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Interview with Nicholas (Nic) Birtles

Nic Birtles left university after a boring year for more exciting work in the emerging IT industry.  He programmed a LEO machine; successor to the first business computer.  Like many who led the growth of the 20th century industry, he soon moved into sales and thence senior management with some of the iconic names of the early industry, including Burroughs in Canada and then ComShare, selling its computer power over telephone lines.

He was headhunted by Ingres, the innovative relational database competitor to Oracle.  He was in Silicon Valley for the dotcom boom and bust.  Since 2002, Nic has held a portfolio of non-executive roles with growth companies, most recently fundraising for an innovative aircraft design from Aeralis.  Nic is a Past Master of the City of London IT Livery Company (WCIT) , where he actively supports their charitable initiatives.

Early Life

Nicholas Birtles, known as Nic by all his close friends, was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire in December 1944.  His mother was a chartered secretary and his father was an officer in the army, was taken prisoner of war. After the war, the family moved to Germany, where his father having chosen to remain in the army was put in charge of the local British Army camp. Nic says: “On returning to England, my father became head of logistics for the regiment that he was attached to. He was, I suppose, very mathematical.  He had a very, sophisticated slide rule which was a round, which he tried to teach me how to use when I was quite young. It’s one of those things that always sticks in my mind, and I probably get some of my mathematical bent from him.”

 

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