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The most influential people in ITCOMPUTER WEEKLY PRESENTS THE 50 INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE HAD THE GREATEST IMPACT ON UK IT IN 2014

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Banking ITUK to establish digital cheques in 2015In January 2015 the UK government is expected to make the digital image of a cheque legal tender, paving the way to end paper cheque processing. Following the change in legislation in the first six months of 2015, HM Treasury will set out rules and timeframes. The move means institutions will be able to process a pic-ture or scan of a signed physical cheque.

IT legislationEuropean Parliament calls for search engines to split from other businessThe European Parliament has called on the European Commission to break down barriers to the growth of the EU’s digital single market. In a move clearly aimed at Google, MEPs emphasised the need to prevent online companies from abus-ing dominant positions by enforcing EU competition rules and unbundling search engines from other commercial services.

IT servicesIBM bags billions of dollars in IT services deals in a matter of daysIBM has won deals worth $3.6bn over the past couple of weeks, with advertising giant WPP the latest to ink a billion-dollar contract. The seven-year agreement worth $1.25bn will see WPP put digi-tal services on a hybrid cloud managed globally by IBM. Through the services contract, IBM will transform and manage WPP’s global technology platform.

Insurance ITAviva and Friends Life merger provides opportunity for digital transformationAviva’s £5.6bn takeover of Friends Life spells an opportunity for the new com-pany to invest in technologies for the digital age. Aviva – which has already embarked on a digital business trans-formation programme – will take over Friends Life as part of the deal, aiming to cut costs by more than £200m.

Mobile networksThree pondering bid for O2 or EEHutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong-based conglomerate behind mobile net-work operator Three, will attempt to buy either O2 or EE before Christmas 2014, reports have said. According to Reuters, which first reported the news, sources close to the talks – who declined to be named – said Hutchison Whampoa was in the process of preparing its own bid alongside an advisory boutique.

Mobile paymentsAlmost 200 billion mobile commerce transactions to be made each yearConsumers will be mak-ing up to 195 billion mobile payments each year by 2019, according to a report from Juniper Research. The firm predicts purchases on tablets and mobiles will increase steadily over the next few years, after 72 billion mobile transactions were made in 2014.

access the latest it news via rss feed

CHANCELLOR GEORGE OSBORNE GOES AFTER TECHNOLOGY TAX AVOIDERS IN AUTUMN STATEMENT

Companies such as Google and Amazon, as well as other organisations that use aggressive tax-avoidance schemes, will incur a tax charge of 25%, as the govern-ment goes after their UK profits.

In his Autumn Statement, chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne said: “We will make sure the big multi-nationals – including those in the tech sector – pay 25% tax on the profit from economic activity in the UK.”

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IT suppliersHP is ‘coming back strong’, says CEO Meg Whitman at user conferenceHP CEO Meg Whitman has attempted to rally and restore confidence among customers following recent news of the company’s split into two firms. Looking back on a tumultuous spell in charge at HP, Whitman told delegates at the HP Discover user conference in Barcelona the company was now more stable, with an enhanced products and services cata-logue reflecting the “new style of IT”.

Rural broadbandEE readies rural broadband mesh network in Cumbrian villageThe Cumbrian village of Sebergham will be the first rural community to receive a meshed network from EE. Due to go live in 2015, the network will offer households and small businesses data and voice con-nectivity. EE said the micro network will change the economics of mobile coverage, removing the requirement to build large masts and install underground cables. Government ITMoD consolidates with green datacentreThe Ministry of Defence (MoD) is aim-ing to reduce its IT carbon footprint with the construction of a new datacentre to replace its existing host site in Bath.According to Ark Data Centres, which is implementing the new datacentre, the MoD will be able to cut 14,000 tonnes of carbon over 10 years.

Payment technologyTwo-thirds of banks will invest in payment technology modernisationMore than two-thirds of global banks will invest in technologies such as digital wallets and near-field communication to update their payment systems, as demand becomes impossible to ignore. Research of 6,500 senior IT decision-makers, including those at banks, said demand for different ways to pay and the increasing use of mobiles to make payments is driv-ing investment in payment technology.

Cyber crimeUK helps in operation to shut down websites selling counterfeit goodsLaw enforcement officers from the UK have taken part in an international opera-tion involving 19 countries to seize 292 domain names used to sell counter-feit goods online. The operation was co-ordinated by Europol in collaboration with US authorities. The domain names seized are now in the custody of the gov-ernments involved in the operation.

Banking ITBarclays Bank launches mobile video bankingBarclays bank has launched a 24-hour video banking service that will enable customers to receive face-to-face ser-vice from anywhere. The Barclays Video Banking app is available for iOS and Android devices and as a plugin on desk-tops and laptops. n

AUSTRALIANS ARE BIGGEST MOBILE BANKERS

Device used to check account balance, view transactions, transfer money or pay bills on a bank’s website or mobile application

Australia

Spain

USA

39%

37%

27%

16%

19%

Mobile Tablet

12%

Source: Forrester Research

23%

18%

11%

10%Germany

Great Britain

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The 50 most influential people in ITComputer Weekly’s 2014 search for the most influential individuals in UK IT is over

Click here to Computer

Weekly’s 2013 list of

rising stars

Click here to see last

year’s UKtech50

Computer Weekly has announced the fifth annual UKtech50, a definitive list of the movers and shakers in UK

IT – the CIOs, industry executives, public servants and business leaders driving the role of technology in the UK economy.

The aim was to identify the 50 most influ-ential leaders in UK IT. An expert judging panel helped decide the results, along with a reader vote to determine who holds the most influence over the future of the UK IT sector in the next 12 months, and hence the future of IT professionals across the country.

1Jane Moran CIO, Unilever

Jane Moran took over as CIO of consumer goods giant Unilever in June 2014, after four years as global CIO at Thomson Reuters. At Unilever, she is involved with some of the most innovative

technology developments in industry – the internet of things, 3D printing and a new programme to fund and work with tech startups. She is also a major supporter of efforts to encourage more women into IT – in 2012, Computer Weekly readers voted her as the most influential woman in UK IT that year. At Unilever, Moran is helping to reshape one of the UK’s most important companies for the digital world.

2 Tim Berners-Lee World Wide Web inventor;

president of the Open Data InstituteUndoubtedly the most famous UK computer scientist, Berners-Lee has in the past year taken an increasingly high-profile global role as an advocate for the open web, net neutrality

and online privacy, and an outspoken critic of government internet surveillance policies. As well as his evangelising of the web, he advises the government on open data as a director of the Open Data Institute.

3 Simon Segars CEO, ARM Holdings

Simon Segars took over as chief executive of chip designer ARM in July 2013, succeeding Warren East, a former UKtech50 win-ner. Segars has worked for ARM since 1991 and led the develop-

ment of a number of the firm’s processor designs. ARM has become central to the mobile revolution, with its chip architec-tures powering most of the smartphones and tablets worldwide.

