People | The Connect Conference 2020

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October 13th 2020 - October 14th 2020 | Virtual Conference

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People

Chairs

Jos Creese
Jos Creese

CEO, CCL and Past President of SOCITM and BCS

With over 30 years IT leadership experience, Jos has held a variety of CIO roles and non-executive director positions.  He is a recognised independent analyst and researcher, strategic advisor for multiple IT businesses, past President of Socitm, and also of the BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. He chairs the Open University ‘School of Computing’ Industrial Advisory Board and is a non-exec on the Risk and Audit Committee for the Department of International Trade, covering cyber and digital risk.  

For over a decade Jos was CIO and latterly CDO for Hampshire County Council, leading a range of ground-breaking shared services and achieving national recognition with a range of awards for IT innovation.  He has worked with national and international governments on IT programmes and has led large-scale mergers, and the start-up and subsequent sale of a tech business. Previously listed as the ‘most influential and innovative CIO’ in the UK, he now operates as an independent consultant, advising public and private sectors on digital and IT strategy.  

Speakers

Mark Mitchell
Mark Mitchell, Checkpoint

Security Engineer, Check Point Software Technologies

Mark Mitchell is a Security Engineer for Check Point in Scotland and works specifically with Public Sector and Major Account clients.
With over 25 years’ experience in IT, in both the commercial and public sectors in Scotland, Mark has worked as an end user and supplier in these environments  including international research projects with CERN, the Urban Big Data Centre at the University of Glasgow and as a supplier to public bodies in a number of commercial roles.

 

Morag Campsie
Morag Campsie, Audit Scotland

Senior Audit Manager, Audit Scotland

Morag has worked for Audit Scotland for nearly 13 years covering both financial and performance audit. Most recently, Morag has led on a number of national performance audits looking at digital and ICT projects and programmes across government. She also leads Audit Scotland’s data analytics group.

Alison McLaughlin
Alison Mclaughlin, Head of Digital Transformation, ScotGov

Head of Digital Transformation, Scottish Government

Alison leads the Digital Transformation Division within the Scottish Government. She is seconded into this role from Sopra Steria under the First Minister’s Digital Fellowship Programme. In this role she is responsible for supporting central government digital transformation through engagement on key policy area programmes and delivery of cross-cutting platforms and services. Alison is also the vice chair of ScotlandIS, the trade body that champions the digital technologies industry in Scotland.

Ruchir Shah
Ruchir Shah

Director of External Affairs, Scottish Wildlife Trust

Director of External Affairs for the Scottish Wildlife Trust, and formerly head of policy and campaigns for the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Ruchir has been a leading light in mobilising civil society around the Open Government and Sustainable Development Goals. He was, for a number of years, a member of the grants panel for the Scottish Government's Climate Challenge Fund, is a member of the Government's Data Delivery Group, and an elected member of the UK Open Government Steering Group. In his current role, Ruchir is also supporting sector-wide development around Conservation Finance and Digital Transformation within the environment sector.

Peter Tolland
Peter Tolland

Head of Digital Directorate Programmes, Scottish Government

Peter leads the teams at the Scottish Government implementing the digital ecosystem including the delivery of corporate digital services, platforms and products. He is chair of the ‘Once for Scotland’ Public Sector Collaboration Forum, and the Scottish Government Platform Design Authority. He is also a member of the national Data Delivery Group, a committee member with Socitm. and is a lead assessor for the Digital Scotland Service Standard.

Peter has extensive experience across the public, private, educational and voluntary sectors previously holding positions at North Lanarkshire Council, Stirling Council, Polaroid, Littlewoods and Pilkington.

 

Benjamin Welby
Benjamin Welby

Policy Analyst, OECD

Benjamin Welby’s work on digital government and data for the OECD has included country reviews of Panama, Slovenia and Chile and thematic work on data in the public sector, digital identity, service design and delivery, digital skills and the impact of digital government on citizen well-being. He's also contributed to the development of the conceptual framework underpinning the OECD's Digital Government Index, the first pilot results of which will launch in late 2020. 

