Geoff Huggins is Director for Digital at the Scottish Government.  Previously he was Director of the NHS Education Scotland Digital Service working to create the NHS National Digital Platform.  From 2013 to 2018 he was Director for Health and Social Care Integration and from 2017 to 2018 also Director for Digital Health and Social Care.  Prior to that he was Head of Mental Health for nine years.  From 1991 to 1998 he worked for the Northern Ireland Office working on security and political development.  He holds degrees in law and criminology from Queen’s University, Belfast.  He is a non-executive director of Cornerstone, Penumbra and the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership.  He runs a little, takes photographs and watches films.  

Steph Wright has a diverse background ranging from astrophysics to genomics in academia and film & TV to dance in the arts and the third sector. A project and programme management professional with extensive experience in the data and AI space, she loves to develop and build collaborations across organisations to help people with their data/AI journey. Steph led on Data Lab’s efforts in support of the Scottish Government in developing Scotland’s AI Strategy and she’s now leading on the delivery of the strategy’s vision for Scotland to be a leader in the development and use of trustworthy, ethical and inclusive AI. She is also Co-Founder of Diverse AI, a not-for-profit working to support and grow diversity in AI. 

Hugh Wallace is Chief Information Officer at Research Data Scotland (RDS), an organisation that helps researchers find and make use of data that can improve the lives of people in Scotland.

Prior to RDS, Hugh led a high-profile programme to deliver a common payments platform in Scottish Government and support digital service development within Scotland’s Social Security agency. His previous roles include leading the digital teams at Oxfam and National Museums Scotland, as well as heading up the design function in a digital agency.

Andrew began his career in Technology within Civil Engineering sector with focus on technology solutions across transport systems. Following this, he moved into Digital & Transformation leadership roles in Construction and Utilities sectors.  

Moving into Energy Retail & Trading sectors – he held a senior leadership role with Gazprom Energy – Leading on Digital, Transformation, Integration and the Target Operating Model development across Europe, Americas and Asia Pacific. He went on to Fulfilling a range of Board and Executive roles across global oil and gas businesses where he led digitally enabled transformation programmes and redesigned digital first operating models. 

In September 2019 Andrew was appointed as Police Scotland’s Chief Digital and Information Officer. Joining the Police Scotland Executive Command & Leadership Team, Andrew oversees a wide portfolio which consists of Transformation, Digital Division, Service Design and Innovation.  

He is the Senior Responsible Officer for – Digital Strategy, Modernised Contact & Engagement, Digital Evidence Sharing Capability, Digitally Enabled Policing, Body Worn Video, Mobile Working and Unified Communications & Contact Platform. 

From the public to the private sectors and back again, Scott has worked in information and cyber security for the past 17 years. Latterly the Deputy CISO at TSB Bank, he joined NHS Scotland NSS in September of this year. As Head of Information and Cyber Security he leads the mission to deliver a world class cyber security operations capability for Scotland’s Health Sector. He is excited by the opportunities that new technologies and ways of working bring to society and an advocate of cohesive security strategies presented in everyday language that’s understood by users, managers and decision makers alike. 

Gillian Docherty is chief commercial officer at the University of Strathclyde.  Gillian has responsibility for Innovation & Industry Engagement, Research & Knowledge Exchange Services, Campus Services and Marketing & Development. As a member of the Executive Team, she works across the institution to drive forward the University’s sector-leading activities with industry and support Scotland and the UK’s economic recovery from the global pandemic.

As a leading international technological University, we are extremely proud of our network of partners across business and industry in the UK and globally. Our approach to collaboration is accelerating the development of new technologies, helping companies compete internationally, informing public policy and supporting the economy.

Prior to joining the University in 2022, Gillian was the Chief Executive of The Data Lab,

Scotland’s innovation centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence with a mission to help Scotland maximise value from data and lead the world to a data-powered future.

Gillian was appointed an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2019 for Services to Information Technology and Business.