4 Liam Maxwell UK government CTO

Liam Maxwell is leading the reform of how technology is purchased, implemented and managed within central govern-ment. As such, he has direct influence over much of the

billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money spent on Whitehall IT. He is promoting greater use of open standards, open source and cloud computing, using smaller IT contracts and more SME suppliers – attempting to break the stranglehold of the oligopoly of large companies that have dominated government IT. In 2014, he was appointed as a visiting professor at the University of Southampton.

5 Mike Bracken Executive director, Government

Digital ServiceMike Bracken is responsible for improving the government’s digital delivery of public ser-vices in a cross-Whitehall role that covers all the government’s

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online presence. His team launched Gov.uk, the single government website, and is progressing with a digital strategy that will see more major transactional services brought online in the coming months. Bracken is the figurehead for a cultural change in how public services are delivered in a digital world.

6 Gavin Patterson CEO, BT

Gavin Patterson was appointed CEO of British telecoms giant BT in September 2013, having led BT’s retail arm since 2008. He oversees BT’s often-controversial roll-out of super-

fast broadband and the firm’s billion-pound investment to become a major player in sports broadcasting. The company is cur-rently in negotiations with EE and O2 over a possible purchase of one of the UK’s leading mobile networks. Patterson has worked for BT for nine years, having previously been at Telewest (now Virgin Media).

7 Catherine Doran CIO, Royal Mail Group

Catherine Doran led a major IT transformation programme at Royal Mail to enable its contro-versial privatisation last year, as well as splitting off the Post Office as part of the re-organi-

sation of the UK postal service. She is responsible for devising and delivering the IT strategy to transform the technology estate as Royal Mail seeks to compete as a private company. Previously, she led a company-wide transformation programme at Network Rail.

8 Joanna Shields Chair, Tech City UK; prime

minister’s digital ambassadorJoanna Shields is an American-British executive, who chairs startup support group Tech City UK and is the prime minister’s digital ambassador. As such, she leads the promotion of the

UK’s tech startup scene internationally and became one of the public faces of the

growing startup movement in London. In 2013, she was voted the most influential woman in UK IT by Computer Weekly.

9 Eben Upton Founder, Raspberry Pi Foundation

The idea behind a tiny and cheap computer for children – the Raspberry Pi – first came about in 2006, when Eben Upton, Rob Mullins, Jack Lang and Alan Mycroft, based at the

University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory, became concerned about the decline in the numbers of A-level students applying to read computer science. Since then, Upton has become the public face of the Raspberry Pi device, which aims to change IT education from a young age and get more kids coding. More than three million devices have been sold to date.

10 Mark Dearnley Chief digital and information

officer, HM Revenue & CustomsHer Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) appointed Mark Dearnley, formerly CIO of Vodafone, as its chief digital and information officer in October 2013. He took over

responsibility for one of the biggest IT estates in the UK – a £500m-a-year IT operation that serves 45 million individuals, 4.8 million businesses and 65,000 HMRC employees. He is responsible for imple-menting HMRC’s £200m digital strategy and for moving away from the £800m–a-year Aspire contract, one of the largest outsourcing deals in the UK.

11 Phil Smith Cisco UK CEO; chairman of

the Technology Strategy BoardPhil Smith is chairman of the Technology Strategy Board, the government-backed innovation agency charged with dispersing millions of pounds of public sector funds to boost science

and technology. As well as being Cisco’s UK chief, Smith also chairs the industry-led skills group The Tech Partnership.

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12 Chi Onwurah Labour MP, shadow minister for

digital government and cyber securityChi Onwurah was elected in 2010 as MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central. The former head of telecoms technology at Ofcom, the UK telecoms regu-lator, she is Labour’s shadow

minister for digital government and is leading the party’s digital review that will input to general election policy for 2015.

13 Ed Vaizey Minister of state for culture

and the digital economyEd Vaizey became minister of state for the digital economy, within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, in July 2014. He is responsible for government policy on technol-

ogy skills, support for tech startups, growing the digital economy and superfast broad-band roll-out.

14 Gerard Grech, CEO, Tech City

Gerard Grech succeeded Joanna Shields as CEO of Tech City in February 2014, having previously held a global market-ing role at BlackBerry. In his current job, he leads the promo-

tion and support of UK startups now that Tech City’s remit has expanded beyond its original East London base. He has sup-ported tech entrepreneurs for several years.

15 Ralph Rivera Director of future media, BBC

Ralph Rivera is responsible for delivery of the BBC’s digital media products on the web, mobile devices and internet-connected TV platforms. His remit also includes overseeing

the development of the BBC’s digital prod-ucts – such as iPlayer – and enabling ways in which these products can be experienced on desktops, mobiles, tablets and connected TVs. Rivera is also responsible for shaping and leading the BBC’s R&D activities.

16 Victor Chavez CEO, Thales UK; chair of

Information Economy Council; president of TechUK

Victor Chavez was appointed CEO of defence technology provider Thales UK in January 2011. He makes it onto the UKtech50 list in his roles as president of technology trade

association TechUK and chair of the joint industry-government Information Economy Council that looks to develop the role and importance of the tech sector in the UK’s economic and political priorities.

17 John Finch, CIO, Bank of England

John Finch has been CIO and executive director for projects, data and technology at the Bank of England since 1 November 2014. He is responsible for all aspects of technology delivery

across the bank and for delivering the cyber security programme of activity. Finch was previously global CIO of Experian.

18 Tim Kelsey National director, patients

and information, NHS EnglandTim Kelsey is the senior IT leader in NHS England, respon-sible for overseeing IT strategy and making greater use of data for better health outcomes. As such, he is responsible for

delivering on commitments to make patient records available online by 2015, and will be central to overhauling the role of IT across the health service. He oversees the contro-versial Care.data programme for sharing patients’ GP records.

19 Tony Singleton Director, digital commercial

programme, Government Digital Service

Tony Singleton took over the government’s G-Cloud pro-gramme in June 2013, responsi-ble for growing the purchasing framework that claims to save

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TOP FIVE IT LEADERS IN UKTECH50

n Jane Moran, CIO, Unilever (1st)

n Liam Maxwell, UK government CTO (4th)

n Catherine Doran, CIO, Royal Mail Group (7th)

n Mark Dearnley, chief digital and information officer, HM Revenue & Customs (10th)

n John Finch, CIO, Bank of England (17th)

IT buyers up to 50% compared with previ-ous public sector prices. In the past year, cumulative G-Cloud sales have grown from £63m to £345m.

