About

I have spent more than thirty years in technology, most of it working on how organisations store, share, protect and change the way they use information. I now want to put that experience to work on boards, as a non-executive director, trustee or governor.

Background

My working life began in the Royal Air Force, where I served as an airframe technician from 1977 to 1982. Exercises there were watched by umpires who told us, plainly, what had gone wrong. It taught me to challenge people even when that felt awkward. Just as usefully, it taught me to hear criticism as information rather than as an attack.

After the RAF I moved into computing. From 1992 to 2004 I was a director of an IT and technology outsourcing company, and from 2000 to 2007 I was chief technical officer for a London stockbroker, first on an outsourced basis and then as part of its senior leadership team.

Since 2007 I have worked as a contractor and consultant in finance, local government, transport, regulation, nuclear, defence and the charity sector, where mistakes with information have consequences well beyond IT. The work has ranged from information architecture and large Microsoft 365 programmes to Lean and digital change. I am PRINCE2 certified and have held Security Check (SC) clearance.

At an international nuclear organisation with 750 staff across UK sites and Japan, for example, I was architect and project lead for restructuring how information was stored and classified, and for bringing it onto a single controlled platform.

Outside work, I served as a volunteer Special Constable with Kent Police from 2004 to 2012.

How I approach board work

I am not looking to run technology from the boardroom. A board's job is to oversee it: to understand the risks well enough to ask good questions, and to notice when a reassuring answer is not backed by evidence.

The questions I find myself asking most often are simple ones:

• How do we know this control works, rather than just that it exists?
• Who owns this risk from start to finish?
• What would we do if this system, supplier or person were unavailable tomorrow?
• Are we hearing bad news early enough to act on it?

I also pay attention to the everyday signs: how new starters are set up, how leavers are removed, whether people can find what they need without workarounds. In my experience they say more about an organisation than its policies do.

Where I would like to contribute

I am particularly interested in housing, further education, charities and regulated organisations, where technology, data and public trust are closely linked. I live in County Durham and would especially welcome roles in the North East, but can travel to attend board meetings to most parts of the UK if required.

Declaration of interests

Director of U-PM.COM Ltd, an IT consultancy that specialises in technology business transformation.