Gillian is Chair of CodeBase, who help people build better tech startups and make make startups accessible to everyone.

Gillian was appointed Chair of Scotland’s AI Alliance, created to drive forward the recommendations in the AI Strategy for Scotland.

Formerly of IBM, Gillian is a TED speaker and was named Digital Leader 2018 for the UK, she received an Outstanding Achievement Award at Scotland’s Women in Technology Awards in 2019.

Gillian was named CEO of the year at the Digital Technology Awards 2017 and was also in the UK’s top ten most influential people in data according to DataIQ.

Gillian is President of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, a trustee of Beyonder Involve Charity and an Industry advisor to several Startups.

Jane is the CEO of South of Scotland Enterprise, the newest enterprise agency in Scotland established on 1st April 2020. SOSE is the first of Scotland’s public agencies whose legislation promotes a wider view on the economy and how it impacts all we do, with a focus on the wellbeing of communities, the economy, and the environment across the South. 

Previously, Jane was the CEO of ScotlandIS, the industry body and cluster management organisation for the digital and technology industries in Scotland. She worked on Connecting Scotland (the SG-led digital inclusion programme), and the Digital Nation Challenge in partnership with the SG’s Digital Directorate. 

Prior to this, Jane was CEO of Taigh Cearsabhagh in North Uist, and Business Development Director with Capgemini Scotland. She is also a highly experienced consulting industry executive, a former strategy and transformation specialist with 25 years’ experience working across the public and private sector. She holds board and advisory positions with a number of organisations, is a Fellow of the RSA, Chair of a Scottish Charity in Dumfries, sits on the Civtech Strategic Advisory Board, the NSET Portfolio Board, the Scottish Energy Advisory Board, and Chairs the NSET Entrepreneurial Advisory Board. 

Alan has worked with data for over 33 years, with his first system analysing “Mushroom Compost” back in 1986 before starting his Computer Science degree course. He got into spatial data in 2000 and hasn’t looked back, working with some of the biggest spatial data organisations in the UK. Alan joined Registers of Scotland in 2016 as their Data Architect and in 2019 became their first Chief Data Officer.

Ann-Marie was appointed by NHS 24 as Chief Information Officer in April 2017 leads the Information, Communication and Technology directorate.

Ann-Marie has over twenty years of IT experience and has held a number of senior roles across the public and private sectors including Chief Information Officer for National Trust for Scotland, Chief Information Officer for Care Visions Group, Head of Technology for Glasgow City Council and Compliance and Data Warehousing Manager for National Australia Group Europe.  Prior to this Ann-Marie held a number of technology based positions after graduating with a B.Eng in Software Engineering.  This was a significant change in having started her career as a State Enrolled Nurse.

Nia is an experienced leader of digital transformation who has helped the Scottish public sector deliver services that are more efficient to run and meet the raised expectations of today’s customers. She now helps organisations transition to working in the cloud.
Before that Nia spent 19 years working in both the Welsh and English public sector delivering policy improvements, community development, digital connectivity and business transformation.

Lucy is Head of Innovation at Albyn Housing Society Ltd, and has over 20 years experience within the social housing sector. Recently she has been leading the technology side of a multi-agency City Region Deal and KTP innovation project in partnership with NHS Highland and Highland Council to develop a technology enabled homes test bed within the social housing sector. The aim is to create homes where ambient technology supports individuals to live independently as long as it is safe from them to do so, while enabling support and intervention from family, friends, carers and health professionals at appropriate times based on data driven alerts and algorithms.  The project is being run through a social business model with the aim of it being financially self-sustaining.

Davie works for NHS 24 within the Transformation, Strategy, Planning and Performance Directorate. Davie’s main focus is on improving access to health and social care information and services, recognising that information is not always available in an accessible format and services are not always inclusive or take account of adjustments that would enable everyone to access them in the way that they wish and at a time of their choosing.