20 Mark Bramwell Head of IT, Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is the second largest medical charity in the world after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, making Mark Bramwell the leading IT chief in the UK

not-for-profit sector. He joined the Wellcome Trust in 2007 and, in recent years, has led a major overhaul of the technology that supports the charity’s work.

21 Christina Scott CIO, Financial Times

Christina Scott was appointed CIO for the Financial Times in 2012 and has led one of the most successful digital trans-formation in the media sector. She is responsible for technology across the FT Group, working closely with editorial and commercial areas. She has a 400+ global team responsible for building and operat-ing the infrastructure, business applica-tions, data and consumer products across multiple platforms.

22 Paul Coby IT director, John Lewis

Paul Coby was appointed IT director at John Lewis in March 2011. He has led the modernisation of IT to deliver an omni-channel customer experience – Johnlewis.com passed £1bn revenue per year in April 2013, and today accounts for about a third of John Lewis’s sales. Coby was previously

CIO at British Airways for 10 years, where he helped to develop BA.com into a major force in the airline industry.

23 Maggie Philbin CEO TeenTech, Leader of the

UK Digital Skills TaskForceMaggie Philbin has worked in radio and television for over 30 years on a wide range of science, medical and technology programmes. She is co-founder and CEO of TeenTech, an award-winning organisa-tion that helps young people, parents and teachers understand the opportunities in science and technology. This year, she led the Labour-commissioned Digital Skills Taskforce review of the UK’s technology skills needs.

24 Jacqueline de Rojas Area vice-president for

Northern Europe, Citrix; deputy president, TechUKJacqueline de Rojas took over as Citrix’s Northern European chief earlier this year, following a successful period as UK general manager at CA Technologies. She has recently been appointed deputy president of technology trade association TechUK, and is non-executive director for Home Retail Group.

25 Helen Milner CEO, Tinder Foundation

Helen Milner is founder and CEO of the Tinder Foundation, a not-for-profit, staff-owned mutual that aims to help the 11 million people on the wrong side of the UK’s digital divide to become confident with digi-tal and online technologies. Tinder recently won a government contract to support its digital inclusion strategy.

26 Martha Lane Fox Chair, Go On UK

Martha Lane Fox has been something of an icon for the UK digital scene since founding dot com pioneer Lastminute.com. She cur-rently chairs Go ON UK, a charity that aims to increase the number of people using the internet. She was made a peer in 2013, in recognition of her work as the government digital champion.

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JUDGING THE UKTECH50

The UKtech50 list was decided by a judg-ing panel representing every area of the UK IT profession – along with a reader vote on who they wanted to top the list.

The panel was chosen to represent dif-ferent perspectives in IT, so each individual acted both as an impartial and expert judge, as well as an advocate for their area of interest.

The judges were:n Marc Dowd, principal, serving the CIO

Executive Programme, Forrester Researchn Blaise Hammond, marketing director,

TechUKn Brinley Platts, chairman, CIO

Developmentn Joanna Poplawska, executive director,

The Corporate IT Forumn Adam Thilthorpe, director of policy, pro-

fessionalism and public affairs, BCS

The judging panel selected the top 50 based on the following criteria:

InfluenceWhat authority or ability does the person have – either through their personal posi-tion or the role they hold – to personally influence the development of UK IT, or to influence others in positions of authority?

AchievementsWhat has the person achieved in the past 12 months to help the development of the UK IT?

ProfileIs the person recognised as a role model for aspiring leaders? How widely are they acknowledged by their peers as an author-ity and influence on UK IT?

LeadershipDoes the person demonstrate the skills and experience necessary to be seen as a leader in the development of IT in the UK? Do they have a leadership role and does that help them to develop the role of IT in the UK?

PotentialHow likely is it that the person will have a significant impact on UK IT in the next 12 months? Will their authority and responsibility grow?

27 Dido Harding, chief executive, TalkTalk Group

Dido Harding was appointed CEO of TalkTalk Group in March 2010, follow-ing successful stints in senior roles at Sainsbury’s and Tesco. TalkTalk is an influen-tial company in the UK’s mobile, broadband and telecoms sector and will undoubtedly play a key role in the expected consolidation of the UK telecoms market.

28 John Douglas CTO, Burberry

As CTO of one of the UK’s most influential fashion brands, John Douglas has led the drive to make the firm a leading social enter-prise, using social networking technology for customer engagement and to improve internal collaboration across the company.

29 Phil Jordan Group CIO, Telefonica

Telefónica global chief information officer Phil Jordan is leading one of the most complex and challenging IT transforma-tions in the private sector. Telefónica is the fifth-largest mobile network provider in the world, with operations in Europe, Asia, North America and Latin America – and known in the UK for its O2 brand.

30 Darryl West CIO, Barclays

Darryl West left his role as CIO of Lloyds Banking Group to take over a similar role at Barclays in November 2013. Barclays is investing heavily in technology innovation, particularly in mobile applications such as Pingit for personal money transfers.

31 Jonathan Ive Senior vice-president of

industrial design, AppleJonathan Ive is more responsible than most for the consumer technology revolution. Since introducing the iMac in 1998, Ive led a design team widely regarded as one of the best in the world to create ground-breaking Apple products including the iPod, iPhone and iPad. After the departure of other senior Apple executives he took on wider responsi-bilities, including the software user interface for Apple’s products.

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TOP FIVE WOMEN IN UKTECH50 2014n Jane Moran, CIO, Unilever (1st)

n Catherine Doran, CIO, Royal Mail Group (7th)

n Joanna Shields, Chair, Tech City UK (8th)

n Chi Onwurah, Shadow minister for digital government (12th)

n Christina Scott, CIO, Financial Times (21st)

32 Susan Cooklin CIO, Network Rail

Susan Cooklin is CIO at Network Rail, leading a large and complex technology and shared services portfolio totalling £1bn. She has held senior executive positions in business and technology functions within FTSE top 20 companies in the UK, specialising in trans-formational change. She is a non-executive director at Leeds Building Society and a member of The Tech Partnership.

33 Francis Maude Cabinet Office minister

As minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude has significant influence over the direction of the central government IT jug-gernaut. He has already delivered billions of pounds worth of cuts in government IT, and more are expected. He has focused on cutting consultancy fees, renegotiating contracts with big IT suppliers and review-ing hundreds of IT projects to see if they are worthy of continued funding. His politi-cal support is vital to plans for overhauling government IT.

34 Gavin Starks CEO, Open Data Institute

Launched in December 2012 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Open Data Institute (ODI) focuses on unlocking supply and stimulating demand for open data – Gavin Starks was its founding chief executive. A serial tech-nology entrepreneur, Starks leads efforts to release public data to encourage private sector innovation.

