UCISA23 Leadership Conference

Mateo Salvatto is a 23-year-old tech entrepreneur from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

When he was 17 he achieved the “International Robotics Champion” title, and a year later created his first company: Asteroid, whose first product, Háblalo, already assists more than 350.000 people with disabilities around the world, entirely for free.

Mateo today serves as Head of Innovation for ORT Schools, his book "The Battle for The Future" has sold +60k copies (#1 Best Seller 2021), and was recognized as Humanitarian Innovator of the Year by MIT Technology Review, Best Social Innovator by Peking University, among other important awards.

Asteroid was selected as one of the Top 100 Startups by the Global Entrepreneurship Network and lately Mateo was included in the "MERCO 2021 Ranking" as the 38th most influential businessman in Argentina.

John Hemingway was appointed as CIO of Durham University in 2019. At Durham, John has dual responsibility for strategic direction and oversight of digital services, alongside directing the core information services provider and co-ordinating other providers (e.g. Durham has an advanced Computing Group, which manage high performance computing)

John has led King’s approach to operating models and frameworks to professionalise IT. This has been key to our transformation and journey towards service excellence. Now BTS and HERM are here, King’s no longer “build our own” but we adopt frameworks supporting collaboration and accelerated service excellence within King’s and across the HE sector.

Rob O'Donohue is a Senior Director, Analyst in Gartner's Executive Leadership Research Group focusing on Leadership, Culture, Talent, and DEI. Here, he advises Executives on Future of Work topics, hybrid work design, culture change, solving talent challenges, advancing leadership effectiveness, how to create of high performing teams, and enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion within the organization.
Rob creates evidence-based actionable research to empower Executive Leaders lead more effectively and is the research lead on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Executive Leaders.
Rob also runs workshops and client briefings covering Future of Work concepts, overcoming talent challenges, culture, leadership, how to avoid common DEI mistakes, and coaching effectiveness. He holds is a certified Executive Coaching with the ICF and uses his experience to help leaders think differently.

With over 15 years’ experience specialising in Technology recruitment across public services with a focus on Higher Education, Amanda has been fundamental in establishing the national Higher Education Technology business at Hays. Amanda has worked in partnership with a large number of CIOs across the sector to understand the challenges and work with universities to develop solutions that enable them better access to technology talent in a competitive landscape.

With decades of international experience in higher education, financial services, e-commerce and defense, Brian has a track record for conceptualizing, delivering and transforming business and IT growth strategies, new business models and end-to-end operations using digital solutions and technology platforms. Brian’s strategy-first approach sets the direction for our overall product and architecture and the way we define, develop, manage and deliver our products.

Peter brings over 15 years of experience at large government and private software development companies. As an experienced IT leader, he is passionate about building relationships, solving real-world problems and delivering quality outcomes for clients. At CourseLoop, Peter is responsible for leading successful implementations for our clients.

Dave Wright is ServiceNow's chief innovation officer. He's helped thousands of organizations implement technologies that create efficiencies, streamline business processes, and reduce costs while creating excellent employee and customer experiences. Prior to joining ServiceNow in 2011, Dave spent more than six years at VMware as vice president of technical services for EMEA. From 2003 to 2005, he headed the technical division for Northern and Southern Europe at Mercury Interactive. Prior to that, he spent six years at Peregrine Systems, where he held a variety of senior technical and marketing positions.

Tracey Jessup is Chief Transformation and Resources Officer at De Montfort University, and leads, develops and manages comprehensive changes to how the university operates its business, including delivery of a critical multi-year transformation journey to align the technology and campus, the people and the ways of working.

Brian is an award-winning professional with an career spanning nearly over 35 years in Higher Education (HE), Further Education (FE) and the Public Sector. With an MBA from Strathclyde University and a Fellowship with the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), Brian has consistently demonstrated strong leadership and management skills across a wide range of technical and service disciplines.  Brian’s expertise in team management and strategic planning has earned him recognition in the industry, culminating in being awarded the prestigious UCISA Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Year for 2024/2025 and, under his leadership, the IT Directorate at the University of Aberdeen was voted best  IT Support in the United Kingdom universities in the National Student Survey of 2023/24. With a wealth of experience and a commitment to excellence, as HEFESTIS CEO, Brian continues to support and drive innovation for the Education and Public sectors.

When Anthony isn’t running marathons, swimming long distances and finishing triathlons, he is the Associate Director - Digital Strategy at the University Of Salford. Anthony is also a keen advocate for better mental health, personal development and wellbeing. Salford have been using Tanium in anger now for over 4 years and this session is to help you understand why they use the platform to populate ServiceNow for better service management.

Joe Taylor is a management consultant who has designed and delivered transformation programmes across both the public and private sectors. He is passionate about building teams and working in partnership to ensure that the value of the change is achieved and embedded.

Anthony Phillips has worked in student-focused tech for 18 years and joined Ready Education in January of 2022 to help increase student success worldwide. He is working closely with his team with universities across the UK to help them meet and exceed the expectations of their students.

Janine Barraclough, Assistant Director for Service Delivery & Support joined IT Services in 2007 with thirty years experience in HE. Janine is an engaging leader, passionate about customer experience, continuous service improvement and developing high performing teams. She enjoys live music events and discovering local hiking trails in the Peak District.

