People

Tim Cowen is CEO of T.R.W.Cowen Limited, a consultancy company set up to advise on Public Policy/Regulation, Competition and Commercial matters in the information technology sector. Tim is a member of the EU Business Affairs Council, and Chairman of the Competition Panel at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and Chairman of the International Association of Commercial and Contract Management (IACCM), and a Visiting Fellow of the British Institute of international and Comparative Law (Biicl). He was awarded the title of ‘Distinguished Visiting Fellow’ at the European Business School in London in November 2008. He is a Visiting Professor at the City of London Law School, the largest law school in the UK. From qualification as a Barrister in 1986, Tim worked in private practice and industry; from joining BT in the early 1990s he held a variety of roles including General Counsel for BT’s international businesses. He is currently working on the formation of The Open Computing Alliance, an Alliance of companies in the information technology sector dealing with issues of common concern in Public Contracting, Competition and data transfer and interoperability between platforms and systems with particular reference to the shift to Cloud Computing.

Gail Greengross is the Strategic Communications Director of Business in the Community, a unique movement of more than 800 companies across the UK committed to improving continually their positive impact on society. Gail was appointed to Business in the Community in 1994 where she established an employee volunteering programme and later set up the first central communications team. Under Gail’s leadership in Strategic Communications the collective activities of Business in the Community have expanded to impact across local communities, support positive environmental activity, promote diversity and best practice in the workplace and encourage ethical operations in the wider marketplace. During this period Gail has established a reputation as an innovative and creative director in communicating Business in the Community’s aims and aspirations for corporate social responsibility and has personally been responsible for achieving the current high profile of the organisation having established the first Business in the Community Annual Awards for Excellence in 1997, which have expanded to being recognised as the UK’s leading Awards within the business community. Prior to joining Business in the Community, Gail worked for The Bodyshop in the Communications Team, before moving onto the Industrial Society as the inner city co-ordinator, later heading up the London Team where she was seconded to Shelter to develop a linked employment scheme for young homeless. During this time The Industrial Society became the leading provider of management training for education and voluntary organisations. Gail was asked to join the Talent and Enterprise Taskforce as Campaign Director in 2007, and has been working on projects and programmes which will bring alive the importance of using the best talent and ingenuity to create a new role for Britain in the competitive global economy. Recently , she has been working on the The Big Conversation campaign which brings together 100 young people and 100 employers to agree a new approach to experiencing the world of work . The first event was held at Old Spitalfields market on 15 September 2009, supported by The Sunday Times, the BBC and the UKCES, which was the first of many planned events around the UK. Gail lives in London and is married to Tony Perry, Headmaster of Bacons College, and has three sons and a daughter.

Indy Johar is a qualified architect and place strategist. He co-founded 00:/ [zer’o zer’o] in 2005, a research-driven design practice focused on reimagining, re-thinking, re-designing and re-organising place. The practice’s work supports physical and spatial interventions catalysed by the synthesis of quantitative & qualitative research with a community & market generative approach. Project range from the scale of bespoke place shaping strategies to the detailed design & delivery of prototypes such as low-carbon homes, world class – co-working & learning institutions, community led neighbourhood retrofits and ‘self-commission masterplans’ - amongst others. Indy has taught at various institutions from Columbia University New York, TU-Berlin, University of Bath, Architectural Association and University College London. He has given lectures and led discussions on the issue of community generative urbanism at various forums from Said Business School Oxford, DEMOS, European Parliament, LSE, Royal Academy, Royal Society of the Arts to the Royal Institute British Architects. He is also a Demos Associate and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Ed Mayo is Secretary General of Co-operatives UK, the membership network for co-operative businesses. He is a long-term co-operator and has a track record of innovation and impact in his work to together economic life and social justice. Ed was one of the team who founded the Fairtrade Mark, which sources products from co-operatives and small-scale producers in developing countries, and is on the Board of the Fairtrade Foundation. He rose to prominence as director of the New Economics Foundation (NEF) from 1992 to 2003. He led NEF from two to fifty staff, creating an award-winning 'think-and-do tank', looking at ethical market activity, local economies and public service reform. He helped to start the London Rebuilding Society as its first chair. He also chaired the Jubilee 2000 campaign over this period, bringing together a wide coalition. The campaign led to billions of dollars of debt cancellation, helping countries like Tanzania and Uganda to raise their primary school enrolment rate. From 2003 – 2009, he was Chief Executive of the National Consumer Council, merging this with two other bodies to found a new statutory consumer champion, Consumer Focus, in 2008. He was described by the Independent as "the most authoritative voice in the country speaking up for consumers", while the Guardian has nominated him as one of the top 100 most influential figures in British social policy. Ed Mayo is nominated a ‘Young Global Leader’ by the World Economic Forum and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the London Metropolitan University in 2007 for his work to build an ethical economy. His original degree is in philosophy from Cambridge University. After a short period as a management consultant at Accenture, Mayo joined the World Development Movement, serving as acting Director until 1992. He has co-written a book, “Consumer Kids” with Agnes Nairn on marketing to children, published by Constable in 2009.