35 Robert Hannigan Director, GCHQ

Robert Hannigan succeeded Iain Lobban this year as the director of intelligence-gathering facility GCHQ, one of the three

UK intelligence agencies working with MI5 and MI6 to protect the UK’s national security interests. His role is in the public eye more than ever since the revelations about GCHQ’s role in US internet surveillance programmes. GCHQ is also taking a more proactive and collaborative role in helping companies and public sector bodies tackle growing cyber threats.

36 Mike McNamara CIO, Tesco

Technology is one of the two major strategic investment priorities at Tesco, alongside stores, and CIO Mike McNamara oversees a £150m plan to grow the retailer’s online channels – although the firm’s recent finan-cial difficulties have eaten into its tech budgets. Tesco is seen as a leader in multi-channel retailing and has introduced numer-ous e-commerce and mobile initiatives.

37 Julian David CEO, TechUK

Julian David was appointed as the director general of technology trade body Intellect in March 2012 and led its relaunch as TechUK in November 2013. He has introduced a new strategy for TechUK that aims to establish the organisation as the leading representa-tive of the IT sector to government and a major influence over the role of technology in the UK economy.

38 Clare Sutcliffe Founder, Code Club

Clare Sutcliffe has brought computing to primary schools, bringing major stakehold-ers such as ARM and Google on board. Code Club is set to hit its target of signing up 25% of UK primary schools by the end of 2015. The free volunteer network runs after-school clubs for children aged between nine and 11. In last year’s UKtech50, she was identified as one of the UK’s rising stars.

39 JP Rangaswami Chief scientist, Salesforce.com

JP Rangaswami is one of the UK’s best known technologists, an evangelist and innovator who was among the first to see the potential of social media in the enter-prise. At Salesforce.com, he promotes the

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TOP FIVE FROM THE IT INDUSTRY

n Simon Segars, CEO, ARM Holdings (3rd)n Gavin Patterson, CEO, BT (6th)n Eben Upton, Founder, Raspberry Pi Foundation (9th)n Phil Smith, Cisco UK CEO (11th)n Victor Chavez, CEO, Thales UK (16th)

development of social business worldwide. In January 2015, he moves to a pioneering new role, as the first chief data officer at Deutsche Bank.

40 Didier Lebrat CTO, Sky

Didier Lebrat joined Sky in December 2006. He leads the technical strategy, develop-ment and operations for broadcast, IT, inter-net and network platforms. Before joining Sky, Didier was CTO at Vodafone Italy, and before that CTO at Orange UK.

41 Robert Harding CIO, Capital One Europe

Rob Harding has been CIO at Capital One Europe since July 2010, having joined the bank as a business systems analyst in 1999. He also sits on the advisory boards for Cisco, Fujitsu and Forrester Research. He leads the digital transformation for Capital One’s UK business.

42 John Manzoni CEO, Her Majesty’s Civil Service

John Manzoni became the first chief execu-tive of the civil service in October 2014. He

joined the Cabinet Office in February 2014 as CEO of the Major Projects Authority. In his new role, Manzoni is responsible for civil service transformation and its digital gov-ernment initiatives.

43 Wendy Hall Professor of computer science,

University of SouthamptonWendy Hall is arguably the UK’s leading computer science academic. She is found-ing director – along with Tim Berners-Lee, Nigel Shadbolt and Daniel J Weitzner – of the Web Science Research Initiative, a long-term research collaboration between the University of Southampton and MIT. She is a fellow of the BCS, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Engineering and Technology, and the Royal Society.

44 Elizabeth Varley Co-founder and CEO, TechHub

TechHub is at the heart of the London Tech City movement to attract startups to East London and boost investment and innova-tion in UK IT, with Varley as its CEO. She has set up TechHub operations in Bangalore, Bucharest, Berlin and Riga, as well as other UK sites in Manchester and Swansea.

45 Matt Brittin Vice-president, Northern and

Central Europe, GoogleMatt Brittin leads an operation that is Google’s second largest after the US and the most advanced in terms of e-com-merce and online advertising spend. Under Brittin’s watch, Google is actively support-ing UK startups through initiatives such as

THIN

KSTO

CK

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TOP FIVE FROM THE PUBLIC SECTOR

n Liam Maxwell, UK government CTO (4th)n Mike Bracken, Executive director, Government Digital

Service (5th)n Mark Dearnley, Chief digital and information officer, HM

Revenue & Customs (10th)n Chi Onwurah, Shadow minister for digital government (12th)n Ed Vaizey, Minister of State for Culture and the Digital

Economy (13th)

THIN

KSTO

CK

Tech City in East London – but he has also attracted controversy as he attempted to defend the low levels of corporation tax payments made by Google in the UK.

46 Angela Morrison CIO, Direct Line Group

Angela Morrison has been CIO of Direct Line Group – formerly known as RBS Insurance – for four years, managing business technol-ogy services, which shapes, builds, runs and governs IT for the company. She previously spent more than 18 years in food retail and IT, including a decade at director level.

47 Richard Thwaite Director of digital policing,

Metropolitan Police ServiceRichard Thwaite joined the Met Police as CIO in February 2013, to lead a four-year overhaul of the force’s much-criticised IT systems. He recently took on the title of director of digital policing to reflect the growing importance of introducing digital technologies to support frontline officers.

48 Karen Price CEO, e-Skills UK/The Tech

PartnershipKaren Price has led the IT sector skills body e-Skills UK since its inception. Next year, she will become CEO of The Tech Partnership, an industry body that aims to take on the work of e-Skills UK, with further backing from leading employers to improve the UK’s IT skills base.

49 Trevor Didcock CIO, EasyJet

Trevor Didcock joined low-cost airline EasyJet as CIO in September 2010, with a CV that included senior IT positions at Homeserve, the AA and RAC. Since then, EasyJet has put a technology overhaul and digital methods at the heart of the company’s growth.

50 Mittu Sridhara CIO, TUI Group

Mittu Sridhara is group CIO at TUI, where he leads the digital transformation of one of the world’s most influential leisure travel companies. He joined TUI Travel from Ladbrokes where, as group CIO, he formulated and delivered a three-year multi-channel technology strategy for the betting company. n

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Keeping up with technology changes is key to being an effective IT leader

J ane Moran is the first woman to top Computer

Weekly’s list of the most influential people in UK IT – the UKtech50. She faces the challenge of being at the forefront of innovation while balancing the everyday technology demands of the world’s third largest consumer goods firm.

Moran took over as global CIO of Unilever in June 2014, after four years in the same role at Thomson Reuters. Her new job builds on the years at her previous employer, where she was focused on transformational technology programmes. This is helped by the fact that Unilever, as Moran describes it, is “very aware that technology really drives the business”.

“Unilever is a great company and [the CIO role] is a great opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” she tells Computer Weekly.

“Its focus on sustainability and the environment and giving back is something that also appealed to me.”

Leadership mattersMoran sits on the advisory board for Women in Technology International and is a strong proponent of efforts to encourage more women into IT. She cites three aspects for being a successful technology leader, regardless of gender.

