Latest - Area of Interest: Iconic companies

Edwina Dunn OBE

Edwina Dunn OBE has spent her 40 years in the IT industry analysing great globs of data and turning it into useful business information to guide businesses. We call that today the analysis of big data. She started at the US CACI company which used census data to help customers such as banks and building societies. She left with her husband after nine years and they formed their own consultancy focusing on analysing customer data. Their big breakthrough was launching the Clubcard customer service for Tesco which catapulted Tesco to the front rank of UK grocery marketing. They sold the business to Tesco and formed another company. She is concerned about the ethics of using data and about the role of women in IT.

Maurice Perks

Maurice Perks worked on the implementation of large complex IT systems from his start at IBM in 1968. He helped build one of Europe’s first interactive applications for Dunlop in the early 1970s. He worked in the USA on the design of future computer systems within the heart of IBM. He became a Fellow of IBM working on the implementation of applications for customers. He is concerned that there is a continuing gap between what the IT industry can deliver and what organisations, both private and public, need.

David Morriss

David Morriss spent over 31 years in IBM starting at the bottom and becoming a board member of IBM UK. He saw it change from the dominant computer company with a unique culture and set of policies to one focused on IT services. He planned the change to a services company for its European, Middle East and African sector and then executed the plan in the UK. This turned IBM UK round from a loss-making operation to a profit generator. He applied the mantra that computers were there to solve problems in the private and public sectors, not there for the sake of the technology.

Sir Peter Rigby

Sir Peter Rigby left school and joined the computer industry working for NCR, Honeywell and the Diebold consultancy. In 1975 with £2,000 of his own money he launched SCR, a recruitment agency for IT staff. Seven years later he sold the company for £1 million. He ploughed the cash back into growing IT enterprises with his eye always on developing a large organisation. He has kept the company privately owned by his family in order to preserve the values he sees as vital in business.

David Southward

David Southward was a co-founder of Cambridge Consultants in 1960 as a fresh graduate from Cambridge: the foundation of CC is considered to be the start of the Cambridge Phenomenon. The first digital computer he saw after working on analogue computers was a Digital Equipment PDP/11. He went on to become technical director of Sinclair Research working closely with Sir Clive Sinclair. There he helped design the screen for Sinclair’s miniature tv, a storage device for the Sinclair microcomputers and a printer for them.