Border Strategy 2025: Opportunities for Tech Companies & Consortia

Baroness Neville-Rolfe DBE CMG

Minister of State, Cabinet Office

Baroness Neville-Rolfe DBE CMG was appointed Minister of State on 20 September 2022, covering a number of significant policy areas including Borders & the Single Trade Window.

Lucy joined the House of Lords as a Conservative Peer in October 2013 and served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Minister for Intellectual property from July 2014 until July 2016, becoming Minister of State in July 2016. Lucy also served as Commercial Secretary to the Treasury from December 2016 to June 2017.

She sat on the House of Lords EU committee from 2017 to 2021 and chaired the Built Environment Committee from 2021 to September 2022.

In December 2021, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions appointed her to lead the independent review into the State Pension age, which concluded in September 2022.

Owen Barry

Managing Director & Client Partner, Justice, Central Government & Transport, Capita

Owen Barry is Capita’s Managing Director and Client Partner for Justice, Central Government and Transport (JCT) business. Taking on the role in May 2022, Owen is responsible smooth and successful running of Capita’s JCT business. In this role, he leads the relationship with some of Capita’s biggest clients including Transport for London and the Ministry of Justice. 

Owen is a people-focused leader with a track record in developing and driving high performing teams. He has been at Capita since 2013 undertaking a range of finance, operational, client and general leadership roles.  

Owen is a qualified accountant and graduated from Imperial College London with a degree in Internal Business in 2003.  

Outside of work, Owen enjoys spending time with his wife and their two young sons. Owen is also a keen sportsman and completed his first marathon in 2022.  

Owen Barry | LinkedIn

Antony Collard

VP Consulting Services, CGI

Antony Collard is a Vice President in our Central Government business unit, overseeing the delivery of high-quality IT services for major Government Departments and leads the growth of two of the business unit’s largest accounts. He joined CGI in 2021 following 30 years of service in the public sector, having worked at HMRC, DWP and the Inland Revenue.

During his 16 years at HMRC Antony held roles as Digital Director and Director of Architecture, Strategy, Design, and Innovation. In that time, he led the delivery of large-scale IT transformation programmes and as Digital Director was instrumental in building HMRC’s Digital Delivery Centre capability from two small centres to seven centres across the country, with over 1500 people working to transform HMRCs online digital services, a blend of Civil Servants and people from multiple suppliers.

In his current role, Antony continues to support Government IT delivery helping the government to roll out transformational technology across numerous organisations. Antony also champions SMEs through CGI’s Central Government Ecosystem programme, helping to cultivate reciprocal relationships where cultural fit and delivery excellence is key.

Antony Collard | LinkedIn

Heather Cover-Kus

Head of Central Government Programme, techUK

Heather is Head of Central Government Programme at techUK, working to represent the supplier community of tech products and services to Central Government.

Prior to joining techUK in April 2022, Heather worked in the Economic Policy and Small States Section at the Commonwealth Secretariat.  She led the organisation’s FinTech programme and worked to create an enabling environment for developing countries to take advantage of the socio-economic benefits of FinTech.

Before moving to the UK, Heather worked at the Office of the Prime Minister of The Bahamas and the Central Bank of The Bahamas.

Heather holds a Graduate Diploma in Law from BPP, a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from LSE, and a BA in Economics and Sociology from Macalester College.

Rene Hawkins

Chief Operations Officer, Tecknuovo

Renee has two decades of experience in the technology and consultancy space. As Tecknuovo's Chief Operations Officer, she uses her passion for creating, influencing, and driving strategies around talent and operations management to help our customers overcome their challenges. She's driving this by channelling our alternative to the traditional consultancy model — continuously improving how we operate to meet our customers’ complex business needs. Renee won Woman of the Year at the 2021 Women in Tech Excellence awards.

Renee Hawkins | LinkedIn

Prof. Glenn Parry

Professor at Surrey Business School, University of Surrey

Prof. Glenn Parry is Professor of Digital Transformation at Surrey Business School, and Head of Department of Digital Economy Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He is Co-Director EPSRC Next Stage Digital Economy Centre in the Decentralised Digital Economy (DECaDE), working on digital content trading, and blockchain supply chain solutions. He is CoI on the EPSRC “Resilient Trans-disciplinary Design Engineers” (TREND) project developing tools for resilient manufacturing, and the Responsive Additive Manufacture to Overcome Natural and Attack-based disruption (RAMONA) developing resilient additive manufacture supply chains.

Glenn Parry | LinkedIn

Christopher Salmon

Founder, clearBorder

Christopher Salmon founded clearBorder to help businesses optimise border strategy, exploit international trade opportunities and maximise global competitiveness. Previously, he oversaw the UK’s preparations for leaving the EU as Senior Adviser to Rt Hon Michael Gove MP.

Christopher Salmon | LinkedIn

Kevin Shakespeare

Director of Strategic Projects and International Development, IOE&IT

With a strong background in business, trade and customs, Kevin leads the Institute’s trade digitalisation agenda – liaising with governments, commercial businesses and NGOs around the world.