“Having the passion for technology and keeping up with the trends and changes in the technology landscape is key,” she says.

“Also, having the business acumen – really being able to get stuck into the business problems and responding with tech-enabled solutions that really make a difference to the organisation – is very important.”

The third aspect is being able to fine-tune leadership skills to drive improvements in Unilever’s comprehensive IT agenda.

At Unilever, Moran is involved with some of the most innovative technology developments in industry: the internet of things, 3D printing and a Unilever programme to work with tech startups.

Moran says the goal for her team will be to take IT at the firm “to the next level”, standardising and rationalising the estate.

Key suppliers for Unilever include SAP as the provider of financial and core supply chain systems, Salesforce.com for digital and Microsoft for end-user computing, plus Oracle for database management. While Unilever has on-premise systems, it makes extensive use of cloud-based technologies.

Looking forward, Moran thinks many CIOs will struggle to keep pace with business requirements in the next few years.

“Business partners are increasingly tech-savvy and technology underpins everything,” she says. “So IT needs to implement and support the foundations of security and infrastructure, as well as partnering with colleagues effectively to build that core in an agile way.” n

Unilever’s CIO and the first woman to top Computer Weekly’s UKtech50 list, Jane Moran, discusses the challenges of her role. Angelica Mari reports

UKtech50 2014: Rising

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UKtech50 2014: The most

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Moran: “Unilever’s focus on sustainability and the environment is something that appealed to me”

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The people to look out for in the future of the technology industry

In addition to the UKtech50 list of the most influential people

in IT, Computer Weekly also recognises rising stars from the UK’s IT, technology and digital sec-tor. The individuals deemed by Computer Weekly to have the potential to shape the industry in the coming years are listed here.

Lucie Glenday, chief digital officer, Surrey County Council

After working at the Government Digital Service (GDS) as head of business transformation, Lucie Glenday joined Surrey County Council as chief digital officer two years ago.

One of the first chief digital officers in local government, Glenday is tasked with building and championing a “digital culture” that puts users first and delivers the best, low-cost public services possible.

She is also responsible for creating joined-up services through the delivery of a digital data and knowledge-sharing platform.

Glenday recently described the need for a set of common standards to develop digital innovations: “There’s a lot of willing out there and a lot of acknowledgement that something needs to be done,” she said. “Just enabling a forum and the ability to sign up to some form of standards would get us a long way.”

Surrey has joined up with six other councils in the south-east, forming a collaborative group called South East 7 (SE7). “Surrey has taken over the digital role for those councils,” said Glenday. “It’s not just local authorities – you’ve got districts, boroughs and pub-lic health, you’ve got all of the local public service providers – and there’s a conversation that has to happen around common stand-ards and making sure we have them in place.”

Stephen Hale, head of digital, Department of Health

“I want to make digital less of a novelty,” the Department of Health’s head of digital, Stephen Hale, told Computer Weekly earlier this year. “Part of our job is to do us out of a job in

a way. We make digital mainstream, so we stop noticing it as innovative,” he said.

The Department of Health’s digital team, which was set up at the end of 2013 and is now led by Hale, ensures the department uses digital to make better policy and that it is part of everything the department does.

“The challenge is to drive up the confidence of leaders and staff so it doesn’t feel innova-tive, but rather the best solution to the prob-lem,” he said. “Digital is such a broad term – the more you think about it, the more it can help with everything. Not just how you can make campaigns, but how you can provide better services.”

But digital can’t just be a case study or a novel project. Hale says it needs to be a mentality that is accepted by the department to drive change.

Jon Rudoe, digital and technology director, Sainsbury’s

Jon Rudoe became digital and technology director at Sainsbury’s this year after helping to build the supermar-ket’s online presence. His role crosses the boundaries between

the traditional chief information officer and the chief digital officer to create exciting propositions for Sainsbury’s customers.

“If you go back 10 to 15 years, technology was obviously very important to retailers, but it wasn’t technology touched directly by consumers,” he told Computer Weekly. “It

As part of its celebration of the cream of the IT industry’s talent, Computer Weekly identified five rising stars for recognition. Caroline Baldwin reports

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had a huge part to play in the tills and sys-tems that put stock on the shelves, and while those things are hugely influencing custom-ers, they’re not directly touched by them.”

Rudoe led the team that created the responsive mobile website to allow custom-ers to pre-order their Christmas food, as well as an innovative mobile shopping app which is due to launch next year.

In both of these customer-facing tech-nologies, the Sainsbury’s technology and digital team is using an agile approach to development. “It’s not the kind of product you can write on a piece of paper and predict everything because it’s not really something that’s been done in that form before,” he said. “We’ll release it, we’ll iterate it and we’ll release it some more.

Dan Taylor-Watt, head of BBC iPlayerDan Taylor-Watt leads the development of BBC’s iPlayer. He joined the BBC in 2001, working on the launch of the original BBC Radio Player. He made the move from online

radio to online TV in 2007, and took the reins as head of iPlayer in July 2013, co-ordinating a substantial redesign earlier this year.

The BBC redesigned the iPlayer platform “from the ground up”, changing the look and feel of the interface and improving the way users navigate the website to find shows and discover new content. The last major upgrade to iPlayer was to its web and con-nected TV versions back in 2010. “Four years ago is quite a long time in online,” Taylor-Watt told Computer Weekly in March.

The broadcaster claimed the redesign would make it easier for users to find some-thing to watch, as 42% of users arrive at iPlayer with no particular programme in mind. The new design also features a sign-in functionality to allow users to save their favourite TV shows and seamlessly pick up programmes on multiple devices.

At the time of launch, Taylor said the BBC was “playing catch-up” in offering a sign-up service, compared with other organisations.

“We are in the fortunate position of not needing to contrive reasons for people to sign in,” said Taylor-Watt. “We’re only doing it to add audience benefit.”

With most of his professional career at the BBC, Taylor has worked his way up from pro-ject assistant for Radio & Music Interactive in the 2000s.

Doug Ward, entrepreneur and co-founder, Tech Britain

A founding member of the Tech City UK Cluster Alliance and technology advisor to Greater Manchester, Manchester University and the prime minis-ter’s office, Doug Ward has been

championing technology startups inside and outside the boundaries of the capital.

Ward co-founded TechBritain.com, a first attempt at mapping out the UK tech commu-nity. While trying to grow a startup company, he and his business partner had to ask them-selves whether they had to move to London or leave the UK after feeling pressured to accept attractive offers in the US.

As other cities follow in the footsteps of London’s Tech City, with the likes of Tech City North launching in the autumn, Ward said combining the strengths of cities to create clusters under one brand will help global investors and businesses take northern start-ups seriously. “Every city will naturally feel that it should have its own tech city organi-sation,” he told Computer Weekly earlier this year. “But in reality we’re competing in a global market, and for global investors and businesses to take us seriously it is important we get together.”

