Once described as “human caffeine” on Twitter, Dr Nicola Millard injects a people-centred expresso shot to innovation and future strategy. Half social scientist, half technologist, all academic, she uses techniques from disciplines such as design thinking, psychology, anthropology, computing, and business consulting to generate data, provocations and stories to engage and create conversations from the board room, to the front line. No frothy coffee; just solid research.

In her long and varied career at BT Nicola has done many jobs, including futurology, research, usability, customer service, marketing, and business consulting. She was involved with some BT firsts, including the application of artificial intelligence into BT’s call centres, BT’s experiments with home working, and helping to develop BT’s “net easy” customer score.

Nicola got her PhD from Lancaster University in 2005 and has authored over 50 publications – including 1 book and numerous book chapters – and is a mentor on the Masters course on Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Cambridge Judge Business School.

She is an award-winning presenter, with 2 TEDx talks and hundreds of conference panel, chair and keynote sessions under her belt. She occasionally pops up on radio and TV around the world, including appearances on ‘Woman’s Hour’, ‘Tech Tent’, ‘The Media Show’, ‘The Genius of Invention’ and ‘Back in Time for the Weekend’ for the BBC.

Pippa has covered Westminster and international politics for more than two decades, reporting on seven general elections, seven prime ministers and too many major news stories to mention, from the Iraq war and the financial crash to Brexit and parliamentary scandals.

Pippa is a warm, witty and authoritative speaker who has long experience of chairing, presenting and speaking at events in the political world and beyond.

She has trusted contacts right at the heart of government, across Whitehall and in the main opposition parties so has a deep insight into what is going on in British politics and society.

Pippa is Political Editor of The Guardian, previously holding the same role at the Daily Mirror where she exposed the Partygate and Barnard Castle scandals. Before that she covered politics at the London Evening Standard.

A regular on broadcast media including Sky News, ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC, where she is a presenter of Radio 4’s The Week In Westminster, she has also been portrayed in Michael Winterbottom’s This England, a six-part television drama about Boris Johnson and his government.

She is a multi-award winning journalist who is currently Journalist of the Year with the London Press Club, the Society of Editors and the British Journalism Awards. She has won accolades including political journalist of the year, scoop of the year, investigation of the year, the Hugh Cudlipp Award and Women In Journalism’s woman of the year.

Dame Wendy Hall, DBE, FRS, FREng is Regius Professor of Computer Science, Associate Vice President (International Engagement) and is Director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton.

She became a Dame Commander of the British Empire in the 2009 UK New Year’s Honours list and is a
Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the ACM.

Dame Wendy was co-Chair of the UK government’s AI Review, which was published in October 2017 and a member of the AI Council. She is currently the co Chair of the ACM Publications Board and Editor in-Chief of Royal Society Open Science. She is an advisor to the UK government and many other governments and companies around the world and in 2023 was appointed to the United Nations high level advisory body on artificial intelligence.

Andrew became Chief Executive of the Centre in April 2017. Before that he was the Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Policy and Research with overall responsibility for the Centre’s research and policy programme.

Andrew has over 20 years of experience working on urban economic policy issues for public and private development agencies, consultants and research institutes.  He has also spent time in the US as part of the Churchill Foundation’s Fellowship Programme reviewing urban economic development policy and practice in American cities including New York, Washington DC, Boston and Chicago.

He is a regular media contributor and chairs and speaks at conferences across the UK and Europe on a wide range of urban and economic issues.

Shaun Stevens has over 25 years’ experience working in the water and waste sectors in the UK and Ireland, both within the contracting and consultancy disciplines. He is currently General Manager of EPS Water, a design-build supplier of water and wastewater treatment solutions, and has overall responsibility for the strategic growth of the business.

Shaun is a past Director of British Water, a UK trade body representing the water sector supply chain. During this time he was Chair of the British Water UK Forum, and more recently has been leading the British Water Supply Chain Task Force initiative. He is an Advisory Board Member for UK Water Week and also works closely with Enterprise Ireland’s London office on their UK initiatives in the water and utilities space. He has just taken on the role of Chair for Business South’s newly-formed Energy & Utilities South action group.

James Knowles is Vice-Chancellor of Southampton Solent University. He took up this post in 2023 having been Vice-Principal and Dean of Arts and Social Sciences (2017-19), Senior Vice-Principal (Education) and Deputy Principal (Academic) (2019 onwards) at Royal Holloway University London (RHUL).

He is a passionate advocate of wider access to higher education and works in collaboration with schools and universities to raise attainment, aspiration, and educational opportunities in economically and educationally disadvantaged areas. At Solent he is leading the creation of the university’s new ten-year strategic vision, diversifying the university’s educational portfolio, and working to build stronger educational and research links with industry and third sector organisations, focusing particularly on the Skills 4.0 agenda. In Southampton, he sits on the city’s Renaissance Board, responsible for creating the new masterplan for the city, and he represents the regional universities on Maritime UK Solent, as well as belonging to the board of the South Coast Institute of Technology (ex officio)

Alison is Chief Executive at New Forest National Park Authority and has worked in the field of landscape management for 30 years. She is the Convenor of the Green Halo Partnership and an elected Fellow of both the Landscape Institute and RSA.

Earlier in her career Alison, worked in Scottish local government and with RSPB on opencast mine restoration projects. She later led on local biodiversity policy within Defra and was Head of Advocacy for English Nature, developing policy across Parliament, Whitehall and Europe and supporting the passage of the NERC Act. She was a founding Director at Natural England, leading NE’s work in London and holding national portfolios for Landscape and Green Infrastructure, including advising on greening the London Olympics and chairing the Thames Gateway Partnership.

Alison has served on the Mayor of London’s Sustainability Commission and Forestry England’s Regional Advisory Committees and is currently on the Board of Directors for Business South, is a Trustee of the National Park City Foundation and a Leadership Fellow of St George’s House, Windsor Castle.

Wayne Layton is the Executive Head of Regeneration, Economic Development and Preventative Services for Havant Borough Council. He is also the Council’s Deputy S151 officer.

He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants with over twenty-five years of experience working in the public sector, largely with local authorities and the NHS. He has worked on major infrastructure projects, PFI renegotiations and the delivery of regeneration schemes and affordable housing. Wayne has been a director of a Local Authority Housing Company and is a director of a Hampshire based multi-academy trust.

He also lectures at the University of Portsmouth about issues that affect Local Authorities such as the difficulty in delivering affordable housing.

Lee founded and runs leepeckmedia. a highly regarded PR and communications agency in Southampton boasting local, national and international clients.

A great supporter of Business South, Lee has been a Champion for many years and is looking forward to hosting the 2024 Annual Conference.

His career spans more than 30 years as a journalist, broadcaster and PR professional. This rich combination provides clients with an unrivalled insight into the fast-changing media landscape. His career has seen him reporting on location to presenting news and political programmes in the studio. Lee is in demand for securing high profile coverage for clients; developing PR strategies; media training, crisis management and producing and directing videos. Lee was recognised by the European Union as an international media expert for his work on an anti-corruption behavioural campaign in Latvia.

Prior to setting up leepeckmedia, Lee enjoyed a successful career in journalism and light entertainment working in newspapers, radio and television, where he hosted Game for a Laugh on ITV, one of the most iconic game shows of the 1980s.