Louise joined ServiceNow in 2021 as Manager, Solution Consulting. She is working with universities across the UK to implement the Now platform and streamline business processes, reduce costs and create a connected campus for students, faculty, and staff.

Prior to ServiceNow, Louise spent 15 years working in the education sector and has helped institutions around the world transform their digital student experience as well as back-office operations.

Professor Osama Khan is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Academic, at the University of Surrey, Guildford, UK. He is the strategic lead for the University's education agenda and access and participation plan providing talented and motivated students from all backgrounds with an outstanding education that is inclusive, research-informed, technologically enhanced and professionally enriched with industry partnerships. He holds a Professor in Practice title at the Surrey Business School. He also manages the University's centre of excellence in education: The Surrey Institute of Education, Library and Learning Services, and the Chief Student Officer directorate. He led the Hybrid Education model at the University as the strategic response to the Covid-19 pandemic and driving digital transformation in education and student experience. He is the chair of the university education committee, secretary of the Senate and serves on the board of Farnborough College of Technology, the TEF Advisory Group, Student Minds Advisory Group, Prevent Advisory Group, and the EM3 Skills Advisory Panel.

Osama has 24 years of experience in teaching corporate finance, derivatives, mathematical economics, real estate finance and economics and investment management in various universities including the University of Surrey, University of Cambridge, University of Hong Kong, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Copenhagen Business School and HEC Paris.

Adam has a BA in Film Studies, a BSc in Psychology, and a career in IT in both the commercial and education sectors. He has also worked as an assistant psychologist. A self-described jack-of-all-trades, Adam is a lover of all thing's tech and fascinated by design and how it dictates how well (or badly) people engage with technology. He firmly believes that technology should be intuitive and that "if you can break it, it's been designed badly.

Adrian Ellison is Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor and CIO at the University West London, where he is a member of the Vice-Chancellor’s Executive and responsible for Academic Administration, Academic Registry, Academic Quality and Standards, Library and IT services and the Institute for Policing Studies. He has been in UK higher education for 24 years at four universities. Adrian has written about and spoken widely on the use of technology and analytics in the HE sector.

Deborah joined UCISA as CEO in May of 2019, bringing with her a wealth of marketing and Higher Education experience, most recently as Director of Student Recruitment at the University of Hull following five years as Chief Executive of Marketing Leeds and 5 years at Leeds Beckett University, where she was a member of the Executive Board. She is no stranger to leading member organisations, having led the Law Society’s regional team earlier in her career, supporting 14,500 solicitors in Yorkshire and the North East and introducing a wealth of new initiatives and services, resulting in her receiving the Yorkshire Enterprise Award and being recognised as Yorkshire Lawyer of the year in 2007 for her services to the profession.

Zoë heads up Service Delivery at Royal Holloway and is responsible for all technical infrastructure services, first-line support and other user services, such as the managed desktop and audio visual. Data centre strategy is a key priority, managing the emergence of the cloud as an additional stream to design and support, whilst maintaining an up-to-date, secure on-prem service for legacy applications and services.

Dan Perry is CIO & University Librarian at Keele University where he is a member of the University Executive leading the digital transformation within Keele. Prior to joining Keele, Dan has experience across the Higher Education sector including holding positions at University of Manchester, Jisc and Janet(UK). Escaping the office Dan is a climber, kayaker, swimmer and runner who competes in the occasional triathlon.

Nick has been the CIO at King’s College London since 2012. Before that he had spent 25 years working in the media and technology consulting sectors. Under his leadership KCL IT has been transformed into a high performing professional services function. Part of this transformation has been enabled by the King’s Service Centre in Newquay, Cornwall which is now a c200 staff organisation providing IT and other professional service support to the University and other organisations.

Paul Chichester has worked in the UK Government Intelligence and Security community for over 25 years in a variety of cyber roles. For those old enough to remember, he began his career designing and developing secure operating systems that were assured to TCSEC Orange Book A1 standards. Since then he's spent time building the UK government's penetration testing team, partnering with industry in developing the UK CHECK scheme, led vulnerability and intrusion detection research teams and been at the forefront of every major cyber investigation for nearly 20 years. Paul is also one of GCHQ’s Heads of Profession, responsible for developing our existing subject matter experts and ensuring there is a strong and diverse pipeline well into the future. Most recently Paul was appointed as Director Operations in the UK's National Cyber Security Centre which launched on the 1st October last 2016. Paul was awarded the MBE in 2005 for his ground-breaking work on cyber.

Karen joined London Business School as Director of IT, Delivery Capability in Autumn 2021 to ensure successful delivery of their Digital Transformation. Prior to that Karen spent 7 years with the University of Portsmouth leading their technology portfolio. The first 20 Years of my career was across Local Government, latterly leading Business and Digital Transformation. 

After working in two other universities, mixing technical and library service development I joined the University as the Director of a newly converged service

Harry is a Solutions Director at Hays, and leads Hays Skills, a new business in the Hays portfolio, supporting our customer network to develop skills development programmes that open up employment opportunities to ‘undiscovered talent’ communities. After beginning his career in recruitment, he then worked in VC backed start-ups and scale-ups for six years across two different portfolios before joining Hays.