Ward is a big advocate of the Manchester tech community, believing it could one day become a top-five European startup destina-tion – as he calls it: #MCRTOP5. His contri-bution towards this is co-founding TechHub Manchester and SpaceportX, providing technology co-working space. The commu-nity event space has become the go-to place for tech meet-ups, talent, investors, press and the likes of Google and Twitter when visiting the city. Ward also co-organised Manchester’s first two startup weekends – hackathons – and co-runs a weekly Friday drinks, Silicon Drinkabout Manchester, and a monthly startup breakfast, Startup Brew.

He also speaks at length about the skills gap in the UK and the country’s lack of world-class developers. n

RISING STARS

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UKtech50 shows IT leadership is thriving

W e were delighted to see that Jane Moran, global CIO at Unilever, this year became the first woman to top Computer Weekly’s

UKtech50 list as the most influential person in UK IT. What’s more, a total of 16 of this year’s top 50 are female – almost one-third.

But of course, Moran did not top the list because she is a woman. She won because she is a high-profile IT leader, driving digital and technology innovation at one of the UK’s most important companies, which touches most of our lives every day through its various consumer products. Her gender, in this context, is not the issue but it is a welcome sign that the digital glass ceiling is being shattered.

Our UKtech50 event to announce the final list of influential people in IT also heard talks from 12 of the top CIOs and CTOs in the country, and a few clear themes emerged across those presentations.

The first is the rise of digital. All agreed it is a trend that is transforming how IT is managed and delivered, and its role in the organisation.

That leads directly to the second major theme: the changing skills and organisational profile of corporate IT teams. Increasingly, IT chiefs see two distinct functions: back-end operations alongside the digital team. The latter uses agile methods – iterating, testing, experimenting, learning as they go – but is highly dependent on the reliability delivered by back-end experts. The clear message is that a new technology team is emerging.

From that comes the challenge of recruitment – finding people with the new digital skills needed. The message here is to target diversity and recruit different profiles from those traditionally brought into IT.

The final theme concerned IT suppliers, and should concern IT suppliers too. Many of the IT leaders felt their traditional providers have not changed with the times and are stuck in old business models. They agree that their world is changing, but they do not feel their key suppliers are changing with them.

The best IT leaders are not short of challenges – and are certainly not short of work. But everyone on our UKtech50 list shows that IT leadership in the UK is thriving and leading the world. n

Bryan GlickEditor in chief

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Cisco’s hardware forms the backbone of most enterprise networks around the world. But this world is changing and many buyers no longer see compute, storage and networking as distinct silos. The demise of this era has been hastened not only by the cloud, but by big data, mobile and social media. The future of

networking is unknown, but little doubt remains that it will be defined by software, and market-watchers say this is a transition that Cisco, with its vast worldwide estate and vested interests, is missing.

Network buyers should think about how big suppliers protect their vested interests when considering buying a network solution from one of them – whether that supplier is Cisco, HP, Juniper, Avaya or a similar-sized operation.

Advocates of a new approach to networking say the basic architecture has not changed since the early 1990s, and it is unrealistic for this to continue. In a recent blog post, Dell’Oro Group analyst Alan Weckel wrote that every dollar of revenue earned by an incumbent network supplier will have to be earned all over again as customers move away from their solutions and decide that upgrading speeds no longer counts as upgrading their network.

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Cisco is missing the transition to software-defined networks Little doubt remains that the future of networking will be defined by software, but market-watchers warn Cisco is missing this move. Alex Scroxton reports

BUYER’S GUIDEnetworking technologies part 2 of 3

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It is perhaps unsurprising that more and more buyers are starting to inspect alternative suppliers. Gartner research director Andrew Lerner says tyre-kicking is an apt metaphor for software-defined networks in the mainstream. He says people are interested but, at a session in the US in June 2014, analysts found many were waiting for increased marketing around the concept from the legacy network owners, especially Cisco.

The real movement will come when networking specialists controlling budgets start getting questions from elsewhere in their organisation on why their demands cannot be supported, says Gartner. However, for those willing or even keen to look beyond the big suppliers, there are options.

Catching the transition earlySoftware-defined networking (SDN) company Plexxi, which recently appointed former EMC executive Richard Napolitano as its CEO, is one such company looking at the networking industry’s transition from networking towards an application and data-focused world.

“We stand today at a transition point in the IT landscape,” says Napolitano. “This transformation will upend the networking industry as we know it and affect how businesses operate for decades to come. Plexxi has helped define ‘what’s next’ in networking.”

Dave Husak, who set up Plexxi, knows full well how legacy networks are being overhauled by new technology. He virtually invented the modern switching market in the late 1980s as an engineer at Synernetics, which installed the first switched Ethernet networks in the world, and was later sold to 3Com, now HP Networking.

“The genesis of Plexxi came in 2009 when I found myself doing projects in big datacentres and seeing loads of legacy hardware,” says Husak.

“I was deeply involved in virtualised computing infrastructure and early-stage big data internet of things projects, and seeing all this hardware gave me an entrepreneurial tingle because, since the dot com bubble burst, the level of investment and innovation in enterprise datacentre networking was essentially zero.

“Cisco had won it all, and was innovating in Flip [its now defunct consumer video line] and video-conferencing, so it could build demand for obsolete networks,” he says.

The venture capital-backed startup believes layering SDN solutions on top of legacy hardware fails to address the real problems facing the network. By combining its SDN software with streamlined hardware using scale-out optical multiplexing, the company says it can help customers throw out physical cabling, switch hierarchies and “finicky” distributed protocols, and replace them with a more “elegant” system.

JETNEXUS AIDS LONDON TAXI FIRM ADDISON LEE

London-based taxi firm Addison Lee picked jetNexus to assist with its migration from Microsoft Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010. The firm, which carries 10 million customers a year and has more than 3,500 vehicles in its fleet, needed a cost-effective load-balancing solution to help mitigate the demands placed on its network.

Having deployed jetNexus load balancers to support its booking system, the firm used this existing relationship to install two accelerating load balancers (ALB-X) in its north London datacentre. The ALB-X appliances can be configured for an Exchange environment in minutes using jetNexus’s jetPACK deployment template. Addison Lee reported a reliable Exchange 2010 deployment, with its servers remaining online throughout the process. Since its deployment, the company says it has been able to easily scale its load balancing requirements thanks to the ALB-X’s unlimited throughput.

Addison Lee senior IT support, Ian Reeves, said: “JetNexus is unrestricted on throughput which is key for us, as it will enable us to expand our requirements both quickly and cost-effectively.”

