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  1. You're here:
  2. The UK's technology trade association
  3. National Security Committee

National Security Committee

The National Security Committee drives and govern the work of the techUK National Security Programme. It is comprised of senior representatives from strategically important companies active in National Security markets and policy areas across the UK.

  1. You're here:
  2. The UK's technology trade association
  3. National Security Committee
  • Overview

Access

This is a council composed exclusively of techUK members. If you are interested in understanding the election process, we encourage you to reach out to one of our team members listed at the bottom of this page.

Its focus is to address the strategic-level security concerns that impact the UK tech sector, and providing a forum for the Government’s national security community to engage with technology suppliers on industry engagement opportunities. 

The National Security Committee is techUK’s authoritative voice on national security issues, and highlights the opportunity for the technology industry to offer solutions to them. The National Security Committee seeks to engage with relevant stakeholders in HMG, bringing them together with the technology industry to agree views and perspectives on a wide range of topics. These include promoting a community of open collaboration in what is typically a secret, complex and risk-averse environment and addressing the specific challenges of SMEs operating in the national security sector. 

The National Security Committee will meet bi-monthly to discuss the above.

Chair and Vice-chair

Matthew Horne

Matthew Horne

Director Intelligence and Investigations, Clue Software

Matthew Horne

Matthew Horne

Director Intelligence and Investigations, Clue Software

Ruby Motabhoy

Ruby Motabhoy

Senior Lead, National Security, Plexal

Ruby Motabhoy

Ruby Motabhoy

Senior Lead, National Security, Plexal

Committee members

Andrew Mclannahan

Andrew Mclannahan

Director for Defence, Security and Space, Made Tech

Andrew Mclannahan

Andrew Mclannahan

Director for Defence, Security and Space, Made Tech

Ben Rankin

Ben Rankin

Head of Public Sector, Armis

Ben Rankin

Ben Rankin

Head of Public Sector, Armis

Bill Hodson

Bill Hodson

Consulting Director, Cambridge Consultants

Bill Hodson

Bill Hodson

Consulting Director, Cambridge Consultants

Bill has more than 35 years experience in technology strategy consulting to government and industry around the world. Starting by working in the Cambridge cluster, he has since held senior leadership positions in six different technology and consulting organisations. He has worked extensively across defence and security in the UK, Asia, the US and Australia as well as a range of other markets including energy, transport, aerospace, healthcare, manufacturing, defence & security and construction.

Bill has worked extensively in helping organisations to understand when and how to make investments in emerging technologies. He specialises in work that delivers the value of innovation and emerging technology. As Consulting Director, he holds responsibility for the Cambridge Consultants portfolio of strategy and consulting work. He also leads Cambridge Consultants’ Defence business and is a member of the company’s Executive.

Bill holds a Master’s Degree in Engineering from the University of Cambridge and has been a Fellow of the University’s Centre for Science and Policy for 11 years, seeking to build bridges between Whitehall policy-making and robust evidence drawn from scientific reality.

Brad Crompton

Brad Crompton

Director - EMEA, Flashpoint

Brad Crompton

Brad Crompton

Director - EMEA, Flashpoint

Clive Finlay

Clive Finlay

Symantec Field Chief Technology Officer for the EMEA region, Broadcom (Enterprise Security Division)

Clive Finlay

Clive Finlay

Symantec Field Chief Technology Officer for the EMEA region, Broadcom (Enterprise Security Division)