An advocate for international trade for more than 40 years, Kevin is highly respected within the international trade community. He has facilitated cross-border trade for thousands of UK businesses and been pivotal in designing and delivering new documentation and processes pre- and post-Brexit.

Formerly the Institute’s Director of Stakeholder Engagement, Kevin was involved in developing the Diploma in World Customs Planning and Compliance, a Foundation Degree in International Trade and the Northern Ireland Customs and Trade Academy (NICTA).

Kevin has led many trade initiatives in the UK and Internationally, including work with Invest NI, Scottish Enterprise, UK Export Finance and Saudi Export Development Authority.  

He is a United Nations-approved trainer and author of a best-selling book: Trade for Good.

Kevin Shakespeare | LinkedIn

Geraint Evans

Chief Executive, The UK Major Ports Group

UKMPG is the trade body that speaks for the UK’s largest port operators who, between them provide the gateways for 75% of UK trade, and invest £500million per annum in UK ports and infrastructure.   Evans joined the UKMPG from the global consulting firm, Stonehaven where he was a Partner. Evans served as a Special Adviser under three consecutive prime ministers – David Cameron, Theresa May and latterly Boris Johnson.

Evans has extensive experience of Whitehall departments and Parliament having been an early champion of the ‘Levelling Up’ agenda and arrives at the UKMPG having been at the centre of British politics during a historic period of three general elections and an EU referendum in five years.

Geraint Evans | LinkedIn

Richard Jones

Security Lead, Leidos UK

Richard Jones started his career with the Foreign and Commonwealth office and completed 26 years of technology and engineering work including a very strong security element. Moving to Leidos in 2014, Richard now leads the Cyber Security and Assurance capability in support of all our UK clients and delivering results in all aspects of IT security including Cyber Operations.    Richard has invested in both the people and technology to develop the Leidos UK Cyber security capability and works with our global corporation to bring practical innovations and ever more effective cyber solutions.  Richard’s team provides support to national bodies with a focus on Government, Defence, National Security, Critical National Infrastructure, and key public services.  Our strong relationships with key partners in providing Cyber solutions brings insights and assurance wherever and whenever our customers need it.

Richard Jones | LinkedIn

Sophie Scannell

Execution Lead, Palantir UK

Sophie leads execution and delivery for Palantir UK where she focuses primarily on engineering customers and the transport, construction and infrastructure industries. She previously led product development for Palantir Foundry's advanced engineering products in the modelling and IoT spaces. In 2022 and 2023 Sophie led a consortium of nearly twenty companies and organisations to build and demonstrate a proof-of-concept technology for a UK Ecosystem of Trust – a pilot programme designed to explore the opportunities for more frictionless trade into and out of the UK.

Sophie Scannell | LinkedIn

Jonjo Hobbs

Managing Director, Capita Procurement Solutions

Jonjo has been the MD of Capita Procurement Solutions for over 6 years and part of Capita for over 11 years. He has worked within the procurement industry all his career with stints abroad living in Europe working with clients on complex global supply chain and procurement initiatives. Outside of work reading, travel, preferably combined, a little bit of cricket and a lot of family (father of 3 girls) takes up most of his time.

Jonjo Hobbs | LinkedIn

Mike Harrington

Partner - Borders & Immigration, PwC

Mike has spent the last twenty years working with Home Affairs' organisations, particularly security, borders and immigration, and helping them keep citizens safe and the country secure. He specialises in supporting organisation through strategy led tech enabled transformations. Prior to this, Mike was an operational leader in the British Army for ten years.

Michael Harrington MCMI ChMC | LinkedIn

Bruce McGregor

Director, PDMS Ltd.

Bruce is a Director at PDMS, a software engineering and digital transformation company with clients in both the public and private sector. Bruce has a focus both on business development, and in the particular the maritime sector. He also has extensive experience in setting up and managing partnerships, including contract negotiations, to deliver solutions for governments. This is both as a prime and a sub-contractor as part of a consortia on various public sector procurement frameworks. PDMS has been an SME representative on TechUK’s Central Government Council for many years helping to promote better engagement, particularly for SMEs with the government.

Bruce holds a certificate in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors and in his spare time enjoys keeping fit and mountain biking. With a BSc (hons) and PhD in Marine Biology, he still retains a key interest in all things maritime.

Stewart Jeacocke

Associate Partner & Customs, Immigration and Borders Lead, IBM

Karen Wilson

Digital Commercial Director, UK Home Office

Karen Wilson is currently the Digital Commercial Director for the Home Office and member of the Government Commercial Function in addition to being head of Corporate & Common Goods and Services, with a total portfolio of contractual spend circa £3bn p.a. Prior to her current role Karen was a member of DWP for 25 years, working in senior roles across Digital, Programme and Project leadership and Commercial Directorate.

Karen Wilson | LinkedIn