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Plexxi says its solution can transform the performance of cloud datacentre networking by building a horizontal network where all of the value is attributed to application needs. It focuses on three market solutions: agile datacentres, scale-out application infrastructure and distributed clouds – all three areas coming together to create, in the supplier’s terms, an “optimised network that dynamically helps applications perform better”.

White box and bare metal switchesSDN firm Pica8 claims to have more than 300 customers, including many cloud service providers. The company has based its approach to the network around white box-switching hardware, loaded with its own customisable Linux-based PicOS network operating system.

It claims that by using generic switches it can substantially undercut Cisco’s pricing, and give its customers a far more flexible network infrastructure.

Big Switch Networks is another supplier deploying SDN technology at a low price point by taking advantage of bare metal switches. Dubbed Big Cloud Fabric, it claims its flagship product is one of the industry’s most advanced SDN switching fabrics, and is being used to run private cloud, big data and virtual desktop deployments.

Big Cloud uses the firm’s own Switch Light technology in the data plane to share the same codebase and operational model across physical hardware platforms and hypervisors. When coupled with a centralised SDN controller, Big Switch says it can reduce network operation costs and make central provisioning, automation and troubleshooting far less time-consuming.

Its Big Tap Monitoring Fabric uses high-performance bare metal Ethernet switching to tap traffic from within the network and deliver it to security, troubleshooting, network-monitoring and application performance-monitoring tools.

Driving value from what you haveNetwork challengers are not confined to the West Coast of the US. Load balancing specialist jetNexus is based in the UK and, although the company works more specifically in the load balancing space, it still has a role to play in this new world of networks by helping customers optimise and extract more value from existing infrastructure. It is a use case for new approaches to networking that could be an easy first step for someone inspecting software-based networks, but it has not yet worked up to a full, ground-up rebuild.

“Typically, you find our market is dominated by one or two suppliers. We’ve come into the market to be a disruptive player for customers looking to drive more value from what they

are purchasing,” says jetNexus CEO, Jim DeHaven. “By offering a software-based solution at a more palatable price tag we can serve a bigger piece of the market.

“Traditionally, load balancing was for high-end service providers and enterprises but we can now bring functionality to the commercial and mid-market space, who have been priced

out of the market by expensive hardware solutions.“We see the big players are moving to horizontal markets to justify their model of

expensive, proprietary hardware,” says DeHaven.This strategy seems to be helping, which has made gains in enterprise, middle market and

even public sector networks in the UK and US.“We have large banking customers but we are also driving into councils, the NHS, gaming,

retail. SDN gives us access to a broader section of the market,” says DeHaven. n

› Cisco advances global Intercloud› Cisco engineers – an innovative future?

› Cisco ramps up Intercloud investment

“Typically, you find our markeT is dominaTed by one or Two suppliers”Jim deHaven,

JeTnexus

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A s organisations turn to cloud services and mobile apps to boost productivity and cut costs, managing user identities and access to IT resources has never been more important – or challenging. In this emerging IT environment, a key task is managing access to applications and data by employees and partners from multi-

ple devices and locations, without compromising security.IT and security leaders gathered at the November 2014 meeting of Computer Weekly’s

CW500 Club to hear from experts and practitioners about how they meet the challenges of identity and access management (IAM).

Speakers from consultancy KPMG, the Government Digital Service and Gatwick Airport discussed best practice and their real-life experiences.

IAM remains a struggleKPMG director of information protection Martijn Verbree said that – despite all the advances in IAM technology in recent years – identity management remains a constant challenge.

“We are still struggling with how to manage access to our critical systems,” he said. “How do we make it efficient? We don’t seem to have moved on an awful lot.”

Verbree identified five critical issues in IAM, which have been the same top five problems in the area for the past five years.

The first issue is orphan accounts – user accounts set up in systems but without a clearly defined owner.

“You can find accounts that may belong to an application that is only used once a year, but it does something important,” said Verbree. “Or it could be an account called, for example,

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The pros and cons of access and identity managementIT and security leaders gathered at a CW500 Club meeting to hear from peers about the challenges of identity and access management. Bryan Glick reports

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‘Rsmith’ – is that Robert Smith, or Richard Smith? It’s really basic stuff, but it’s such a com-mon issue that hasn’t been resolved.”

A lack of monitoring or review of IAM set-ups was Verbree’s second issue: “This is the key control to have on the checklist. Although it sounds easy, it is really hard to do in practice.”

A third problem is that not all identities and their access privileges are properly approved. For example, Verbree said he has seen plenty of examples where a new recruit is simply

given the same levels of access as another employee in a similar role – often by cloning their account – without realising that the existing staff member has accumulated higher privileges or administration rights over time, that should not be passed on to others.

“The new guy gets all this stuff as well, on day one,” he said. “We’ve seen some horrific stuff happening in investment banks when this happens with users on the trading floor.”

The fourth challenge is what Verbree calls “toxic combinations of access” – meaning situ-ations where individuals are able to use func-tionality that in itself appears acceptable but, when combined with other privileges, can lead to problems.

He cited the example of a rogue trader scan-dal at a Swiss bank: “I was involved in the after-math – it was a perfect storm of control failures. “One of the key questions that stood out was, how do you manage these toxic combinations of access? How do we make sure people don’t have segregation issues in the application and can register and approve things as well as pay out? It’s a big issue at the moment, for the banks especially.”

The final issue he raised was a lack of control over privileged access to applications – super-user accounts, for example. Although such accounts are easy to find in the system, they are harder to control, especially if you need to allocate temporary permissions to certain users. “Despite the fantastic tools available, this is still very much on the list of problems,” said Verbree.

Digital by default in governmentOne place where the need for identity management is clear and significant is in the UK gov-ernment. The current administration adopted a “digital by default” policy for delivering public services online, and many of the highest volume services are being redeveloped using digital methods. But moving away from face-to-face and phone-based interactions with citizens raises a question – how do people prove online that they are who they say they are? When people are accessing tax records or applying for benefits, identity assurance is critical.

In October 2014, the Government Digital Service (GDS) launched the first service to use its new identity system, Gov.uk Verify. The system is intended to become standard for all central government services – and as such, is likely to be used by most UK citizens in the future.

“At the moment, if you need to prove who you are to the government, you need to send something in the post or turn up in person. We’ve built a way to prove our identity to a high standard, digitally,” said Janet Hughes, head of policy and engagement for the identity assur-ance programme at GDS.

“What would previously have taken 10 days to send something in the post, will now take 10 minutes,” she added.

GDS spent more than a year conducting user research into how best to implement Verify in a way that citizens would understand – and also to address concerns over privacy by avoid-ing building a central identity database, especially considering widespread concerns about ID cards under the previous Labour government.