Jules is a recognised international authority in the field of sustainability and wellbeing. He has over twenty years experience as a strategic advisor and entrepreneur, uniquely bridging the worlds of politics, business, NGOs and civil society. As well as having worked in business, Jules spent two years advising the UK Conservative Party and has worked at the EC in Brussels. Jules is a founding of Abundancy Partners, which specialises in strategic innovation in sustainability and wellbeing. He is also a member of Edelman’s Strategic Advisory Board. Jules is active in the NGO and think –tank communities as a Trustee of the think-tank nef (the new economic foundation) and a Fellow of ResPublica, Chairman of the Bulmer Foundation, a Board and Trustee of a number of charities and a judge of the annual Green Awards. He is also actively involved with the Transition Towns movement.

John Seddon is an occupational psychologist and management thinker, credited with developing the systems approach to the design and management of service organisations. He has been an ardent critic of public-sector reform, arguing that the reform agenda has worsened public services and driven up costs. Those who follow and apply his ideas achieve performance improvements that make official targets look un-ambitious. John’s campaign for freedom from command and control in the public sector generated huge press interest in August this year when he called for the Audit Commission to be axed. He argues that dismantling the inspection regime would replace compliance with responsibility in the public sector. John is the author of: 'Systems Thinking in the Public Sector,' Triarchy Press, 2008 and 'Freedom from Command and Control,' Vanguard Press, 2003.

Since February 2007, Diogo Vasconcelos has been a Distinguished Fellow with Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), the global open innovation and strategy group of Cisco. He chaired the Business Panel on Future EU Innovation Policy, set up European Commission in January 2009, which called for a radical change in European innovation policies and co-authored the report on “Europe and Social Innovation” for the BEPA. He Chairs SIX - Social Innovation eXchange, a global community of NGOs, global firms, public agencies and academics committed to improve the methods with which our societies find better solutions to challenges such as ageing, climate change, public services and healthcare. He also advises the EU on innovation. He chairs Dialogue Café a global network that will bring people together from cities across the globe to learn, share and collaborate on projects which support people and planet, through state of the art video conference technology. In May 2008, Diogo he was elected Chairman of APDC, the association that represents all the ICT industry in Portugal and, one year later, elected member of the Executive Board on DigitalEurope , the voice of digital industry in Europe. Diogo is also non executive member of the board of Catholic University of Porto. Before joining Cisco, Diogo was the Knowledge Economy Advisor to the Portuguese President of Republic Cavaco Silva. From 2003 to 2005, he leaded the Knowledge Society Unit, where he created and implemented the Information Society, eGoverment and National Broadband Initiatives, reporting to PM Jose Manuel Barroso. He was also a member of the board of the Portuguese Innovation Agency. Before that, he was elected member of the Parliament and was Vice-President of centre-right party PSD and its spokesperson for innovation. Prior to that, Diogo founded a multimedia company and published the first magazines in his country on both the internet and entrepreneurship and launched the Entrepreneurs Academy. He has a Law degree and post-graduate degrees in Communications Law, Management and Political Science. In 2006, Diogo received from the former President Jorge Sampaio one of his country’s highest honours for his work, the “Commander of the Order of Prince D. Henrique”. Born in 16th May 1968, Diogo is married and lives in London.