Amitabh Apte is the Global Director, Digital Data & Analytics at Mars. He leads the global efforts to drive Digital Solutions, Consumer Data Platform, APIs, Data Lake and Analytics Solutions across all the global Mars business divisions; Chocolate, Pet Nutrition, Foods. Previously, he was the Chief Technology Officer for Reckitt Benckiser Group. Earlier in his career, he held positions across USA, India and Europe at firms including Deutsche Bank, Fujitsu, SITA, Star Alliance and Adidas. Ranked as one of the 2018 and 2019’s Top 100 UK IT Leaders by Computing Magazine, Amitabh has a 20-year track record in delivering successful Digital Technology experiences across a range of industries and global markets. He holds an MBA from the University of Warwick with Distinction, and an MS in Computer Science with Distinction from the University of Pune.

Chris Ashworth is an inspirational IT leader and CIO at Hermes UK, the second largest consumer delivery company after Royal Mail. Hermes successfully delivers over 390 million parcels each year on behalf of the UK’s leading retailers. Ashworth, a strategic decision-maker with FTSE 100 experience, has completely transformed the IT across every part of the organisation. He introduced an over-arching strategy to support growth and satisfy increased retailer and consumer demand for richer products, real-time data and different end-point delivery solutions. Ashworth’s ambitious transformation included huge investments in IT, digital, infrastructure and operational development programmes to re-platform the business on a cutting edge, scalable infrastructure. It is designed to prioritise customer experience and ultimately remove any IT bottlenecks related to volume or speed of data. Ashworth’s remit has recently grown to include marketing and product development, it provides an exciting opportunity to give the business direction as a consumer facing brand, showcasing the innovative new technology which is putting the customer experience at its heart. The transformation has been evidenced by a record-breaking peak, profits and growth which included the busiest day in the company’s history. The business is now in a position to reassure clients that Hermes’ technology is market leading, future proof and designed to deliver exactly what they need, and this is driving long term commercial partnerships.

Richard Bevan is Associate Director for Operational Technology and is accountable for all operational technology services across the Met Office. During the 22 years he has worked at the Met Office, Richard has undertaken a variety of different technology roles including software developer, solutions architect and platforms manager, across a number of high-profile projects within the organisation. In recent years he has moved into a variety of senior leadership roles within the Technology department. Currently leading a team of 350 staff and contractors, Richard has been key in the work invested in recent years to mobilise the workforce and in supporting the adoption of AWS cloud services at the Met Office transforming how services are provided to customers, stakeholders and the general public. He is passionate about getting the best from people and technology to deliver real value back to the business.

Andy is Chief Digital Information Officer at Kettering General Hospital and was one of the first NHS CDIOs in the country to be appointed at a Board level. Prior to joining Kettering, Andy worked at NHS Digital and was the Programme Director for the NHS App, which went from a concept to availability in the App stores in little over a year. Andy previously was Head of Technology Delivery for NHS.UK, the national website for the NHS in England, which receives c40m visits a month. Andy oversaw the technology refresh of the site during which time NHS.UK had the highest period of availability and reliability in its 10 year history. Andy is a passionate public servant who sees massive potential to improve patient and staff experience using technology, but starting with understanding their user needs.

I'm responsible for all things technology at this Multi-channel, international brand. From strategy, through to building a digital workplace. Since joining White Stuff I've instigated a digital business transformation, building agile teams and empowering them to deliver on customer experience, process efficiency and platforms for growth. Whilst a lover of technology itself, I'm more energised by building technology strategies and creating great teams. Clearing the path for them to deliver great things. I'm also a coach, as I Iove the people side of being a tech leader. Over my career I've always derived the biggest satisfaction from transformations in tech, people and ways of working. Implementing an ERP in a global wholesale business, a new web platform to accelerate growth in a global brand or introducing continuous delivery to transform a stale customer experience. No problem too big or small to make a difference! Outside of work I'm a coach, fitness fan and (most importantly!) dad and husband.

After a varied career in Barclays Bank, with roles ranging from marketing to business transformation, Jane became Head of IT at RNIB where she restructured the IT function and architecture, established business partnerships and, through her new team, established corporate project management disciplines. Following her success at RNIB, Jane moved to Citizens Advice as CIO; a role that brought significant challenges, including transformation of the IT function and successful delivery of a complex Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation. Jane then moved into a consultancy role to exercise her broad skills in change, operating models, stakeholder management and IT in the charity and public sectors. She joined the Law Society in December 2016 as IT Director, supporting a major business transformation programme, and transitioning from a shared service to establish the Law Society’s own dedicated IT team.

