Stephanie Berkeley is Manager of Farm Safety Foundation.  Hailing from Donegal in Ireland, Stephanie’s friends were either farmers or fishermen; equally dangerous industries. After studying European Business Studies and spending time living and studying in Asturias and Barcelona, Stephanie began a career in journalism at the Newsletter, working in the business section of the newspaper before joining Greer Publications with Ulster Business magazine.  After various roles in the Greer Publications group with Specify magazine and Ulster Business, Stephanie was appointed Editor of the award-winning Northern Woman magazine as well as editing the lifestyle section of Ulster Business.  From 2006-2014 she was Marketing & PR Manager for W5, Ireland’s science and discovery centre before her move, in 2014, to Stratford-upon-Avon where she has developed and grown the Farm Safety Foundation, its ground-breaking education programme and award-winning campaigns. Stephanie is a qualified Mental Health First Aider, author of The Little Book of Minding Your Head, a member of ISASH (International Society for Agricultural Safety & Health)  and represents the UK on Safety Culture and Risk Management in Agriculture (SACURIMA) – Cost Action CA16123.

Peter May is currently Permanent Secretary at the Department of Justice.  He is also one of two Diversity Champions for the NICS.  Previously Peter was Permanent Secretary at the Department for Infrastructure and the Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure.  A career civil servant, his previous roles include Director, Safer Communities, DoJ and Principal Private Secretary to the Deputy First Minister.

Dr Jayne Brady, MBE is Belfast’s Digital Innovation Commissioner, a founding member of the Innovation City Belfast partnership and Digital Pillar Chair for the Belfast Region City Deal.  An engineer at heart, Jayne has over 20 years’ leadership experience. Deeply committed to delivering inclusive regeneration by harnessing innovation, Jayne is a member of the UK Innovation Experts Group, an Entrepreneurial Expert for the Saïd Business School at Oxford University, a UK Higher Education Commissioner and a board director on Queen’s University Belfast Spinout Fund, QUBIS.

Claire McGuckin is a passionate and experienced senior leader within the Civil Service with a career spanning over 30 years, primarily within two large departments Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. She has held a number of key senior operational roles leading large scale transformation and operational delivery in particular digital design of Service Centres and front line Customer Offices. She is known for her ability to build resilient and effective teams and coach and support building capability. Her final challenge in DWP before moving to HMRC in March 2018 was Universal Credit (UC) Operations Director where she was responsible for the national rollout and implementation of UC and changing the culture and focus of welfare.  Claire joined HMRC Customer Service Group in March 2018.  She was promoted to the Director for Personal Tax Operations in February 2019 and has continued to lead people and product transformation for the business working collaboratively with a range of key stakeholders and partners to ensure they are equipped to deliver the best customer service for the future needs of customers. Since March 2020, she has been the Senior Responsible Officer in Operations for the delivery and implementation of the Government COVID Schemes e.g. Job Retention Scheme focussing her teams on providing support to UK businesses and their families. In March 2021, she became the Director of the COVID-19 Response Programme delivering the HMRC response to the pandemic and supporting resilience in the economy.

Bill McCluggage is Managing Director of Laganview Associates Ltd. He became the first CIO for the Irish Government in 2013 and was CIO for the Northern Ireland Civil Service (2005 – 2009). He joined the Cabinet Office in 2009 as deputy UK Government CIO. While in the Cabinet Office he was the Executive Director responsible for the UK Government’s ICT Strategy and was instrumental in the development of the Government G[1]Cloud, and was SRO for the Identity Assurance Programme, now GOV.UK Verify.

Ignatius O’Doherty is Chief Strategy Officer in Department of Finance’s Digital Shared Services. He is a digital leader with responsibilities for the development and implementation of a future ICT Strategy for the NI Civil Service. He leads the DSS Information Assurance, Cyber Security, Information Management and Open Data initiatives.

