Safra A. Catz

Chief Executive Officer,
Oracle

Safra A. Catz

Safra A. Catz is chief executive officer of Oracle Corporation and a member of the company's board of directors. She previously served as president of Oracle and has also served as the company's chief financial officer. Catz first served as Oracle's chief financial officer from 2005 to 2008, as executive vice president from 1999 to 2004, and as senior vice president from April to October 1999. She served on the board of directors for HSBC Holdings, one of the world's largest banking and financial services organizations, from 2008 through 2015.

Professor Brian Cox OBE

CERN Physicist and Broadcaster

Professor Brian Cox OBE

Arguably the UK's best known physicist, Professor Brian Cox's books and TV programmes have been read and watched around the world and credited with making science engaging and accessible to millions. With his down-to-earth, likeable enthusiasm, Brian is frequently labelled a 'rock star scientist'. Once the keyboard player for D:Ream, he has come a long way to his position as Professor of Particle Physics at Manchester University and a key part of the ATLAS and the CERN Large Hadron Collider projects.

Brian's blockbuster TV shows include Wonders of the Universe, Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of Life, each looking at the fundamental science behind everything from stars and planets to atoms and microbiology. He has also presented Stargazing, Space Hoppers, The Big Bang and numerous editions of Horizon. His books accompanying the Wonders of... series have become huge bestsellers, as did his co-authored title Why Does E=mc2?

From speaking at TED in the US to World Economic Forums in Davos and China, Brian's presentations engage, inform and entertain featuring awe-inspiring images from the depths of the universe as well as his trademark infectious enthusiasm for his subject. Alongside the story of life, the universe and everything, Brian argues that science can unite the world in an attempt to discover our shared origins. He also explains the work of CERN and their attempts to use cutting-edge technology and engineering to recreate events fractions of a nanosecond after the Big Bang "in the hope of revealing the underlying simplicity of the universe.”

An International Fellow of the Explorers Club Brian was awarded the prestigious Lord Kelvin Award for his work in promoting science to all. When not filming around the world, Brian writes for a range of newspapers and journals and co-hosts Radio 4's Infinite Monkey Cage, the comedy and science programme. He and his friend and co-host Robin Ince examine the big and not-so-big science questions alongside comedians, scientists and celebrities both on air and on tour. Brian also serves as the Royal Society’s Professor for Public Engagement in Science.

Deborah Meaden

Dragons’ Den Investor and Entrepreneur

Deborah Meaden

Destined to be a successful entrepreneur, Deborah Meaden launched her first business straight out of college, before setting up one of the first ‘Stefanel’ fashion franchises in the UK.With several businesses in the leisure and retail sector under her belt she became Managing Director of Westar Holidays, overseeing its expansion from one to five holiday parks and leading a management buyout. Deborah retained a 23% share of Westar Holidays when it was sold to Phoenix Equity Partners in 2005, before its eventual sale for £83 million in August 2007.

Perhaps best known for her appearances on the BBC2 series ‘Dragons Den’, Deborah joined the panel of investors for series three and has since invested in more than thirty businesses, ranging from market research to online antiques valuations and life saving equipment for hospitals.

Passionate about the environment in which we live, Deborah has judged the Observer Ethical Awards since 2008 and has invested in a number of ‘sustainable’ businesses and also supports a carefully selected group of environmental charities.Deborah is a Fellow of the WWF, the world’s leading environmental organisation and also a Trustee for Tusk Trust, which since its formation in 1990 has raised over £30 million for a wide range of projects across Africa, with The Duke of Cambridge as its Royal Patron. Deborah is an Ambassador for Lend with Care,The Roundhouse, and a Fellow with the RSA.

Deborah has received honorary degrees from the University of Exeter Business School, Staffordshire University and Bath Spa University.

In 2012, Deborah launched Friends of the Earth’s Clean British Energy campaign which calls on the Government to develop clean British power from our wind, sun and water and in the same year, acted as a Sustainability Ambassador for the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.

