Intellect Annual Regent Conference 2009 speakers and panelists
Jeremy Paxman
Jeremy Paxman was born in Yorkshire in 1950 and educated at Malvern and St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.
For three years in the mid-seventies, Jeremy Paxman was based in Northern Ireland, where he covered the Troubles for the BBC. In 1977, he joined the Tonight programme, for which he was a roving reporter. This was followed by five years as a reporter on Panorama, where assignments took him frequently to Africa, the Americas and the Middle East.
Since 1989 he has anchored Britain’s premier news analysis programme, Newsnight (nightly, BBC2). For several years, he also presented Start The Week on BBC Radio Four. He became chairman of University Challenge in 1994. He has written widely for newspapers and magazines.
His books include A Higher Form of Killing (with Robert Harris), Through the Volcanoes: A Central American Journey; Friends in High Places: Who Runs Britain?; Fish, Fishing and The Meaning of Life; and the best-sellers The English: A Portrait of a People and The Political Animal: An Anatomy. On Royalty was published by Penguin in 2006.
His charitable interests include homelessness, mental health and education. In his spare time, he goes fly-fishing.
Awards include: Royal Television Society: Award for International Current Affairs, 1985. Voice of the Viewer and Listener: Award for best contribution to Television, 1993 and 1997. BAFTA: Richard Dimbleby Award, 1996 and 1999. Royal Television Society: Interview/Presenter of the Year 1997, 1998, and 2001 Broadcasting Press Guild: Award for best TV Performer in a non-acting role 1997. Variety club: Media Personality of the Year, 1999.
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Paul Robinson Director, Chief Sterling Strategist Paul Robinson is a Director and Chief Sterling Strategist in the FX strategy team at Barclays Capital.
Mr. Robinson joined Barclays Capital in October 2006 from the Bank of England where he spent 11 years. For most of that time he worked in Monetary Analysis, the part of the Bank of England charged with briefing and doing background research for the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).
In his last year at the Bank of England, Mr. Robinson headed the UK Conjunctural Assessment team and was responsible for briefing the MPC on current state and short-term prospects of the UK macro economy. Part of the job was to present to the MPC before their monthly rate decision meetings.
Previously Mr. Robinson had worked on inflation issues, developments in the German economy, the exchange rate and managed a team which assessed the information contained in equity and derivative prices. Mr. Robinson also spent three years working with central bankers from emerging market economies, training them in economic modelling and forecasting.
John Gantz Chief Research Officer and Senior Vice President IDC
As Chief Research Officer and Senior Vice President of IDC, John Gantz has responsibility for IDC’s worldwide demand-side research, global market models, and research quality control and standards. He is also a member of IDC's management committee, chief architect of IDC's Worldwide Digital Marketplace Model (formerly the Worldwide Internet Commerce Market Model, TM,) IT Economic Impact Model, and PC Software Piracy research. He is one of IDC's chief spokespersons on broad technology and market issues at major forums in the United States and around the world.
Prior to joining IDC in September 1992, Mr. Gantz was vice president and chief analyst for Dataquest and director of that company's Software Research Group. Before joining Dataquest in 1991, Mr. Gantz was executive vice president of TFS, Inc., a custom research and consulting company that he co-founded in 1983.
Mr. Gantz has been an IT industry analyst and columnist for more than 30 years. His publications and columns have appeared in Fortune, Forbes, Computerworld, Infoworld, Computer Graphics World, and Industry Week. Additional national and international exposure has come through quotes in all major business publications, interviews on CNN, NBC, Reuters, Bloomberg and other network news shows, and chairperson assignments at major computer industry trade shows. For the last five years, he has also been a judge of the CIO China awards. Most recently, he has become IDC's chief spokesperson on the issue of digital piracy.
Mr. Gantz is a graduate of Dartmouth College, former Navy submarine officer, and co-author of Pirates of the Digital Millennium (Prentice Hall 2005) and The Naked Computer (Morrow, 1983). He has run two Boston Marathons and hiked the Appalachian Trail end-to-end (1973). He is married with two sons.
David Keene Vice President Large Enterprise Marketing and Competition SAP EMEA
David is Vice President at SAP responsible for Solution Marketing and Competitive Programs across the EMEA region.
He previously worked at Oracle Corporation where he held an executive position within the California based technology company's Fusion Middleware Product Division, leading the growth and adoption of Oracle Fusion Middleware and the subsequent initiatives around Oracle Fusion. Prior to Oracle, David held IT positions within the banking, insurance and financial services industries.