Davie’s role includes learning from people with lived experience, and working with the third sector and government. Through this Davie and others developed a service now known as Contact Scotland BSL, introducing technology that enables British Sign Language users to access telephone based services and to connect with friends and family 24 hours a day.

Davie is currently working with colleagues within the Scottish Government and a supplier on CivTech Challenge 7.6 seeking a solution on how to use Artificial Intelligence, data and digital technologies to enable more inclusive access to public services.

Lorraine McMillan has been Chief Executive of East Renfrewshire Council since 2008. The council has a turnover of over £300m and employs about 4000 staff. She has a particular interest in the early years development of children, corporate parenting, business transformation and is part of the leadership group of the Glasgow City Region.

Lorraine graduated from Glasgow University in Physics in 1982 and she began her career in Barr & Stroud, a Glasgow based technology company. She became a Chartered Physicist, gained an MBA and joined the Scottish Development Agency in 1989 specialising in technology transfer. She then joined Scottish Enterprise Dunbartonshire in 1991, becoming Director of Enterprise in 1996 and the Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise Renfrewshire in 1999.

As well as her East Renfrewshire Council role, she is the Digital Portfolio holder for SOLACE and is Deputy Chair of the Scottish Local Government Digital Partnership.  She is involved in the work of the Local Government Digital Office and retains a strong interest in technology. From September 2014 to 2017, Lorraine was a member of the Board of the Scottish Funding Council and is now on the Board of an International Development Charity as well as the Improvement Service.

Jarmo Eskelinen is  an urban data and smart city expert leading  the Data-Driven Innovation (DDI) initiative. DDI is 15-year, £661m investment and innovation programme delivered by the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University and external partners. As part of the Edinburgh City region Deal, DDI will set up an innovation platform of 6 innovation centres across 10 industry sectors from creative industries to fintech, agritech and robotics, to educate 100.000 data scientists and launch or scale up 400 start-ups, and establish Edinburgh as the Data Capital of Europe, with a mission of Doing Data Right.

Founder of Posetiv Cloud, a cloud native specialist with a focus on DevOps, GreenOps and FinOps. Coming from a background as a Mechanical Engineer, my IT career spans 25-years delivering cloud and data centre services across EMEA, alongside owning innovation and product development. These days most of my time is spent helping people modernise and transform their IT services from the perspective of digital sustainability and somewhere towards their net-zero targets.

Anthony is a security and compliance professional with over 15 years’ experience within the Public & Private sector globally. Prior to joining AWS, Anthony held cloud security leadership roles at Symantec & Check Point, a long way from his start on Royal Navy Submarines. At AWS, Anthony is the Partner Strategist for the EMEA Worldwide Public Sector (WWPS) Security team. Anthony is also a Fellow of The British Computer Society.

Peter is a highly experienced healthcare and technology professional with around 20 years’ experience delivering digital transformation across the NHS and the pharmaceutical industry. Peter joined Capita in 2022 from NHS Digital, where he was working on numerous technology initiatives particularly around caring for people closer to or at home. Prior to this, Peter held NHS director-level roles across digital and operations as well as working in healthcare consultancy for several years.

James has recently joined DataVita as Business Development Director. James leads the business in developing strong relationships with customers, partners and engages with potential new business to understand the value of working with DataVita. James previously set up and led the Host in Scotland initiative in his time at Scottish Futures Trust and is a Chartered Accountant by background having held roles with EY and PwC in the past.

Mike Crockart is the Service Owner of the Scottish Government’s Digital Identity Programme which aims to introduce a safe and easy way for people to prove who they are and that they are eligible for a public service or benefit online.

Mike has a wide experience encompassing many roles across the private and public sectors from police officer to programmer to politician.  Before his move to Scottish Government he was Member of Parliament for Edinburgh West and served on the Scottish Affairs and the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committees in Westminster. Prior to that he spent 12 years with Standard Life as a developer, project manager and latterly Service Support Manager for Standard Life’s Healthcare systems.