Deborah acquired Fox Brothers in 2009, a historic textile firm based in the South West which was on the verge of closure and in 2011 ‘The Merchant Fox’ was launched, an on line venture selling an exquisite collection of British-made goods with provenance.

In 2013, Deborah appeared in series 11 of Strictly Come Dancing, the popular BBC One show that pairs celebrities with professional dancers to compete in a ballroom dancing competition.

Richard Noble OBE

Challenger, Entrepreneur, and Record Breaker

Richard Noble OBE

Against a background of today's low risk culture, Richard Noble specialises in developing high risk ventures. Obviously not all of them can be successful, but the Thrust2 programme which brought the World Land Speed Record back to Britain in 1983 and the Thrust SSC first ever supersonic land speed record programme are the best known.

Richard Noble's other projects include the ARV Super2 light aircraft, the Atlantic Sprinter Blue Riband contender, Programme Funding, an original television funding company, Farnborough Aircraft, the first distributed travel air taxi aircraft and currently the Mach 1.4 Bloodhound SSC project the latest in the long line of Land Speed Record cars now being run through 3600UK schools.

These projects all started very small and being original in concept attract only very limited resource. So they have to obey the rules of small company survival:

• 1. Keep it very simple
• 2. Build a highly-motivated, small team
• 3. Move decisively and quickly
• 4. Make up for the financial deficiencies with a very high level of team motivation and productivity

Working in this high risk environment can never been seen as secure or comfortable, for the financial horizon is often just days away and the company depends on its wits to survive. The upside is that we try to use flat structures wherever possible, delegating both responsibility and authority - which can result in a team which drives the project fast and across a wide front, activities which would be seriously expensive for traditionally micro-managed companies.

As an example The ThrustSSC team found itself head to head with both well funded American and Formula 1 teams. McLaren were building the Maverick supersonic car and had budgetted £25m. The Spirit of America team were reputed to have a $14m budget. The ThrustSSC team carried out the entire programme on a cash spend of £2.85m - 14% of the McLaren budget.

The projects have always tended to be innovative - and that puts them against the odds and against the system which will always favour the conventional. Whilst support in terms of people and resource tends to be forthcoming, the financial support has always been the most difficult to achieve - whether sponsorship or investment - and often because of the financial community's real doubts about the teams ability to achieve. Oddly it does seem that the higher the perceived risk by the financial people, the greater the chance of the team achieving!

As a conference and after-dinner speaker, Richard Noble illustrates the presentations with unique video and explains the huge problems in trying to persuade the old British establishment to consider and implement change and listen to original thinking - but despite the track record the British centralised funding machinery always seems to disappoint. So if the central funding machinery won't deliver then, thanks to the internet, it becomes possible to spread the risk and fund with a distributed funding system - which were key original features of SSC Programme Ltd. and Farnborough-Aircraft.com Ltd.

But above all, these projects are difficult, and giving up is NEVER an option.

Roddy Martin

Vice President, Product Marketing SCM,
Oracle

Roddy Martin

Roddy Martin joined Oracle in June 2016 as the Vice President of SCM Cloud Cloud Product Marketing. He leads the supply chain management cloud go-to-market plan development, message creation and content creation and works closely with Sales and Partners to drive market adoption.

Roddy brings over 35 years of of supply chain thought leadership experience to Oracle. His vast operations and leadership experience in engineering, manufacturing, and end-to-end supply chain transformation is ideally suited to evangelize Oracle’s market leading supply chain cloud solutions. Working across product development, corporate marketing, sales, channels and user communities, Roddy leads the team to create consistent and compelling messaging around Oracle's market-driven, end-to-end supply chain cloud solutions.