“we are sTill sTruggling wiTH How To manage access To our criTical sysTems”marTiJn verbree, kpmg

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IDENTITY AND ACCESS MANAGEMENT

Third-party securityGDS selected five companies to act as independent identity providers, Hughes explained. Users will register with one or more of those providers, who will use a range of data and evi-dence such as credit reference agency data, electoral roll, passport or driving licence details, to establish a verified user identity to meet a defined level of assurance, as set out in pub-lished standards – and those details are not stored centrally by government. When citizens subsequently log in to an online government service, their identity is verified electronically by the third-party provider, including an extra factor for further confirmation, such as sending a unique code to the user’s mobile phone.

“We built a document-checking service, which means the identity providers can check immediately that the details provided – such as driving licence or passport – match a valid record that the government holds. That’s the first time you’ve been able to do that entirely digitally, and it’s at the heart of how we’re able to do this process digitally, without sending things through the post,” said Hughes.

“In the future, we expect at least one provider to offer a method where you take a photo-graph of yourself and that is matched with the photo on your passport record.”

The Verify system establishes that the user is who they say they are, to the level of assur-ance suitable for the service they wish to use. Citizens register only once, and then can use that identity to log in to any public services they need and which support Verify. That process should take less than a minute, said Hughes.

“We have completed what we need to do to make our service safe for public access – we have pan-government security accreditation and have an identity provider that has reached the required standards, and we have finished the development work. It is ready for the first services to use. But we are scaling up gradually over time so that, as we test each batch of new users, we learn more things from those real people, about how they experience the jour-ney,” she said.

“Over the next 18 months to two years this will become the default way to verify your iden-tity when signing in to services that need to know who you are.”

A triple IAM challenge at GatwickAt Gatwick Airport, the identity challenge is threefold. As well as needing to manage access to IT systems for staff, the company has users from other companies that use Gatwick ser-vices logging in - but it is also responsible for ensuring that passengers travelling through the airport are the same person recorded on their airline ticket.

For Gatwick CIO Michael Ibbitson, introducing identity management had to take place at the same time as a major overhaul of its IT systems, after operator BAA sold the airport in 2009. The company decided to move to cloud, software as a service (SaaS) and mobile, making IAM central to its security plans.

“Next year we are going to have more than 38 million passengers, and every one of those travellers we have to identify,” he said.

More than 38 million passengers will travel through Gatwick Airport in 2015, all of whom have to be identified

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“On the outbound journey, we use biometric identification – a high-speed device that scans your boarding pass and, if you’re a domestic passenger, it takes an iris scan. When you get on the plane, we do another iris scan. This ensures that, for people travelling within the UK, the person who enters the airport is the person who gets on the plane.

“It prevents people transferring documents in the airport if someone wants to skip the border.”

That biometric system is already in Gatwick’s south terminal, and will later be introduced in the north terminal.

For staff security, Gatwick is rolling out informa-tion security training to all employees. “We had to go through a mindset change. From the ground handlers to the security people who pat you down – all the way up to executive staff,” said Ibbitson.

“We’re getting there – but it is a journey and we have some way to go.”

To provide identity management for its cloud and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) strategy, Gatwick went with IAM supplier Okta, whose system was integrated with tools such as Box for file-sharing and Microsoft Active Directory, as well as other cloud software being implemented, such as Yammer social networking, WebEx video conferencing and Cisco internet telephony.

Every person who requires access to secure physical areas of Gatwick – whether employed by the airport or by other companies on the site – has a security pass. Conducting all the necessary security and identity checks to issue someone with a pass takes time – so Ibbitson introduced a central identity management system called Mtrust, to accelerate the process and better manage secure identities.

“If people change companies – say, moving from Menzies Aviation to Virgin Atlantic, but still working at Gatwick – their identities in the Mtrust system stay the same and we can switch them between companies. It not only takes care of our internal Gatwick staff, but also the identities of all 23,000 people who work on the campus, through a central identity man-agement system,” he said.

IAM as a business toolBut IAM is not only essential for maintaining security – it is helping to improve the perfor-mance of the airport as a whole.

“The other thing that Okta enables is to create a SaaS applications portal. You log in once with your Gatwick credentials and access a range of single sign-on applications. That means we can federate with our partners – EasyJet, British Airways, Menzies, and so on – and, if they have Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), we can integrate with them, and offer access to our applications via their own Active Directory. We can grant them permission through Okta to access some of our applications,” said Ibbitson.

“For example, the Casper system is a map of our airfield with live movements of aircraft. Lots of organisations want to use that around the airport. We also have a tool that gives us real-time predictive metrics for the performance of every ground handler and airline. Now that everyone is looking at

the same data, it drives the efficiency of the airport. That will allow us to increase the num-ber of flights we can handle in a day. This capability to share applications with our partners is something that our IAM has helped us to do.” So despite KPMG’s Verbree commenting on the challenges of making a business case for IAM in most organisations, Gatwick Airport is one company demonstrating how identity management can become a strategic tool for improving corporate performance as well as information security. n

To provide idenTiTy managemenT for iTs cloud and byod sTraTegy, gaTwick wenT wiTH iam supplier okTa

› CW500: Is the CIO still as important in 2014?› CW500: Bring your own IT department?

› CW500: IT infrastructure for data protection

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The perfect Christmas gift for “loved” onesSo, it’s that time of the year again when we all panic and wonder what the hell we’re going to get our loved ones for Christmas. This year, however, it’ll be a doddle, thanks to a $200,000 (£127,000) crowd-funded project for a wristband that sends a 255-volt shock to anyone wearing it. The device will supposedly help you break bad habits by associating the electric shock with the behaviour you want to halt – binge eating, say, or drinking too much alcohol.

The device will doubtless come in handy on Christmas day when your family begin

chatting aimlessly about nonsensical bullshit while you’re trying to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Just give each one a zap and the problem is solved. Do it enough times, and you might even get them to clean the dishes, leaving

you to relax in peace (excluding the screams of agony, of course). n

Festival proves “mum” isn’t the wordOrganisers of the Parklife festival in Manchester have been fined £70,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office after sending festival goers promotional text messages claiming to be from their mothers.

The short-sighted marketing attempt left a number of recipients distressed, especially those whose mothers are no longer with them.

In further bad taste, the festival made jokes about the campaign on Twitter until it eventually apologised.

The offending text message read: “Some of the Parklife after parties have already sold. If your going, make sure your home for breakfast!” We’d cry too if our mum’s grammar was that bad.

APPLE “DELETED” MUSIC TRACKS

What’s the best way to get rid of a competitor? Last week it appeared that Apple had found a pretty decent – yet legally and morally dubious – answer after lawyers accused the company of deliberately “deleting” non-iTunes songs from iPods.

Users with music from other services were told to reset their iPods to factory settings when they tried uploading the tracks, but Apple security director Augustin Farrugia said music was deleted for security reasons after hackers created programs that removed digital rights management from iTunes music.

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