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Latest - IT Sector: Data processing

Ann Moffatt

Ann Moffatt found “sums” easy as a child at school in post war London and would have gone to Oxbridge had it not been a time when the boys in the family had first call on education.  Nevertheless, by reading every book she could find, she got a job in IT and went on to defy the male stereotype of the industry: combining a friendly manner with incisive expertise that commanded respect at the highest levels.

Ann was Dame Stephanie Shirley’s first lieutenant at Freelance Programmers before being headhunted to Australia, to sort out a mega-project gone wrong.  She is a Fellow of both the Australian Computer Society and the British Computer Society. In 2002, Ann was inducted into the Australian ICT Hall of Fame and in 2011, into the Pearcey Hall of Fame, for lifetime achievement in the ICT industries. The University of Southern Queensland awarded her an Honorary Doctorate, in May 2006 and Microsoft list her as one of 12 Australian Innovators.

Pamela Cook

The youngest of six children, Pamela Cook was born in a Birmingham slum with no electricity or indoor sanitation. But the family was re-housed when she was three and she describes her childhood as very happy.

Her lack of enjoyment at school and the need to earn money from her early teens, gave her an understanding of the working world and a will to survive. But she also inherited her parents’ strong sense of moral ethics, making her determined to try to do good in the world.

Pamela has achieved that goal as CEO of Infoshare, a data technology company which creates accurate single views, for example, of people, places, addresses and objects. When she took the helm in 2010 she re-mortgaged her house to fund a major company restructure. Since then, she has tried to re-shape the business to use its technology and position to benefit vulnerable people, from children at risk and victims of crime to those likely to be most badly affected by Covid-19.

“What I have discovered is being able to make a real impact on people’s lives,” she says, whether they are at risk, need early intervention or are trying to disguise their true identities.

Pamela is also a magistrate in Thames Valley, and sits on the Cabinet Office SME Panel, fighting for the rights and fair treatment of small businesses in the UK. She is a popular speaker on successful information sharing, protecting citizens and the implication of legislation on data sharing and analysis.

She was named the Female Entrepreneur of the Year in the 2019 Enterprise Awards, and listed on the 2020 DataIQ 100 people in data, and on the 2020 Global Top 100 Data Visionaries.

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.

Andrew Stott

Andrew is an international thought leader in open data. Most recently, between 2004 and 2010, as Deputy Chief Information Officer and then Director of Digital Engagement at the Cabinet Office, he delivered the globally leading data.gov.uk, in which a large number of government datasets were made available online for the first time. He has led UK Digital Engagement programmes, and is now an expert adviser, speaker and consultant on open data and e-government, both in the UK and worldwide.