Dan West is the Chief Digital Information Officer (CDIO) for Health and Care in Northern Ireland at the Department of Health. His role is about seizing the opportunity to use data and technology to improve health and care experiences and outcomes in the region, and to create an economically sustainable service for future generations. The CDIO post is a new part of the Department of Health board, bringing responsibility and leadership for Digital into the centre and concentrating six key levers into one place – strategy, policy, funding, governance, decision making and system-wide design. Dan will work to build on existing achievements with the excellent teams across the health and care eco-system, including the Health and Social Care Board, Public Health Authority, Business Services Organisation and the Trusts as well as the GP community and academic and private sector partners. Dan comes to the Department of Health with over 20 years’ experience of technology led transformation in central government and healthcare organisations around the world.

Pauline Yau is Head Of Public Sector, UK & Ireland at Zoom UK.  She is responsible for public sector and healthcare sales at Zoom UK and brings over 25 years experience to the role. With deep experience in selling innovative technology solutions to government, education and healthcare organisations as well as building a partner channel, Pauline has worked at the likes Adobe, Huddle and Microsoft running the government business units, channel sales as well as working within education sales. Importantly Pauline has spent time working inside government via consultancy services to technology functions within ministerial departments and regulatory agencies and served as the Director of Business Development at Crown Commercial Service.  She is a fellow at the Royal Society of Arts and has a keen interest in new ways of working, the importance of flexibility to create a diverse workforce and is passionate about the importance of technology playing a critical role in delivering better citizen-facing services to improve the lives of everyone. 

Joe Dolan is the Head of the Northern Ireland Cyber Security Centre, the aim of which is to make Northern Ireland Cyber Safe, Secure and Resilient and something he is committed to driving forward. Joe is proud to be a career IT Professional in the Northern Ireland Civil Service for over 30 years. In this time he has held key operational and advisory positions as Head of Telecommunications for the Northern Ireland Civil Service and a founding member of the NICS IT shared services delivery organisation IT Assist. He established the Department of Environment Innovation and Technology Unit and has managed significant IT projects of major central and public sector restructuring and procurements. All of these have had significant elements of security. He was Accreditor and responsible for technical architecture development within the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) one of the largest and most diverse departments within the Northern Ireland Civil Service and is a certified security professional (CISSP) and ISO 27001 lead auditor and implementer.

Catherine is the Director of Finance, Audit & Assurance at The Northern Ireland Housing Executive which includes the responsibility for ICT.  She is also the Chair of the Leadership and Engagement Committee for the Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Community Planning Partnership and was recently a member of the Governing Body of North West Regional College and Chair of CIPFA Northern Ireland.  She is a guest Lecturer for the University of Ulster on the MSc Leadership and Innovation Programme.  Over the last 18 months in particular Catherine has also been responsible for the implementation of a transformation programme spanning a number of services across NIHE with a focus on customer needs.

Alan Dooley is the Head of Digital Strategy for Limerick City & County Council, appointed in February 2021.  Alan is responsible for the planning, development, control and maintenance of digital infrastructure, digital innovation and services for the Council and also for the Limerick region.  In order for Limerick to gain a competitive advantage internationally and to work towards reaching the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Council aims to use innovation in digital services and citizen engagement for Limerick’s economic, social and physical development.  This will help transform Limerick into a smart sustainable region, with digital transformation becoming a driver for regional economic and spatial development.  Prior to joining Limerick City & County Council, Alan worked for 25 years in software engineering, primarily in the U.S. financial and insurance industry, more recently leading global engineering teams across many technology disciplines, delivering digital transformation by enabling a change in engineering culture to actively embrace modern engineering practices.

Andrew is a software development veteran having spent 30 years working in the IT industry.  During this time he has created value for large corporate blue chip companies, telecoms innovators, Silicon Valley start-ups, public sector bodies and consulting firms and is now Expleo’s Head of Delivery in NI.  He is always delighted to talk about software or music, but has been considerably more successful at producing the former.

Colin Daysh is Head of IT at Belfast Metropolitan College.  He provides strategic and operational leadership for IT in the College, ensuring a safe, secure and fit for purpose IT infrastructure for over 17,000 students and staff and leading the move to Digital by Design across the College.  A Chartered IT Professional, he has been leading and managing IT solutions and services for over half of his 30 year IT career and now he is leading the College in its application and use of technology to innovate and lead both in the classroom and in online teaching.

