Major General Tom Copinger-Symes CBE - Director Strategy & Military Digitisation

Ministry of Defence

Tom spent his early career on operations with The Royal Green Jackets (now The Rifles) on operations in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan; and in operational and strategy posts at the Permanent Joint Headquarters and the Ministry of Defence.

In 2014 he formed and commanded 1st Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance Brigade, created to integrate the Army’s intelligence collection and exploitation capabilities. In 2017 he led the ‘Information Manoeuvre’ Project, commissioned by the Army’s Board to explore the benefits of integrating the Army’s information-centric and digital capabilities and to exploit digital technology with new ways of warfare.

In his next post, as a Major General, he commanded those capabilities, pioneering the Army’s response to a new era of great power competition, which culminated in his formation’s re-designation as 6th (UK) Division.

In Aug 19 he took up his current post, newly created to accelerate Defence’s Digital Transformation and increase its adoption and exploitation of digital technology. He reports to the Defence CIO and is the only military officer in the Defence Digital senior leadership team.

Ann Roberts - Chief People Officer

Flo Health

Ann is building rocketship companies in the high-growth tech space. She is the Chief People Officer of Flo, the #1 most downloaded Health app on a mission to improve the health and wellbeing of every girl and woman worldwide. Before Flo Ann was the Group HR Director at Bumble, with previous gigs in Goldman Sachs, Rolls-Royce, Connected Places Catapult and Lebara Mobile. She is interested in all things at the intersection of modern human capital practices, emerging tech, brands that are dripping with purpose, and business results. Born and raised in the Nordics, educated in Bangkok and calling London home since 2008. Ann was the Stonex Scholar at London School of Economics, has an MBA from Imperial College, is a judge at the UK Employee Experience Awards and was the HR Professional of the Year Gold Award Winner in HR Brilliance Awards 2019. When she's not working Ann likes running (away from her twin babies).

Mark Cliffe - BOARD ADVISOR

markcliffe.com

Mark Cliffe is a board advisor and thought leader on the impact of disruptive change. He was previously Chief Economist and Global Head of Research for ING Group, having earlier led similar teams at HSBC and Nomura Research Institute. Beyond his long experience of economic and market forecasting, Mark is a strong advocate of multi-disciplinary and open-source approaches to analyzing rapid political, environmental, technological, social, and behavioural shifts. His farsighted analysis supports executives confronted with longer term strategic challenges to their business models. Over 30 years he has advised a diverse range of clients around the world, built an extensive expert network and developed a global media profile as an incisive commentator. 

Ben Legg - CEO and founder

Digital People International & The Portfolio Collective

Nick Lisher - Chief Commercial Officer

Lingumi

Rich Corbridge - Chief Information Officer

Boots UK and Ireland

Rich is a disruptor in healthcare who has been asked to bring a different type of thinking to the health and beauty retail arena. Rich has been responsible for delivering nationwide genomics programmes, creating a digital fabric for one of the biggest hospitals in the NHS, leading a country from paper to digital healthcare, creating cloud first ‘permission’ for the EU and pushing the boundaries of a CIO and their interaction with business change. He is a believer in the concept of Collaborative Sensemaker. In late 2020 Rich was promoted from the position of Innovation Director to CIO of Boots UK and Ireland, retaining ownership of the innovation agenda as well as the leadership of all things technology related.

Oliver Lewis - Co-Founder

Near Future Society

Oliver Lewis is the co-founder of the Near Future Society, a senior visiting fellow at the University of Southern California and a senior research associate at the University of Oxford.  Previously he built a public sector business for billion-dollar British startup Improbable. He is one of the few technologists who has been deployed to Afghanistan and led efforts to reform how the UK government prepares for emerging technology. He is also the co-founder of Rebellion Defense, based in Washington DC and London, building products for the mission of national defence.

Brandie Deignan - Chief Executive Officer

Pier Health Group

Brandie Deignan takes a vision and makes it reality through sound strategy development and operational excellence. She intuitively sees the threads of opportunity that winds through an organisation, bringing them into a coherent whole, helping others extend their thinking and driving material business advantage. In 2021 Brandie joined primary care within NHS in general practice as Chief Executive Officer. Prior to this role, Brandie was Managing Director of Marco Pierre White Restaurants, cementing her c19 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, Travelodge and Hilton Hotels, where she started her career as a graduate trainee and worked her way up. Brandie has a passion for education and equality and supports a number of schools, colleges and universities in an advisory capacity in this space. Brandie was recently voted No 41 of the Top 50 listening leaders.

James Wehner - Chief Technology Officer

Osprey Charging Network

James is a visionary digital leader with extensive global product experience creating products and services for market-leading organisations, currently revolutionising the Electric Vehicle Charging sector at Osprey Charging. A human focussed problem solver, James believes in delivering technology solutions aimed at making the world a simpler and better place to live for everyone.