Charles Ewen is the Technology Director, CIO and SIRO at the Met Office and accountable for the technology theme. The Met Office operates an extensive observations network, one of the largest operational supercomputer platforms in the world as well as a large technology estate to enable the organisation to meet its aim to “help you make better decisions to stay safe and thrive.” Charles is an Executive Director and as such also plays a role in the longer-term vision and mission of the organisation and ensuring that relevant emerging technologies are recognised and exploited if appropriate. As a public body, the Met Office supports UK Government as well as industry and the citizen. Charles is also an active STEM ambassador as well as having a number of secondary roles advising in industry and government.

Matt is currently the EMEA Chief Technology Officer at McCann Worldgroup. In this position Matt is responsible for aligning technology vision with business strategy through the effective implementation of technology-driven business solutions across the region. Most recently, Matt led a global digital transformation programme built on the foundation of an Office365 migration for McCann Worldgroup’s 20,000 global staff. Previously, Matt worked at the BBC where he was responsible for driving the Enterprise IT technology innovation and the development of a clear IT systems and technology strategy. Matt led the creation of an Enterprise IT Product Team who were responsible for transforming all Enterprise IT services consumed by BBC staff. Matt has held senior IT leadership roles in a variety of other companies throughout his career, including ServiceNow, the Newspaper Licencing Agency and Microsoft.

I am currently Head of ICT Operations at Imperial College London, where I have been for 5 years. I have had exposure to a change agenda which includes Data Centre Transformation, Renovating the core of ICT infrastructure, Ensuring that Risk is changed to Resilience and working across Research, Education and Business Service Lines to deliver on multi-stream projects. Prior to Imperial College I have worked mostly in private sector: Managed Services, Banking, Insurance, and Outsourcing, with some exposure to Local Government too. I am a trained coach and Culture is as important to me as the Technology agenda.

As Chief Architect at King’s College London Ian is proud to work for an organisation ranked 5th in the world for its social and economic contribution. He has experienced the good, the bad and the ugly in digital transformations over the last 20 years supporting global enterprises threatened by disruption, helping them rapidly change and diversify in order to survive and then thrive. As a problem solver he was attracted to industries in the first wave of disruption - newspapers then music and financial services - and supported growth through digital innovations such as price comparison sites, predictive analytics, automated supply chains, consignment trading, online subscription based business models, machine learning and automation. Outside work he has survived olympic black runs, white water rapids, scuba dives on the Great Barrier Reef, camel treks in the Thar desert, playing cricket at Lords and dancing (very badly) on stage during the final of Britain’s Got Talent. Ian deeply regrets every mistake he has made but takes inspiration from Winston Churchill: "Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm"

Ian joined Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in February 2017, bringing with him over 19 years of senior IT leadership experience in both private and public sectors. Most recently, Ian spent 5 years as Chief Technology Officer at City University London and during this time, Ian led the far-reaching transformation activities which delivered outstanding, highly-available and highly-resilient infrastructure services. Ian’s private sector experience includes 6 years as Technical Services Director at Genesys Conferencing Ltd., where he was responsible for the provision of ‘always-on’ IT, web and telecoms services. Ian lives in a leafy suburb on the Hertfordshire/Middlesex border with his wife, 3 (unfeasibly loud) children and many, many guitars.

After gaining a degree in Quantity Surveying, and spending 8 years as a Surveyor, he started to specialise in the implementation of UNIX-based multi-user computer systems. In 1993, Alan joined Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) and was soon promoted to Systems Manager implementing a Works Ordering system plus a GPS based system for road inspections. In 1999, Alan became an Applications Manager for CCC, heading a team responsible for the implementation and support of Social Care based IT systems. In 2003 he became the ICT Development Manager and worked with Central Government on mobile computing. Over the years, Alan has gained experience in IT strategy, cloud computing and mobile computing. He is an experienced public speaker having participated in numerous conferences and panel discussions. He is a great advocate for new ways of working and currently has a keen interest in Augmented Reality and IoT. He is currently the Chief Architect for the Cambridgeshire IT Service.

Aubrey Stearn, currently CTO of the Nationwide Digital Accelerator Platform, she deeply believes that the DevOps movement redefines what we need to nurture and grow in our current and future engineers, actively seeks to build super awesome teams of excellent people.