Mike Beaven serves the AWS Government Transformation Team (GTT) as a Digital Leader. He has a combination of Public and Private sector digital transformation experience spanning 20 years. He led the UK Government's Digital Transformation programmes from 2011 to 2015 as part of the GDS team within the Cabinet Office. This involved establishing new agile ways of working, setting up new commercial frameworks and establishing a national cross government programme that delivered 20 new digital services in 400 days. Mike has also worked in the field of consultancy working on strategic projects in the Public Sector and on large-scale software delivery programmes in the commercial sector. Starting his career in enterprise infrastructure and working in regulated environments (Financial, Services, Government, Commodity Trading), Mike has a strong understanding of how to balance governance and risk management with agile delivery and transformation to achieve tangible benefits and results.

Nial Mc Sorley is the Digital Services Managers at Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council, Northern Ireland. Nial is responsibility for digital transformation using web development and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) within the Council. The implementation of GIS technologies by Nial within Council has enabled the spatial analysis of large datasets to facilitate data-driven decisions and improved efficiencies transforming the quality of services provided. Nial is a member of Association for Geographical Information, Northern Ireland and a member of the Local Government GIS User Group. Nial is also a guest lecturer for Ulster University contributing to teaching on the MSc GIS.

Geraldine Devine is Head of IT for the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA). In her role Geraldine leads 14 agile software development teams. Geraldine has successfully delivered a number of large scale, mission critical, digital transformation programmes within DAERA.  This includes the EU Area Based Schemes Common Agricultural Policy payment programme, enabling DAERA to become one of the lead paying agencies within the EU.

Lisa McIlvenna leads Business in the Community’s Membership and Communications teams. She led on the creation of BITC’s ground-breaking tool to help companies measure and benchmark their corporate social responsibility – CORE: The Standard for Responsible Business. Lisa holds a PhD in Corporate Social Responsibility from Queen’s University Belfast. She specialises in helping organisations integrate CR and sustainability with their broader business strategy. She is a member of B Lab’s European Regional Advisory Group.

Mark Gillan is the Digital Innovation Commissioner at Belfast City Council. He is also a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Royal Aero Society, Visiting Professor of both Surrey and Ulster Universities and NI Chamber of Commerce Board Member. Professor Mark Gillan started his career in aerospace before spending 15 years in various Formula One engineering leadership roles. Most recently Chief Operations Officer for Artemis Technologies, leading the decarbonisation of the maritime sector and Programme Director for the Belfast Maritime Consortium’s UKRI funded Strength in Places Programme, focused on developing zero emissions passenger ferries; Professor Gillan also brings experience gained as Innovate UK’s Chief Technology Officer.

James O’Neill is Quality Assurance Practice Lead at Expleo. Since joining the organisation as a graduate almost a decade ago, James has worked as a QA Analyst, Lead and Manager, in various roles and across multiple organisations and sectors. James qualified from Queen’s University with a PhD in Biological Sciences and is a passionate advocate for Agile Quality Assurance approaches, specialising in leading diverse teams to deliver on high-profile, business-critical work programmes for large client organisations.

Ronan Laffan is Head of Advisory Services practice at Version 1. Ronan is one of Version 1’s most experienced Architects. He has worked with many public sector clients, designing digital platforms, as well as leading development and maintenance teams and providing consultancy services. Originally a Mechanical Engineer, Ronan's recent work has centered on cloud architectures and digital strategies. Ronan brings a focus on engineering solutions to business problems using digital technology to solve current real world problems, enable new ways of working and deliver innovative services.

Anita Holmes is currently a Programme Manager in HM Revenue & Customs leading the COVID Response Programme. She was previously the Project Delivery Director for the COVID Job Retention Scheme (Furlough Scheme) and the Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme and has also led on Business Readiness across other schemes. She is a qualified project professional with over 20 years’ experience in a broad range of project leadership roles in major Government Departments.