Ben Heald, CEO, Sift
Ben Heald is the CEO of Sift, one of the UK's leading online publishers and strategic website engineers. Sift has 110 staff, is based in Bristol and had revenues in 2008 of over £7m.
Ben launched AccountingWEB in May 1997, which is now one of the UK’s largest online professional publishing businesses. He also took responsibility for the subsequent launch of AccountingWEB US, TrainingZone, LawZone and TravelMole; all similar online publishing businesses. He acted as the first editor, then Community Director of AccountingWEB, then Director of Communities for Sift. He also took the lead in raising Sift's two rounds of external finance in 1999 and 2000. In 1999 he also formed PracticeWEB, Sift’s Software as a Service business for the UK accountancy market. He was appointed CEO of Sift in 2002.
Having studied psychology at Bristol University, Ben trained as an accountant with KPMG, spending six years in their London office, and then 3 years running his own accounting and consulting practice.
His thirteen years at Sift has given him a wide range of experience building and launching products within the technical sector and developing online communities.
Jon Moulton Managing Partner Alchemy
Jon Moulton is Managing Partner of Alchemy, a UK-based private equity firm, which has invested £2.0 billion of equity with an emphasis on dealing with troubled companies. Alchemy also has a £300m European special opportunities fund investing principally in distressed debt.
He is a Chartered Accountant, a CF and Fellow of the Institute for Turnaround Professionals. He previously worked with Citicorp Venture Capital in New York and London, Permira and Apax. He has been a director of five public companies, numerous private companies and is currently a director of the US-based Irvin parachute business, the Cedar IT business and Sylvan (timber) amongst others. He is an active angel investor.
Peter Rowell, Executive Chairman, Regent Partners
Peter Rowell is Executive Chairman of Regent Partners International Ltd (formerly Regent Associates Ltd), the company he founded in 1987. Over the years he has built it to become Europe’s leading specialist provider of acquisition and corporate finance services to the technology industry. Based in the UK and operating throughout the world, Regent consistently heads league tables regarding the number of transactions completed in the sector.
Prior to that, Peter was President and CEO of International Data Corporation (IDC), responsible for the worldwide operatfions of the market research and consulting group. He also served on the main board of IDC’s parent company, International Data Group, the $3 billion a year information services organisation.
Peter is regarded as an authority on the changing structure of the technology industry. He speaks regularly at international conferences, appears on television and is often quoted in the press. He is an occasional lecturer at the London Business School. On various occasions he has been voted as being one of the most influential people in the UK and European technology industry. Likewise over the years, Regent has received various awards as “Advisor of the Year”.
Kate Craig-Wood, Managing Director, Memset
After completing her MSc is in Biomedical science, Kate joined Arthur Andersen business consulting as IT consultant. She went on to head business development for Easyspace and subsequently formed Memset Dedicated Hosting with her brother, Nick, in late 2002.
Memset is Britain's first Carbon Neutral ISP and has won a number of awards for innovation, service and IT strategy including been voted best UK Web host 2006 & 2007 by PCPro magazine.
Kate sits the main & operations boards of Intellect, the UK's high-tech trade association (whose members represent 10% of UK GDP), is a director of the Surrey chambers of commerce and the vice-chair of her local IOD branch. Through those positions she works to represent the needs of high-growth, innovative, technology SME's and also champions the cause of women in IT (she is one of Intellect's two spokespeople on the subject).
She is also passionate about “green IT”, is part of Intellect’s directorial steering group on energy & environment, and sits on the BCS's Data Centre Specialist Group committee.
Ian Smith, Managing Partner, AndersonBick Consultants LLP
Having retired from Oracle in November 2008, Ian set up his own company, a new consultancy for executives and their immediate support, providing coaching, change management, non-financial due diligence, and customer centricity, as well as coaching, mentoring and a PA/concierge service for executive support.
As Regional Senior Vice President for Oracle UK, Ian managed the UK, Ireland, South Africa & Israel until his retirement. The longest-serving MD in Oracle UK’s history, Ian led the organisation through the dotcom boom and bust and continual changes in the IT market changes, both in the UK and globally.
Prior to his role at Oracle, Ian was Managing Director of BT UK Customer Service, one of the largest divisions in BT and probably the largest customer service organisation in Europe.
