Dennis Howlett
Dennis spent 20 years in senior finance roles at manufacturing, construction, civil engineering and farming businesses. He also worked for ten years as tax and IT partner with a UK firm of chartered accountants.
Since 1991, he has been providing analysis and commentary on business related IT. He has invested in and advised early-stage technology companies.
Alongside his personal weblog, Howlett is a board advisor to Constellation Research and SAP Mentor, and a contributor to ZDNet US. He is co author of the Comprehensive SAP Business ByDesign report.
Bian Salins
A journalist turned social media evangelist, Bian’s career saw her start out as a reporter for India’s first online venture, Rediff.com. She then went on to be associate features editor for Elle magazine before moving to England.
Since then, Bian has worked for the Times Education Supplement and spent over ten years at BT in various editorial roles. She currently works as head of social media innovation within BT customer service, where she sets the strategy for and manages BT's social media channels for customer service, branded as the popular BTCare offering service through Twitter, internal and external forums, YouTube and Facebook.
Charles Ravenhill
Charles is currently employed by BAE Systems as a business intelligence project manager and applications developer. In this capacity, his work regularly brings him into contact with a wide range of IT, finance and business professionals in the strategy, definition and provision of automated financial information to the end user community.
Having held previous roles as a finance manager, and in financial governance implementation and management accounting, Charles has also lectured CIMA students at a college of technology in management and organisational development. Within CIMA, he has supported the Global Business Challenge and roundtable events, and has assisted in the evaluation of CIMA research funding proposals to research bodies. Married to Megan, he has two children; but not an iPhone.
Zuzanna Pasierbinska-Wilson
As VP of marketing at Huddle, Zuzanna has been responsible for the company’s brand and marketing since 2008. She has overseen its growth from humble beginnings as the UK’s favourite B2B start up company to becoming a leader in cloud collaboration and content management, with 85,000 customers across 180 countries.
A published sociologist, Zuzanna abandoned academia to join Rainier (now Speed Communications) where she looked after PR and communications strategy for Texas Instruments, Virgin Media Business and Wind River. A few years later, she cofounded Custard, a consultancy specialising in digital media and mobile whose clients boasted innovative start up and early stage companies such as AdMob, 7Digital and PlusNet, as well as top global brands, Disney, Garmin, Nokia and ICQ.
Zuzanna is behind Silicon Stilettos, a meet up facility for women in tech, start ups and social media. When not in front of her computer, she spends time surfing, rounding up cattle and dreaming of Huddle's world domination. You can follow her on Twitter.
Alan Patrick
Alan Patrick cofounded Broadsight after a career consulting to, and working at, senior level for leading global companies in many fields, from aerospace to zinc extraction. He has worked in the US, Europe, Africa and the Far East.
Broadsight is a consultancy firm specialising in applying cutting edge systems and systems thinking to improve business performance in the 21st century. It counts telecoms, media, finance, consulting and manufacturing businesses amongst their clients.
Alan has been involved with the use of systems (IT and non IT) to improve business performance for 25 years, and in the early designs of ERP systems and broadband multimedia networks. He has written several articles on the impact of digital supply chains on enterprise operations and writes the popular Broadstuff blog.
Prior to setting up Broadsight, Alan was managing director and COO at Jacobs Rimell (a supplier of multimedia OSS systems), VP of multimedia strategy at BT Global Internet and a consultant for McKinsey & Co.
Andrew Fryer
Andrew is an IT pro evangelist at Microsoft UK. Before joining Microsoft in 2007 Andrew worked for a number of partners developing business intelligence solutions for a wide range of organisations.
He previously spent a number of years in criminal intelligence and forensic IT at HM Customs and Excise (now HMRC) and the Serious Fraud Office.
His blog focuses on business intelligence and data management, but is evolving to cover the wider issues facing many IT professionals in the UK, such as cloud computing, infrastructure optimisation against uncertainties about the economy and the environment.
Dr Heba El Sayed is a lecturer in the division of accounting and finance at the University of Manchester and holds a PhD in accounting and information systems. Her primary research interest focuses on the interface between accounting and modern information technologies including web 2.0 enterprise systems and ecommerce.
Heba has recently completed a CIMA funded project investigating the implications of modern collaborative enterprise web 2.0 technologies for management accountants in multinational companies in the UK. She aims to explore how the education experience of trainee accountants and those starting out in the profession might be developed, based on their understanding and use of these social networking tools.
Dr Chris Westrup is a senior lecturer at the Manchester Business School in the University of Manchester. He has been researching and publishing in the area of large organisations, technologies and business change for the past 12 years and has led projects sponsored by CIMA and the ESRC on issues such as enterprise systems, knowledge management and social networking technologies.
Chris also has an interest in ICTs and developing countries. He is currently chair of the international working group IFIP9.4, which brings together academics and practitioners engaged in this subject from around the world.