes setting technology strategy and direction, aligning organisational transformation and providing governance and assurance across delivery programmes. James joined the Met Office in 2012 having spent 15 years leading and managing development teams across a range of organisations including Oracle Corporation (1998-2002) and Landmark Information Group (2006-2012), a leading supplier of geospatial information and services. James led the technical delivery of the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) registers on behalf of the governments of UK and Northern Ireland and is currently leading a number of organisational transformation initiatives including public cloud exploitation.
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