Speakers

Ade Bamigboye, Chief Technology Officer, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Ade has worked across several sectors over the last twenty years, including legal, automotive, publishing, healthcare, retail and non-profit. Leveraging new technology to deliver change and business improvement has been a consistent theme. His current remit includes His remit strategic business engagement, new / disruptive technology and data strategy He is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional, an area that is becoming increasingly important as AI becomes embedded in many of the solutions that drive the delivery of council services.

Ayub Bhayat, Director of Data Services and Deputy Chief Data and Analytics Officer, NHS England
Ayub's career at the NHS spans 18 years, having started as an Information Analyst in 2005. He is passionate about using data to drive transformation that makes a positive difference to how the NHS plans and delivers services for patients.  One of his main objectives is to provide a shared version of the truth to key decision makers that leads to better insights, better data, and better health – now and for future generations. Ayub has led a number of high-profile programmes, including the data infrastructure work that underpinned the Covid-19 Vaccinations programme, as well as the NHS’ data response to the pandemic. He leads the Data Services function for NHS England and he is heading-up the high-profile federated data platform programme which will enable NHS organisations to bring together operational data – currently stored in separate systems – to support staff to access the information they need in order to optimise care delivery for patients. 

Ellen Wilson, EMEA Public Sector Industry Solutions, Amazon Web Services 
Ellen is passionate about how technology can deliver better outcomes for citizens. At AWS, her team works with customers across the public sector to find solutions for their most pressing business challenges. Outside of work, she is a trustee of the Parks’ Trust in Milton Keynes and runs the German Saturday School Milton Keynes.

Major George McCrea, Military Liaison, Defence Digital Foundry, Ministry of Defence
George joined the army in 2007 after working for Lloyds Bank for four years. The subsequent 15 years can be split into two clear phases. For his junior postings he worked in the Close Support and Armoured Engineering environment and was stationed in the UK and Germany. There then came a seismic shift in career path as he studied for a Geospatial MSc. On completion of the course he has had specific roles relating to the military geospatial capability. These roles have been as a specialist advisor in a NATO headquarters where he both commanded a team of geospatial data analysts and was responsible for advising the senior leaders on spatially related situations and solutions. Most recently he has been working in the National Centre for Geospatial Intelligence, firstly in a command and leadership role within 42 Engineer Regiment (Geographic) and then as the Chief of Staff for the Royal Engineers (Geographic) trade with a remit to ensure the capability keeps pace with needs of the end user and technological advances. He has recently moved to Defence Digital Foundry where they look to drive business and battlespace outcomes enabled by product delivery and data exploitation. 

Josh Wahnon, Data Scientist, Hertfordshire County Council
Josh is a data scientist with a love of learning. He is passionate about working hard to understand some of the most complex processes in business and government, and focus on automating them to free up resources and to make better decisions quicker.

Lisa Allen, Director of Data and Tech Services, Open Data Institute
Lisa is a data professional and has led many data teams in the public sector in the UK. She has experience across various data disciplines including open data, data protection, data transformation, and developing data strategies and frameworks to implement data governance. At the ODI, Lisa heads up the Data and Technical Services team. They use their data expertise both internally and externally to make the data ecosystem work better for everyone.

Nick Chapallaz, Managing Director, GeoPlace
Nick is a widely published and highly respected location-based systems and services expert with experience as an advisor to local authorities, central government agencies and private sector businesses. As a member of the original committee for the creation of the BS 7666 Standard for Addressing and a Research Fellow for the National Land Information Service (NLIS), Nick has a deep understanding of the development and adoption of location standards and processes. During the e-Government era he was a lead advisor on high-profile programmes including the e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF), Planning Portal and Transport Direct. Previously, Nick was Director of Business Strategy & Marketing for Esri UK and prior to that a Senior Consultant at Ordnance Survey, helping to revolutionise their business model as well as delivering advisory services for the UK government and the EU. 

Renate Samson, Associate Director (Society, justice & public services), Ada Lovelace Institute 
Renate leads a team that seeks to understand individual and societal needs in relation to data and AI and explores how political choices and public services can be rethought to ensure those needs are met. Before joining Ada,she worked as a digital and data policy advisor and advocate at Which?, the Open Data Institute, in Government and in Parliament. Renate is the former Chief Executive of Big Brother Watch, where she launched the first campaign on the use of biometrics and facial recognition technologies. Prior to working in policy, she made history and arts TV documentaries for the BBC and other international broadcasters.

Richard Smith, Head of Insight, Policy and Strategy, Birmingham City Council
At Birmingham, Richard's role has included managing the process of establishing and developing the Birmingham City Observatory. The observatory is a new resource for the city which publishes data, insight, and intelligence to help a range of different agencies tackle shared issues facing the city. Prior to this, Richard was a public policy researcher, advisor, and strategy specialist for more than 15 years working as a research consultant to produce insight, develop strategy and help deliver action plans for local authorities, national governments, and the European Commission.

Sam Smith, Director of Institute, Socitm 
Sam, the immediate past president of Socitm and assistant director of customer and digital services for Cambridgeshire County Council and assistant director of digital and data services for Peterborough City Council took on this new role in July. The institute will take over Socitm’s activities in areas such as leadership development, research and benchmarking. Smith will oversee its development and contribution to the society’s strategic direction.

Sarah Pena, Head of Emerging Technology and Business Improvement, Swindon Borough Council 
Sarah has been working across tech and data for 30 years, with the first 22 in the private sector at companies such as Dyson and Sophos; she has been with Swindon Borough Council for the past six years and established their emerging technology team four years ago where she’s found success in nurturing a collaborative environment and ecosystem of diverse, inquisitive, entrepreneurial and courageous ‘we’ people who all have common purpose underpinned with ethics and integrity.

Sue Bateman, Chief Data Officer, Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO)
Sue is reponsible for delivering Mission 3 of the DDaT Roadmap and National Data Strategy - working with bodies including the Data Standards Authority - to drive a step change in the way government uses and shares data to transform our services and decision making capability. This work spans data sharing (including ethics), data architecture, data asset management (including open data and knowledge, information and records management) and data capability. Sue previously spent a number of years working on IT and data policy and strategy in GDS and other departments, including leading the international collaboration on the G8 Open Data Charter and establishing the UK government data science programme and partnership.

Dr Susheel Varma, Head of AI and Data Science, Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
Susheel is a technologist with 17+ years of experience in leadership and delivering strategic and technology solutions for complex trans-national clinical and life-science research. In his current role, he provides leadership and coordinates the confluent needs of scientific, data and technology to deliver and operate a cohesive national platform for health data research in the UK. He is also a thought leader in the development of Trusted Research Environments

Tom Smith, Director of Spatial Data Unit and Chief Data Officer, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC)
Tom is the first CDO at the DLUHC – a role that fulfils a lifelong fascination with using data to better understand and tackle public issues. Other roles in government include launching and directing the UK’s Data Science Campus, and as founding director at the UK’s Joint Biosecurity Centre, he developed the initial proposals and built data & data science team of 200+ to deliver a step change in the UK’s pandemic response capability