Latest - Business Sector: IT

Gary Turner

It was the “catastrophic” failure of his parents’ business in Glasgow when he was just leaving school that triggered Gary Turner’s lifelong drive and passion for helping small enterprises succeed. Forced to abandon his university aspirations, he had always wanted to work in computing, and a sympathetic recruitment consultant helped him get his first job.

Gary’s ability to empathise with customer problems helped him rise through the IT industry to senior positions at Pegasus, Microsoft and Systems Union. Then, in 2009, he took a step which he says “must have looked crazy”, becoming co-founder of Xero, a three-person accounting software start-up.

It proved an excellent move. As Xero’s UK managing director, Gary grew the business to a turnover of £110M by 2020, with more than 600,000 UK customers. He has also served as a mentor at TechStars London and is a seed investor in early-stage start-ups across the UK and Europe.

Richard Little

Richard Little is a serial angel investor who learned to be an entrepreneur by watching his father and trained for a life in technology by studying languages.  Richard built and successfully exited his own business in the 1980’s and 90’s, applying cheaper new technology in financial services.  His first big idea failed but the second one worked, and he says that is not a bad formula for building a business.

In the 21st century he has turned his hand to helping others’ companies grow by leveraging investment with his acquired expertise.  Richard believes that helping small companies grow is good for the economy and society, as well as being a rewarding occupation.  His current portfolio includes Cloud, AI and EdTech.

Geoff Squire OBE

Geoff Squire OBE spent 50 years in the UK IT industry, from machine code to $Bn companies.  Geoff learnt arithmetic and the value of pounds, shillings and pence at an early age doing sums upside down over his father’s shoulder.  University was never an option but interest in numbers led on to jobs in programming and thence to growing roles in ICL.

He is perhaps most famous for establishing Oracle in the UK with an opportunistic pitch to Larry Ellison.  Subsequently Geoff led Veritas to a Y2K $75Bn market cap.  In recent years Geoff has focused, with his wife Fiona, on their grant giving charity and he serves as Chairman of Give as You Live Ltd, a technology company dedicated to raising money for UK charities.

Peter Morgan MBE

Peter Morgan MBE joined IBM as a new graduate in 1959, when transistors were just replacing vacuum tubes, and stayed for 30 years, leaving as Director of the UK subsidiary.  In this interview, he talks about the benefits the US company brought to British customers, IBM vs ICL and why the US is more successful at growing IT giants.  After leaving IBM, he became Director General of the Institute of Directors and has been chair of or a board member of many companies, six of which are in the IT sector.

He was a master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. As a youth, he aspired to succeed and cites the Cambridge tutorial approach to studying History and National Service as key development activities.

Dr Steve Garnett

Dr Steve Garnett is the son of a Liverpool docker and a cleaner. A maths teacher inspired a love of maths and started a career out of Liverpool. He earned his doctorate in theoretical physics and decided to become a programmer. He worked at Logica, then contributed though technical and then executive posts to the growth of Oracle, Siebel and Salesforce.com, helping each to become the success they were. He is now an advocate of software as a service: software in the cloud rented by users which puts the customer back in charge.

Dr Timothy Walker CB

Dr Timothy Walker managed the Alvey Programme from 1987 to 89, which researched advanced computing technologies.  Alvey paralleled Japan’s 5th Generation project and aimed to improve the UK’s performance / competitiveness in Information Technology. 

Dr Walker was a formidable academic over-achiever in his formative years.  After an early spell in university teaching and research he held top level posts, managing transformation in areas such as Industry (Alvey), Nuclear Energy and Immigration.  He advocates closer working between industry and universities and strong leadership in managing Government driven change.

Since retiring from the Civil Service he has remained busy with voluntary and charitable roles and uncovering local history. 

Colin Knight

Colin Knight learned the value of failsafe technology early in his career, developing algorithms for the release of munitions from RAF “V Bombers”. This focus on non-stop reliability has remained his priority through a wide-ranging career spanning financial trading in the City post Big Bang, the revolution in mobile communications, predictive modelling of networks and risk management. Colin has worked extensively across Europe, Asia Pacific and the US, including a spell in Moscow during the height of the Cold War. Given his time again, he says he would favour roles at US-based companies because they are more innovative, entrepreneurial and financially rewarding.

Colin is a past Master of the Information Technologists Livery Company. But his proudest achievement has been his charitable activities deploying IT to improve the lives of sick and disabled children and their families. Work must be fun, he insists — you will never get a successful team with unhappy members.

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.