Industrial Advisory Board
Our Industrial Advisory Board is a group of senior industrialists and professionals, with local, national and international representation. Membership includes recent graduates from the Department, and a BCS representative, together with senior members of our Department and Faculty. They advise on course content in the context of industrial trends and employment prospects, and support our activities in placing graduates in high-value jobs upon Graduation. They also advise on Departmental research activity and opportunities.
Industrial Members
Gloria Benson is a Director of Consult Hyperion. Prior to joining Consult Hyperion in 1987, she worked for a range of companies dealing with business administration, project management and human resource management. She is a City University Business School graduate with a Masters in Management and Business Administration (MMBA).
Gloria has served on the Industrial Advisory Board for 8 years and was elected as the Chair in 2008.
Carl Haste – Solution Services Leader, Eli Lilly and Company Limited, the UK affiliate of a Fortune 500 listed American pharmaceutical manufacturer, Eli Lilly and Company of Indianapolis.
Graduating from Surrey in 2003 with a degree in Computing and Information Technology, Carl manages teams across Europe, instilling a Service Management culture to the support provided to Research Scientists and Medical Professionals and becoming an IT business partner providing solutions to managing assets and specialised equipment.
Carl’s business areas include process engineering both for business and IT, Service Management, Business Relationship Management, and Project Management. He partners with all levels of stakeholders to a global level, understanding their business and mapping IT transformations required. He also leads Lilly’s IT Placement Programme, working with universities across the UK.
Nicola Hills – Director, IBM WebSphere SOA Foundation Product Development. After graduating with a degree in Physics from Brunel University, Nickie Hills joined IBM in 1992 in their Hursley software development laboratories working as a programmer. She spent the majority of the next 14 years working in IBM’s software product development team in both the UK and Canada, initially in hands-on technical roles, but then moving into both development and product management roles across a variety of products in IBM’s WebSphere and Rational portfolios. In 2006 Nickie joined IBM’s Global Technology Services organisation to lead the new Middleware Service Product line in North East Europe, Middle East and Africa, returning to IBM’s Software Group in 2008 to take up her current role. Nickie is an active supporter of Women in Information Technology initiatives within the industry, in particular the challenge of getting young women interested in a career in technology.
Adrian Seccombe is a Research Associate for the Leading Edge Forum. Adrian principally focuses on two research domains – The Consumerization of IT, with particular emphasis on the future of mobility, and Business/IT Co-evolution, with emphasis on managing information as an asset including identity, risk, governance and compliance.
Having recently retired from his role as the Chief Information Security Officer and Senior Enterprise Architect at Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, Adrian now lectures at the University of Surrey on the subjects of Information Asset Management and Information Security. Adrian is an IT visionary with extensive knowledge and practical experience in various IT, Security, Strategy & Quality Management positions in the UK, France and the US. He was named Information Security Person of the Year (Europe) in 2010 by the SC Magazine.
Adrian joined Lilly as a Telecoms Analyst in 1980. As Manager of Telecom & Technology Development, Adrian relocated to Lilly headquarters in Indianapolis. Following four years in various management positions, including IT Strategy Manager, he moved to become the IT Director for Lilly in France. On returning to the UK, Adrian took responsibility for the Lilly IT infrastructure of Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific & Japan. He then took global responsibility for Lilly Client Computing & Collaboration Services, whilst retaining his responsibility for the EMEA infrastructure. He then led the development of Lilly’s Information Risk Management processes, and the IT Quality and Security Management teams based around the globe. Adrian holds a Bsc Hons in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Surrey and is a trained facilitator. He serves on the Industrial Advisory Board of the University of Surrey Computing Department and is a member of the Board of Management of the Jericho Forum.
James Sellwood is a Senior Consultant at Consult Hyperion where his work focuses on the security of new and existing payment systems. Information Security has long been a passion for him with previous roles involving applying this knowledge to both software development and network management. In his last role, James managed the development of software now distributed in large volumes of credit cards. With his eye for detail and significant experience of development and security James has established a reputation for being able to critically test software and to unmask often missed functional and security flaws. James has numerous industrial certifications, a BSc in Combined Science and is completing an MSc in Information Security.
