Sir Alan Rudge Sir Alan Rudge has been called one of the top technical minds in the country. He took an unconventional path to the top doing a City and Guilds telecoms technicians course and then a diploma in electrical engineering at a polytechnic. He worked in the USA, taught at a UK university and then ran the Electrical Research Association. He was headhunted to run R&D at BT: his first act was to hand the R&D budget back to the operating units and make his laboratories bid for projects from the rest of BT. So successful was this approach that he doubled the number in BT R&D. He served on the board of GE (UK) and was chairman of the consultancy WS Atkins
Sir Nigel Shadbolt Principal of Jesus College, Oxford and leader in the field of Artificial Intelligence
Dr Mike Short CBE After holding senior executive positions with Cellnet, O2 and Telefonica for 40 years, Mike joined the Department for International Trade as the department’s first chief scientific adviser in December 2017.