Benjamin started his career in UK local government before moving to central government and spending 6 years with the Government Digital Service. During his time at GDS he was part of the team that launched GOV.UK and went on to have product management responsibility for GOV.UK’s first general election, the Performance Platform, Government as a Platform and the Digital Marketplace. He also sat on the Spend Controls Approval Board and acted as a Lead Assessor for Service Standard Assessments.

 

Katrina Hassell
Katrina Hassell

Head of Business Solutions, North Lanarkshire Council 

Thirty years public sector experience combined with a CIPFA Fellowship have enabled Katrina to develop an excellent understanding of the strategic challenges facing local government. Her current role has responsibility for driving forward delivery of the modern, digitised services and solutions considered essential for the council to achieve its ambition of inclusive growth and prosperity for all. Katrina developed a keen interest for the public sector whilst studying for her Accountancy degree. Her career started in Local Government Finance, and then took various twists and turns, with Katrina delivering against a range of roles including systems development, treasury management, project management, change management and relationship management. Katrina is committed to best value public sector delivery, and works hard to maintain effective partnerships, good employee relations, and a flexible workforce, as all are essential to delivering on North Lanarkshire Council’s exciting transformation programme and ambition. Katrina has Company Director experience, is a member of the Council’s Corporate Management Team, Chair of various strategic groups including Data Governance Board and Enterprise Architecture Governance Group, and has previously held advisory roles on various professional forums.

Kate Forbes, MSP
Kate Forbes

Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Scottish Government

As a backbencher, Kate has served on the Scottish Parliament's Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, the Health and Sport Committee and the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. She also served as Parliamentary Liaison Officer for Finance and the Constitution.

As well as leading a campaign to ban plastic straws, Kate has participated in several cross party groups at Holyrood including Crofting, Gaelic, Human Trafficking, Palliative Care and Rural Policy. A fluent Gaelic speaker, Kate made history earlier this year by becoming the first female MSP to give a plenary speech entirely in Gaelic in the current Scottish Parliament chamber.

Hazel Archer
Hazel Archer

Head of Programme - Near Me, Scottish Government

Hazel is a Statistician by training and has a background in IT and Project Management. She joined the Health Service in 2003, as a project manager to set up a paediatric telehealth service before joining the Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare. She currently leads the Scottish Governments Near Me Programme, supporting the scale up of video consulting across health, care and the wider public sector.

Nicola Robinson
Nicola Robinson, NHS Ayrshire & Arran

Project Manager, NHS Ayrshire and Arran

Project Manager, Digital Services within the Technology Enabled Care (TEC) team at NHS Ayrshire and Arran. I have worked with the TEC team for over 5 years, initially leading the local evaluation as Senior Information Analyst, and more recently project managing the design and implementation of remote health pathways, to support community and hospital based services and their patients to work together differently, using technology.

Heather Robb
Heather Robb

Chief Digital Officer, City of Edinburgh Council

I am a Digital leader with over 20 years experience in technology. Responsible for all aspects of technology delivery in City of Edinburgh Council. Passionate about all things data and the potential of technology to help transform the work of the Council and to use technology to ensure that Edinburgh is the best place to live, work and visit.

Sof Socratous
Sof Socratous, VP - Northern Europe, Poly

Vice President - Northern Europe, Poly

Sofocles is Northern Europe VP at Poly, previously Plantronics and Polycom. Sofocles – or Sof, as he is known - has over 20 years of experience in the technology and communications sector and achieving success with Hybrid teams. Previously Sof has had an illustrious career at Seagate Technology where he was EMEA VP for Sales, Marketing and Business Operations. Most recently Sof was EMEA General Manager at Bitnine, a developer of SaaS and enterprise software solutions.

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