Daniel Shiu

Daniel Shiu

Chief Cryptographer, Arqit

Daniel Shiu

Daniel Shiu

Chief Cryptographer, Arqit

Giles Hursey

Giles Hursey

National Security Account Director, IBM

Giles Hursey

Giles Hursey

National Security Account Director, IBM

Graham Le Fevre

Graham Le Fevre

Strategic Partnership Manager, Northrop Grumman UK

Graham Le Fevre

Graham Le Fevre

Strategic Partnership Manager, Northrop Grumman UK

Huw Williams

Huw Williams

UKI High Secure Services Territory Lead, DXC Technology

Huw Williams

Huw Williams

UKI High Secure Services Territory Lead, DXC Technology

James Patrick

James Patrick

Principal Cloud Architect, Oracle

James Patrick

James Patrick

Principal Cloud Architect, Oracle

Justin Prowse

Justin Prowse

Major Account Manager - Defence and National Security, Fortinet

Justin Prowse

Justin Prowse

Major Account Manager - Defence and National Security, Fortinet

Martin Ferguson

Martin Ferguson

Global Vice President of Consultancy & Implementation, NCC Group

Martin Ferguson

Martin Ferguson

Global Vice President of Consultancy & Implementation, NCC Group

Michael Willis

Michael Willis

Director (National Security Business), Capgemini

Michael Willis

Michael Willis

Director (National Security Business), Capgemini

Neil Seabury

Neil Seabury

Head of Technology & Government CTO, BT

Neil Seabury

Neil Seabury

Head of Technology & Government CTO, BT

Patrick Hutchings

Patrick Hutchings

UK & Australia Sector Lead for Secure Innovation & Advisory, CGI

Patrick Hutchings

Patrick Hutchings

UK & Australia Sector Lead for Secure Innovation & Advisory, CGI

Stephen Knibbs

Stephen Knibbs

Head of VBSE (Vodafone Business Security Enhanced), Vodafone UK

Stephen Knibbs

Stephen Knibbs

Head of VBSE (Vodafone Business Security Enhanced), Vodafone UK

Steve West

Steve West

Director and Chief Innovation Officer, TJC

Steve West

Steve West

Director and Chief Innovation Officer, TJC

Stuart McKean

Stuart McKean

CEO, Nine23

Stuart McKean

Stuart McKean

CEO, Nine23

Stuart Wiggins

Stuart Wiggins

Horizon North Europe Threat Lead , CrowdStrike

Stuart Wiggins

Stuart Wiggins

Horizon North Europe Threat Lead , CrowdStrike

Victoria Knight

Strategy and Operations Director National Security and Government, BAE Systems

Victoria Knight

Strategy and Operations Director National Security and Government, BAE Systems

William Moore

William Moore

Chief Executive, Airbox Systems

William Moore

William Moore

Chief Executive, Airbox Systems


Upcoming events

4 June 2025

Inspiring innovation: how you can co-create with HMGCC

Online Webinar
19 June 2025

Delivering on Home Office priorities through Research, Development and Innovation

Online Industry Briefing

 

National Security Committee Priorities

  • Threat Intelligence
  • National Security Policy
  • Skilled Workforce
  • Supply Chain Security
Threat Intelligence
National Security Policy
Skilled Workforce
Supply Chain Security

Risk Ledger

Risk Ledger - Many UK Government departments and public bodies have increasingly looked to technology to support their understanding of the operational risk presented by their extended supply chain. Their goal is to establish fact-based views that inform their operating resilience by minimising the impact of cyber security events. Risk Ledger is one of the tools chosen with over 4,000 organisations already signed up. Experience shows that it typically takes less than 10 days to enter company information and this is then automatically reused across government. The organisational data is refreshed every 6-months or by exception on significant change or emerging vulnerability requests.

With several legislative and international standard overlays, compliance and audit reports can be generated in hours and not days allowing the correct focus on priority risk areas.

Cyber Essentials Certification

Cyber Essentials is a UK Government backed scheme overseen by the National Cyber security Centre (NCSC).  It seeks to demonstrate that an organisation has a minimum level of protection in cyber security through annual assessments to maintain their company certification.  By achieving at least this level of protection then an organisation:

  • helps to safeguard the intellectual property stored on its own systems
  • becomes eligible for government contracts that involve handling sensitive and personal information
  • becomes eligible for the provision of certain technical products and services.

Cyber Essentials is a self-certification trademark.  It is recommended that independent, technical verification is conducted and that you therefore achieve Cyber Essentials Plus.  Support for the certification process is an area where other techUK members might be able to assist.

Introducing the technical controls

There are five technical controls:

  1. Firewalls
  2. Secure configuration
  3. Security update management
  4. User access control
  5. Malware protection

As a Cyber Essentials scheme applicant organisation, it's your responsibility to make sure that your organisation meets all the requirements. You might also be required to supply evidence before your certification body can award certification at the level for which you’re applying.

What you should do first:

  • Establish the boundary of scope for your organisation, and then determine what is in scope within this boundary.
  • Review each of the five technical control themes and the controls they embody as requirements.
  • Take the necessary steps to ensure that your organisation meets every requirement it needs for the scope you have determined

Getting certified?

NCSC’s Cyber Essentials Partner the IASME consortium can help you to get certified. We also have a number of techUK members who can provide coaching or further support.  For example:

  • Rizikon is offering free access to its platform for a single-use assessment.

Phishing training and awareness

Threat actors have much success in crafting plausible content on SMS text, email or published media that less aware users may click on or through embedded links to access seemingly legitimate web pages and potentially enter sensitive details that are harvested and used against individuals and organisations. The introduction of Quick Response (QR) codes in 1994, enables users to simply scan 2-dimensional bar-coded images with a camera enabled device to interact with richer services and information behind the image. With the straightforward ability for tampering with published codes through stick on overlays having now become a prevalent technique to hijack the original intended purpose and harvest user information. According to one source, the QR phishing (Quishing) threat has increased by over 2400% since May 23.

Both email Phishing and Scanned Quishing techniques or combined approaches attempt to lead a victim to a malicious website where login credentials and personal information can be stolen. Commonly there is an urgency or request for help that does not follow normal business process. Once credentials are harvested, they may be sold on or used for criminal activity.

