M2M Speaker Biographies

Jim Morrish is a Director and co-founder of Machina Research, the world's leading provider of strategic advice on the newly emerging M2M, IoT and mobile broadband markets. He is a respected telecommunications industry expert, with 20 years experience of strategy consulting, operations management and telecoms research. He has worked on-site in in excess of 25 countries through Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas, and undertaken strategy planning and forecasting work covering all significant markets worldwide.

Since June 2008, John is responsible for the management and the roadmap of the global Smart+Connected Communities Solutions. In that role he not only creates technology solutions, he also aligns them with the business opportunities in that high growth area for Cisco. During most of 2010 John has been living and working out of Korea to ensure overall deployment success for Cisco’s first S+CC project.

Prior to his current CTO role, John was the CTO at a Belgian start-up called fifthplay where he co-authored European patents EP2099199 and EP2048852. Fifthplay’s core business is the aggregation of e-Services of their market partners for consumers in the home. Prior to fifthplay, John spent 11 years at Cisco where he held various directorial leadership positions within the engineering, technical support services and the mergers and acquisitions business units. He led Cisco's autonomic computing and self-healing efforts and has co-authored US patents 7117113, 7080141, 7509415. Before Cisco, John designed, implemented and operated large PBX-networks at Siemens.

John obtained a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of Antwerp, Belgium and he is Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert #1705. In his spare time, he is engaged in Belgium’s National fast response rescue team to assist in global disasters.

Trevor is currently the Assistant Director of Employment and Skills for the Royal Borough of Greenwich. He manages teams responsible for Employer Engagement and Inward Business Investment; Skills; Economic initiatives; and Local Labour and Business. Trevor also manages Digital Enterprise Greenwich, an enterprise centre for digital businesses and innovators, and leads the Royal Borough’s work on the creation of the Digital Peninsula at Greenwich – a new digital district and community in the Capital.

Trevor has a degree in Town Planning and a Masters Degree in Information Science and Technology. He is a Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

Andrew has nearly 35 years of experience in civil engineering consultancy work, embracing a wide range of disciplines and projects in many parts of the world. This breadth and depth of involvement has, over the past decade, found its outlet in leading a growing number of major masterplan and urban development projects for Buro Happold. Work in this field integrating a wide range of disciplines and skills to deliver efficient, sustainable and attractive urban quarters has been delivered in the Middle East, India, China and Russia as well as Europe. In doing so, he has worked alongside some of the world’s leading architects and designers.

From 2003, Andrew led the Buro Happold team providing the strategic engineering inputs of the London 2012 Olympic Park and Legacy Masterplan and Design together with the EDAW Consortium and working directly for the London Development Agency and Olympic Delivery Authority. This award winning scheme contributes the catalyst for change for the East End of London, delivering not just a venue for the world’s “greenest” Olympic Games but a future-proofed, 246 hectare regeneration development platform from one of Europe’s most deprived and polluted sites.

Andrew joined Buro Happold in 1994 having spent ten years in a regional UK engineering consultancy and a further ten years before that in the public sector working on major transport and highway projects. In 2000, he was appointed a Principal of Buro Happold and in 2004 became responsible for the development of its Infrastructure teams worldwide. In 2008, the remit was widened to include the company’s Environment and Ground Engineering teams; he is also a member of the Practice’s Global Executive Board. His external relationships extend to working with organisations such as the CABE as a Review Panellist, with Government through the Innovation and Growth Team for the Construction Industry and in the professional and academic arena as a member of the Strategic Infrastructure Forum for the Institution of Civil Engineers. He is also a member of the Main Board and key advisor to Living PlanIT.

As VP of Global Business Development at Infusion for almost ten years, Kevin Lasitz explores new business areas, builds strategic alliances and establishes new clients. Kevin’s passion for emerging technology has resulted in innovative, multi-channel solutions across a number a verticals and geographies. Prior to working at Infusion in NYC and now London, Kevin enjoyed similar roles at MobileQ, a wireless software company in NYC and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and IBM Canada in Toronto where he focused on new channel development in retail banking.

Mike is CDC’s founder and widely recognised as the UK’s leading visionary in the field of integrated systems within the Intelligent Buildings and built environment. Initially trained and qualified as a chartered building services engineer, Mike later qualified as a chartered accountant.

Mike has demonstrated a strong track record of turning vision into reality, and has championed the requirement for Intelligent Buildings and open systems integration through various high-profile committees such as: British Council of Shopping Centres (Technical Services Committee), British Standards Institution (BSi) Working Party on Standards for Integrated Systems, Honorary General Secretary Intelligent Building Group (IBG).

Aged 40, Becky was appointed as Finance Director of Quintain in 2001 and in May 2012 she was appointed as Deputy Chief Executive. Becky has day to day responsibility for the Group’s activities at Greenwich Peninsula. She also chairs the Risk Committee.

Rebecca qualified as a chartered accountant with Pricewaterhouse Coopers in 1997 and worked as Financial Controller of Britton Group plc prior to joining Quintain in 1998 as Group Accountant. She held a number of roles, including Company Secretary before being appointed to her current position on the Board. Becky sits on the Advisory Board of the Association of Corporate Treasurers.

He is also responsible for the operation of McLaren Applied Technologies, a sister company which exploits simulation, strategy and telemetry solutions in wider market sectors. Under his stewardship, McLaren Electronics Systems has established a leading position in the motorsport sector. It is a respected innovator and supplier to open wheel race cars, sports cars, stock cars and motorcycles in a range of motor racing categories in Europe, Asia and North America. Along with its technical partner, Microsoft Corporation, the company is the Official ECU Supplier to the FIA Formula One World Championship in 2008, 2009 and 2010. This entails developing, manufacturing and supporting all the power-train control and data systems used by all teams and engine makers in Formula One.