Jon Chorley

CSO and Group Vice President, SCM Product Strategy,
Oracle

Jon Chorley

Jon Chorley is group vice president of product strategy for Oracle's supply chain management (SCM) applications and leads the team responsible for driving the business requirements and product roadmaps for these applications. Oracle's best-in-class SCM applications support value-chain transformation through the enablement of the information-driven value chain. These solutions include product lifecycle management, transportation and logistics, manufacturing, asset lifecycle management, value-chain planning, and order fulfillment.

Chorley is also the chief sustainability officer for Oracle. In this role, he drives and coordinates all initiatives, both internally and externally, related to environmental sustainability. This responsibility covers all areas, from IT infrastructure and business operation to corporate reporting and risk management. Oracle is committed to developing practices and products that help protect the environment.

Chorley has more than 25 years of experience in the software industry in a broad set of roles including sales, implementation, and development. He began his career with IBM, selling and deploying systems and application software. He was also a principal at Modular Systems, a consulting company specializing in supply chain applications for midsize companies. In addition, Chorley has led software development at Synon for a CASE development tool, and was vice president of National Envelope, a major paper company. He has been with Oracle for 15 years. Prior to his current role he was responsible for the development of Oracle's supply-chain logistics applications.

Chorley graduated summa cum laude with a joint BA in physics and geophysics from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Vikram Singla

Product Innovation and Supply Chain Applications Leader,
Oracle UK and Ireland

Vikram Singla

Vikram Singla is Product Innovation and Supply Chain Applications leader for Oracle UK and Ireland. He helps supply chain and product development executives leverage technology to deliver the increasingly strategic role of their functions. Operations are now central to deliver the customer experience profitably. He has held various roles including commercial, consulting and delivery.

He has over 20 years’ experience in the software sector.

Vikram has an MBA from Warwick Business School and graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi.

Chris Evans

CIO,
Abcam

Chris Evans

Chris Evans is the CIO for Abcam having started the role in October 2016. Prior to that he was an IT Director for Tesco Plc where he worked across a wide range of business areas and technologies over a 10 year career, these include stores, supply chain, Marketing/Clubcard, Commercial, Finance, HR and also on-line operations. Prior to Tesco, Chris spent 10 years at the IT consulting firm Accenture working predominantly on large scale IT Programmes in the Consumer Goods and Retail industry sectors.

Martin Strutt

Consultancy Director,
EEF

Martin Strutt

Martin Strutt is responsible for leading and developing EEF’s manufacturing consulting services nationally. He is a highly accomplished Operations Director with many years’ experience working with a range of manufacturing businesses. Martin has a proven track record of reorganisation, process improvement and profit growth gained in both Line Management roles and Partner level consulting roles with major Consulting firms.

John Beat

EA Programme Manager,
GKN, Plc

John Beat

John has 20+ years Automotive industry experience. Working for Brands such as United Parts where he implemented a new ERP system, Atos where John worked on B2B Internals Sales Purchasing processes and GKN where John has spent the past 10 years implementing processes change and delivering IT projects. John is currently leading a strategic programme of change to replace inefficient Planning processes with a single Planning solution that will exceed his business stake holders expectations through process automation.

Kevin Creel

President, Strategy and Business Development,
Inspirage

Kevin Creel, President, Strategy and Business Development, Inspirage

Mr. Creel is a Co-Founder and President of Inspirage, a premier global supply chain management consulting firm. He is a recognized subject matter expert for supply chain management business process and system design and frequently presents at industry and analyst events on subjects such as cloud supply chain systems. Prior to founding Inspirage, Kevin worked for Oracle Corporation as a Product Manager leading supply chain systems design. Prior to 2000, Mr. Creel worked in various Management and Engineering roles for lucent technology in Reading, PA. Mr. Creel is a graduate of Lehigh University with a MS in Manufacturing Systems Engineering and Albright College with a BS in Computer Science and Economics. In 2008, he was recognized by the Oracle Technical Network as an Oracle ACE for his thought leadership and educational contributions within the Oracle professional and user community.