Common signs to watch out for are:

  • Unexpected emails or messages
  • Poor use of native language that may be generic and contain poor grammar and typos in any message text
  • Poor image quality
  • Unrecognizable URL
  • Suspicious websites

Users should consider undertaking security awareness training to understand the risks, ensure their device software is kept up to date and has anti-virus software installed and should be encouraged to think before giving out personal information unless certain the webpages and need are legitimate. If in any doubt report to business security teams or law enforcement authorities.

Please remember that reputable companies do not send unsolicited mail requesting that you provide sensitive information!

 

 

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Our team

Raya Tsolova

Senior Programme Manager, techUK

Fred Sugden

Fred Sugden

Associate Director, Defence and National Security, techUK

Tracy Modha

Tracy Modha

Programme Marketing Assistant for Public Sector Markets, techUK

Francesca Richiusa

Francesca Richiusa

Programme Team Assistant for Public Sector Markets, techUK

Raya Tsolova

Senior Programme Manager, techUK

Raya Tsolova is a Programme Manager at techUK. 

Prior to joining techUK, Raya worked in Business Development for an expert network firm within the institutional investment space. Before this Raya spent a year in industry working for a tech start-up in London as part of their Growth team which included the formation and development of a 'Let's Talk Tech' podcast and involvement in London Tech Week. 

Raya has a degree in Politics and International Relations (Bsc Hons) from the University of Bath where she focused primarily on national security and counter-terrorism policies, centreing research on female-led terrorism and specific approaches to justice there. 

Outside of work, Raya's interests include baking, spin classes and true-crime Netflix shows! 

Email:
[email protected]
Phone:
07712630603
Fred Sugden

Fred Sugden

Associate Director, Defence and National Security, techUK

Fred is responsible for techUK's activities across the Defence and National Security sectors, working to provide members with access to key stakeholders across the Defence and National Security community. Before taking on the role of Associate Director for Defence and National Security, Fred joined techUK in 2018, working as the Programme Head for Defence at techUK, leading the organisation's engagement with the Ministry of Defence. Before joining techUK, he worked at ADS, the national trade association representing Aerospace, Defence, Security & Space companies in the UK.

Fred is responsible for techUK’s market engagement and policy development activities across the Defence and National Security sectors, working closely with various organisations within the Ministry of Defence, and across the wider National Security and Intelligence community. Fred works closely with many techUK member companies that have an interest in these sectors, and is responsible for the activities of techUK's senior Defence & Security Board. Working closely with techUK's Programme Head for Cyber Security, Fred oversees a broad range of activities for techUK members.

Outside of work, Fred's interests include football (a Watford FC fan) and skiing.

 

Email:
[email protected]
Phone:
07985 234 170
Tracy Modha

Tracy Modha

Programme Marketing Assistant for Public Sector Markets, techUK

Tracy supports the marketing of several areas at techUK, including Cyber Exchange, Central Government, Cyber Resilience, Defence, Education, Health and Social Care, Justice and Emergency Services, Local Public Services, Nations and Regions and National Security.

Tracy joined techUK in March 2022, having worked in the education sector for 19 years, covering administration, research project support, IT support and event/training support. My most outstanding achievement has been running three very successful international conferences and over 300 training courses booked all over the globe!

Tracy has a great interest in tech. Gaming and computing have been a big part of her life, and now electric cars are an exciting look at the future. She has warmed to Alexa, even though it can sometimes be sassy!

Email:
[email protected]
Phone:
02073312000
Website:
www.techuk.org
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracymodha83
Francesca Richiusa

Francesca Richiusa

Programme Team Assistant for Public Sector Markets, techUK

Fran serves as the Programme Team Assistant within techUK’s Public Sector Market Programmes, where she is responsible for delivering comprehensive team support, managing administrative functions, and fostering strong relationships with members.

Prior to joining techUK in May 2025, Fran built a meaningful career in the charitable and local government sectors. She worked extensively with both victims and perpetrators of crime, and notably led the coordination of Domestic Homicide Reviews across Surrey—an initiative aimed at identifying lessons and preventing future incidents of domestic abuse.

Outside of work, Fran is an avid traveller and a proud cat mum who enjoys unwinding with her feline companions.

 

Email:
[email protected]
Website:
www.techuk.org/
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesca-richiusa/

 

 
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techUK is the trade association which brings together people, companies and organisations to realise the positive outcomes of what digital technology can achieve. With over 1,000 members (the majority of which are SMEs) across the UK, techUK creates a network for innovation and collaboration across business, government and stakeholders to provide a better future for people, society, the economy and the planet. By providing expertise and insight, we support our members, partners and stakeholders as they prepare the UK for what comes next in a constantly changing world.

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