How is Scotland’s tech ecosystem supporting economic growth and productivity?

Ed Bevan

Head of SME Engagement, techUK

Ed is Head of SME Engagement and is responsible for shaping techUK’s proposition to our SMEs across the country, ensuring our policy work, market access activity and services benefit the SME community.

Prior to working at techUK, Ed worked in the at the Department for International Trade, engaging with a variety of businesses, particularly SMEs, to understand the benefits of Free Trade Agreements and act as case studies in press and social media. Ed has also worked in policy and public affairs within the voluntary sector, namely the Alzheimer’s Society and the Men’s Health Forum.

Ed holds a MA in International Relations from Leiden University, and in his spare time enjoys spending time with his son, travelling, and visiting historical sites.

Julian David OBE

CEO, techUK

Julian David is the CEO of techUK, the leading technology trade association that aims to realise the positive outcomes that digital technology can achieve for People, Society, the Economy and the Planet.

He leads techUK’s 100+ strong team representing 1,100+ British based tech companies, comprising global and national champions and more than 600 SMEs and ScaleUP companies. techUK is the voice of the tech industry in the UK with 21 member led programmes covering all of tech from ‘Chips to Clicks’ and addressing 11 market sectors from Defence and Central Government, through to Health, Consumer Electronics and Financial Services.

In 2021 techUK launched TechSkills, the employer-led accreditation organisation that aims to improve the flow of talent into the digital workforce and open up access for all to high value tech jobs.

Julian represents techUK on a number of external bodies including the Digital Economy Council, the National Cyber Security Advisory Council and the Department of Business and Trade’s Strategic Trade Advisory Group. He is member of the NTA Advisory Board of DIGITALEUROPE and is a member of the Board of the Health Innovation Network the South London Academic Health Science Network.

Julian has over thirty years of experience in the technology industry. Prior to joining techUK, he had a series of leadership roles at IBM including Vice President for Small and Medium Business and Public Sector. After leaving IBM he worked as a consultant helping tech SMEs establish successful operations in the U.K. His personal interests include Football (West Ham, Balham FC and Real Madrid) and Art.

Jill DeBene

CEO, Sitekit

Jill has worked in health and digital transformation most of her career , having started as a manager in the NHS and moving to major digital transformation programmes from which she has worked for a number of technical suppliers and consultancies.  As CEO of Sitekit she has led the development of the health and social care expansion and is pleased to have a number of early forays in Scotland which is the home of Sitekit’s founder.

Mark Elliott

Programme Director, CivTech

Mark has a long, successful track record working in both the creative and the business sides of the digital and creative industries. While CEO of the highly successful DigitalCity in NE England he helped hundreds of companies grow as fast and effectively as possible, and was a key player in The Difference Engine - Europe’s first tech accelerator. Moving north in 2013 he ran the UP Accelerator, Edinburgh and then joined the fun at CivTech, first as its Head of Accelerator until taking over as Programme Director in summer, 2019.

David Gimson

Director, Infrastructure, Government and Healthcare Consulting – Scotland, KPMG

David is the lead for KPMG's Infrastructure, Government and Health consultancy services in Scotland. He has worked across the public sector on large scale programmes from design through to implementation, including the delivery of enabling technology.

David has a background in local government and worked for ten years in London, before moving to Glasgow in 2015.

Chris Gledhill

CEO, PDMS

Chris co-founded PDMS in 1993 with a mission to help organisations get the maximum value from information technology and their associated data assets.  Celebrating 30 years in business this year, PDMS is a digital services and solutions company with a focus on solving complex problems with great people and expertly engineered software. Chris is currently an SME representative on the techUK Central Government Council and PDMS has a growing operation in Scotland.

Dr Nicola Hodson

techUK Deputy President, Chief Executive in the UK and Ireland, IBM

Nicola Hodson is a seasoned senior executive with expertise in delivering results and driving the strategic, commercial, and digital transformation of large, international complex technology and engineering companies. Her focus is on purpose-led, profitable growth, sustainability, and shareholder value.

Nicola is the Chief Executive of IBM in the UK and Ireland, responsible for business operations, driving revenue growth, client satisfaction and employee engagement in the UK and Ireland. Previously, Nicola was the Vice President of Change Management and Transformation for the Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) organization, directing innovative transformation and change management to empower Microsoft customers, partners, and employees. She was central in building new strategies and go-to-market methodologies as well as providing oversight to the change management landing and adoption of these priorities, and transformational initiatives. She played a key leadership role within the MCAPS organization and held several senior roles in Microsoft including UK COO.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Nicola held positions at Siemens, CSC, and Ernst & Young Management Consulting selling and delivering multiple transformation projects in the energy and utilities sector.

Nicola lends her extensive technology, digital transformation, sales, IT and ESG experience by participating on boards, both in the private and public sectors. She is currently Deputy President of techUK and a non-executive director at Drax Group Plc and at Beazley Plc.

She holds an MBA with a focus on management and operations, a PhD in Materials Engineering, and a BSc in Chemistry and Materials Science.

Mark Logan

Chief Entrepreneur, Scottish Government

Mark is a Professor in Practice in the School of Computing Science. This means that he works in industry, rather than as a full-time academic member of staff. He has over 25 years of leadership experience in the internet technology industry sector. He was instrumental in the success of multiple start-ups, including as COO of Skyscanner, one of Europe's most successful technology companies, where he was responsible for the general management of the business.

In 2014, the Institute of Directors named him Director of the Year and in 2016 he won the UK Digital Masters award for Excellence in General Management. In 2019, he was conferred the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Glasgow.

Since leaving Skyscanner, Mark’s focus has been as a start-up/scale-up advisor, investor and non-executive director in start-ups across the sector in Scotland and internationally. He is also an advisor to the Scottish Government on technology policy.

: https://www.gov.scot/news/appointment-of-chief-entrepreneur/

Kelly Nicholls

CEO, TechSkills, techUK

No bio provided

: https://www.techskills.org/
: Kelly Nicholls

Loral Quinn

CEO, CodeClan

Loral Quinn was appointed CEO of CodeClan in November 2022. Previously, Loral was chief executive and co-founder at fintech for good Sustainably.

Loral has won multiple industry awards for fintech, digital products, marketing and innovation including Richard Branson’s Startup of the Year.

CodeClan’s mission is to bridge the digital skills gap and develop a new generation of digital professionals in Scotland.

Ed Thewlis

Co-founder , The Data Shed

Ed Thewlis is the co-founder of The Data Shed, an award-winning data engineering and analytics consultancy, as well as the founder of The Data Refinery, a SaaS data platform providing automated insights to SMEs.

With a background in Economics, Ed spent the first decade of his career working within Financial Services and Travel, and the last 10 years working across a wide range of industries, focussing on helping organisations make the most of the data they hold through the development of their Data Strategy, and building their own Data Engineering and Data Science capabilities.