Ian also has held many leadership and counsel positions outside of his work role, as well as several fellowships. Previously, Ian:
Currently, Ian continues his leadership in the following organisations:
Tudor Aw Partner, KPMG
Tudor is a Partner in KPMG’s London office having just completed a four year secondment in the US where he was based in Washington DC and New York. He has over 20 years experience of working with clients in the technology, media and communications sectors where his main focus has been on helping clients manage risk, evaluate strategic opportunities and achieve operational improvements. He plays a leading role on KPMG’s digital services which encompasses development of thought leadership material and delivery of solutions to clients on the topics of convergence and digital content. Tudor has worked extensively on projects in the US, UK, Belgium, Germany as well as Antigua, Australia, France, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan and Singapore.
Richard Holway Chairman TechMarketView LLP
Richard Holway is considered to be one of the UK's leading ICT analysts.
Richard started in computing in 1966 as a programmer, joined Hoskyns (now Capgemini) in 1968 and progressed to join the board in 1979 as Group Marketing Director. In 1984, Richard was appointed Managing Director of Wootton Jeffreys plc before forming Richard Holway Limited in 1986.
Richard Holway Limited became the leading authority on the financial performance of the UK software and IT services market and its constituent companies. Richard launched the annual Holway Report in 1988. In 1989 he published the first edition of the monthly newsletter SYSTEMhouse and, in 1996, the Hotnews internet news service - one of the very first technology "blogs". www.ukHotViews.com is the current manifestation of Hotnews and is required daily reading for thousands of tech CEOs and directors.
In November 2000 Richard Holway Limited was acquired by Ovum and the service continued as Holway@Ovum. Richard was appointed as a director of Ovum as well as continuing as a leading analyst with Ovum.
In March 2006 Ovum successfully IPOed on AIM at 190p. In Dec. 06, Datamonitor acquired Ovum for £42m/300p; a considerable premium. Richard stepped down from the board at that time.
In 2002, Richard was one of the founding members of the Prince's Trust Technology Leadership Group and has raised over £6m for the Trust since. Richard's annual speeches have themselves raised over £700,000 to help disadvantaged young people. Richard became the Chairman of the Group in Apr 07.
Richard has considerable experience as an NED (both of private and publicly quoted companies) and as an advisor to the boards of leading ICT companies. Currently, Richard sits on the advisory board at Elderstreet Capital Partners.as a non executive director at the publicly quoted RCM Technology Trust plc and as a non executive director on the board of Regent Partners International Ltd - the holding company of M&A specialists Regent Associates.
Richard joined forces with Anthony Miller once again in October 2008 to launch a new UK IT research venture, TechMarketView LLP, where he is now Chairman.
Tony Lavender Managing Partner Analysys Mason
Tony Lavender (Managing Partner) joined Analysys Mason in 2007. Tony leads Analysys Mason's research capability and specialises in industry strategy issues. Prior to Analysys Mason Tony led a large research programme at Ovum, where he had been since 1999, covering the telecoms, software and IT services sectors Before Ovum, Tony spent two years at Oftel working on competition and technology issues. He started his career at BT where he worked in several roles over an 18 year Period. Tony is a Chartered Engineer and he has a degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering.
Ashley Highfield, Managing Director & VP, Consumer & Online UK Microsoft
Ashley Highfield is Managing Director & VP, Consumer & Online UK. Consumer and Online is a newly established global organisation within Microsoft which brings together consumer facing products and services across PC, mobile and internet platforms to deliver a seamless experience.
This new organisation focuses on building a connection with consumers and growing our online advertising business and Highfield is responsible for driving all the sales, marketing, content & programming, business development, partner efforts and operations for Windows, Windows Mobile, Windows Live, MSN, Live Search and Microsoft Advertising.
Highfield joined Microsoft in January 2009 from Kangaroo, the proposed video-on-demand joint venture between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. As Chief Executive he was responsible for developing the service as well as garnering partner and industry support to deliver a web proposition to offer an unparalleled range of quality TV programmes on-demand. Previously he was Director of New Media & Technology and an executive board member for the BBC where most recently he launched the BBC iPlayer, as well as being responsible for all of the BBC’s online portfolio at bbc.co.uk, and the BBC’s interactive TV and mobile services. He also had responsibility for managing the BBC's technology, research and innovation portfolio.
Educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, Highfield started his career as a computer programmer before becoming a management consultant. He worked in the TMT sector for Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) for six years, working in post-apartheid South Africa for two and a half years. In 1994 he returned to the UK to become head of IT and New Media for NBC Europe. He then joined Flextech TV — a pay-TV channel provider — where he worked for five years as managing director of interactive services. While at Flextech he founded Flextech Interactive and invested in online ticketing agency WayAheadGroup and mapping company Multimap.
Highfield has won several awards, including the following:
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