Until recently he was Senior Scientific Advisor to the Department of Health’s research initiative on the role of technology in supporting chronic disease management, self care and healthy living and is an advisor to the TSB on their Assisted Living Innovation platform. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at University of Portsmouth where he has published widely on the subject of assisted living.

He holds a PhD in physics from the University of Durham and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Charles Palmer is project manager for Project Hydra, a collaborative R&D project that is demonstrating how value-added services can be deployed on smart meters, re-using smart card technology to provide the necessary privacy and security. The exemplar application is telehealth.

Charles also contributes to the ISO/IEEE 11073 personal health device standards process. His company, Acute Technology, has been heavily involved in implementing telecare and telehealth devices using these new standards.

Charles' background is as an electronics design engineer, and he worked for many years as co-founder and Technical Director of DSP Design, a UK company that designs and manufactures embedded computers.

Prior to joining Control Risks, he was a Detective Chief Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police Service. In the MPS he ran the Police International Counter-Terrorist Unit. As head of PICTU he was responsible for leading the National Counter-Terrorist Working Party, designing counter terrorist policing options for the UK, based upon the ensuing threat levels. Working with MI5, Special Branch and the Anti-Terrorist Branch, PICTU produced the strategic and tactical assessment of the national intelligence picture. He was also the police service representative on a number of Cabinet Office counter terrorist committees.

Prior to this, as a Superintendent in the Anti-Terrorist Branch, he was the senior security co-ordinator for the Metropolitan Police, leading a team of 70 full and part-time staff, with responsibility for identifying the current threats and risks to locations and events in London and the consequent design of risk management strategies to provide protective security.

Steve is a leading authority on suicide terrorism, and was responsible for the development of tactics to counter the threat of suicide terrorism from international and domestic terror groups, including promulgating these tactics to agencies in the U.K. and overseas, with a focus on the aviation industry. Steve has also been involved in several Olympic and major sporting events. He worked with the Greek Authorities to ensure the safety and security of all UK participants and visitors to the Athens Olympics in 2004 and spent time in Beijing performing a similar function for the Beijing Public Safety Bureau for the 2008 Olympics. He was a partner in EU-SEC, a European Union sponsored United Nations project on security at major events in Europe.

Joe joins Ovum from Microsoft where he was the World Wide Industry Managing Director for Local and Regional Government leading Microsoft’s nascent smart city value proposition. A professional hybrid; at home in both the public and private sector, he has substantial experience working in Government complemented by working for global public strategic transformation consultancies and blue chip suppliers such as EDS and Microsoft. During his 30 years in the business he has been involved internationally in national security (has clearance), economic development, education, and digital enablement. He is a regular speaker at executive briefings including keynotes at SmarterCities, eIndia, eDubai, and an expert speaker for the EC in China. He has an excellent international supplier network and works closely with international financial institutions such as the EC and World Bank.

Prior to joining Living PlanIT Keith accumulated over 30 years business experience in both the IT and Environmental/Sustainable industries primarily focused in the sales and marketing arena in developing and managing customer and partner relationships.

In 28 years working as an IT industry professional Keith managed relationships with blue chip clients and partners within complex infrastructure software and service environments in business sectors including: messaging migration, directory management, virtual classrooms and on-line learning platforms at organisations including Lotus Development, IBM, Worldtalk, Centra Software and SkillSoft.

Most recently Keith was a founding Director of L’atelier Limited, an environmental consultancy assisting commercial clients manage and reduce their energy consumption and carbon emissions. Keith was responsible for the development of the sales and marketing strategy for the business, establishing key relationships with property developers, building owners and occupiers.

Keith brings a unique combination of experience and skills from these two sectors into his role within the Living PlanIT Global Accounts team.

David White is Chief Software Engineer for Living PlanIT S.A., a European company focused on providing technology platforms that enable the next generation of Smart Cities. He has more than 21 years’ experience in Information Technology management, implementation, consulting, and software engineering including full Product development. His prior industry experience includes starting numerous companies, developing intellectual property, and tons of public speaking and presenting experience.

Prior to joining Living PlanIT he was one of the co-founders of IAEC Corporation. IAEC was started in 2007 to provide product development and sales in after-market and OEM telematics and consumer electronics. This startup was grown from the ground up to a $5M per year company with branches in Asia and Europe. Customers included exclusive brand automotive OEMs and major consumer electronic design wins. This company was acquired by Living PlanIT in September of 2010.

Before IAEC he was a principal in GSD Telematics. GSD Telematics was formed in 2005 to provide a programmable platform for in vehicle Telematics for everyone. Customers included Microsoft and many car customization companies. This intellectual property was rolled forward into the startup of IAEC. During this time he also started a small company in the medical records management space whose intellectual property was acquired by another company.

Before this he was an Architect in the Microsoft Industry Solution Group focusing on the Automotive and Industrial Equipment Vertical accounts. He has over 17 years enterprise experience across many disparate platforms and has spent over 10 of those years in the automotive industry. After spending time working on enterprise mainframe applications on MVS he moved to the Unix/VAX arena and then on to the Microsoft arena. He has used almost all the major development paradigms over this time (J2EE, DNA, CORBA, etc.) and advised customers on technology decisions related to development and architecture with regards to Microsoft products and how they fit into the customers overall architecture. He was with Microsoft for 9 years.