Neil Simpson graduated from the University of Surrey in 1995 having completed his degree in Computing & Information Technology. Having spent his placement year at the IBM UK Scientific Centre, Neil returned to IBM as a graduate programmer working at IBM's Development Laboratory in Hursley, Hampshire. Two years later, Neil was seconded to the Human Resources department undertaking a number of roles including Human Resources Adviser and Hursley Recruitment Officer. Following a spell working in Paris as the Workforce Manager for Sales and Distribution for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Neil returned to the Laboratory and to software development management. His current role is Delivery Manager for WebSphere Business Events & ILOG Business Rules Synergies Development. Neil started on the Industrial Advisory Board a long time ago as a Graduate representative and has been involved ever since. Outside of work, Neil enjoys long distance running, SCUBA diving and is qualified as a Rescue Diver.
Caroline Stewart graduated from the University of Surrey in 2010 with a first class, Honours Computing and IT BSc. and was awarded the Best Student Performance prize for that year.
Following a successful Industrial Placement year in GlaxoSmithKline’s Infrastructure Business Partner group, Caroline was fast tracked to GSK’s IT Development Programme. As part of that scheme, Caroline worked as a Business Analyst in Finance IT Demand; has led the creation of the Global Mobility Strategy and has driven activities with Cloud from within the Global IT Strategy and Architecture function and now works in GSK’s Core Business Services Transformation Programme. Success in this latest role requires innovative thinking and a strong focus on the customer to drive fusion between the traditionally segregated corporate functions in scope.
Caroline is an accomplished equestrian sportswoman, loves to travel and takes part in competitive charity fund raising events.
Quentyn Taylor is Director of Information Security for Canon Europe. He has a wealth of experience in both the IT and information security arenas and, in recent years, has focused his attention on building business relationships across the world.
Quentyn has driven Canon’s strategy to highlight the importance of document security and help business customers to minimise their security risk. Quentyn strongly believes in educating users about the importance of a comprehensive, overall security policy that will allow Canon’s business customers to improve security in a cost-effective way.
During his career, Quentyn has worked in a variety of industries for a number of organisations including outsourced service providers, Internet service providers as well as Dotcom businesses, before moving to Canon in 2000.
Adrian Waller joined Thales UK Research & Technology (then Racal Research) in 1997. He is a Technical Consultant responsible for providing cryptography and information security expertise on many projects. His current interests include multi-level security, identity management, policy based management and security for system-of-systems. Adrian qualified as a CISSP in 2003.
Ian Wells has worked in NHS computing for over thirty years and is head of the scientific computing section in the Department of Medical Physics at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford. He originally read chemistry at Oxford and worked in industry for several years before joining the NHS as a clinical scientist specialising in liquid and gas chromatography and continuous flow analysis. In the course of this work he became increasingly involved with the use of computers and published his first paper in this field in 1980. Two years later he was encouraged to retrain as a computer scientist at the University of Surrey, and in due course he was awarded its first PhD in computing. In the mid-1990s he moved into Medical Physics to build up a scientific computing team, developing bespoke software solutions to problems for which no credible commercial solution is available and providing high performance computing facilities for medical image analysis and research. In 1999 he was invited by the Department of Computing at Surrey to assist with teaching and research, and was appointed a Visiting Professor in 2005. His main research interest is the role of artificial intelligence in medicine, including understanding how a better knowledge of medical decision-making can improve software design and patient safety. He has written numerous papers on medical computing and spoken at conferences around the world. Outside work Ian and his wife enjoy mountain walking, cross country skiing, photography and travel and have an on-going love affair with Switzerland where they spend several weeks a year. They are also members of a large and lively church in Guildford as well as a local fitness club.
