Until early 2025, I headed Mission Engineering at Adarga, a UK-based defence AI company. My customer-centric remit ran from pushing AI-powered analysis tools onto classified networks to walking military commanders through the minefield of ‘why AI matters’ to make deals happen; work that, in Oracle’s words, helped armed forces “access, analyse and act on intelligence faster than ever.”

Long before that, I learned “mission-critical or bust” the hard way: first as a consultant at Microsoft working with their biggest aerospace accounts, followed by several years spent in engineering for autonomous flight projects at NASA and then inside the early days of SpaceX’s Falcon programme. It was exciting, fast-paced, and constantly pushing the envelope of innovation while working under the sobering backdrop of failure not being an option.

In the years between, I held titles ranging from Chief Architect and Distinguished Engineer at Fujitsu to Founder-CEO of private cloud datacentre start-up ADV and as the CTO of ATLAS, oversaw the transformation of the MOD’s on-premises systems and applications on their journey to the cloud.

When I’m not elbow-deep in brokering the fight between business and technical stakeholders, you’ll find me on the conference circuit; 1500-plus talks so far, including over 100 keynotes with more scheduled in the remainder of 2025.

Back home just outside of London, I cook like nobody is watching, tend a rocky vegetable patch, and try to raise my awesome kids to be awesome adults.