Featured Speakers

For over 25 years, Dave Coplin has worked with or for the world’s largest technology companies, most recently as Microsoft’s “Chief Envisioning Officer”, providing organisations and governments around the world with strategic advice and guidance that enables them to deliver lasting growth and market relevance through the adoption of transformational technology.

He has a list of clients from around the world and has worked with organisations in every sector and almost every industry.  From Facebook, Google and Microsoft through to Barclays, Ernst Young, PHD Media, and Vodafone as well as leading public sector and academic institutions such as the Crown Prosecution Service, UK Parliament, Cambridge and Oxford Universities, Dave is engaged at the highest levels to help inspire and drive technology enabled transformation.

Dave is a recognised authority in the industry on a broad range of topics and is often sought to provide advice and guidance to UK government on policy issues such as Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, as well as being a regular contributor both here in the UK and around the world with media like the BBC & BBC World, Channel 4, The Times, The Telegraph and the Guardian talking about everything from the future of work, the future of education, privacy and on-line safety, right through to big data and the impact of transformational technologies like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

Alongside his consulting and public speaking work, Dave is an independent non-executive director for Mitchells and Butlers plc, Vianet Group plc and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association helping to deliver on their strategies for growth by providing strategic advice and guidance on the increasing relevance of digital technologies across their business operations.

Session

Dr Darren Coleman specialises in helping brands drive growth and retain relevance through brand experiences. Darren’s 25+ years of global experience spans Europe, the Middle East, South East Asia and Japan.  Johnson & Johnson, Singapore Airlines, Nikon, Roche Diagnostics, Sony, Orange and Toshiba are some of the brands he has helped.

Prior to founding his agency, Wavelength Marketing, Darren completed a PhD in B2B services brand performance. Combined, Darren’s extensive commercial experience and deep subject matter knowledge mean his training hold appeal for marketing executives who want to obtain advanced yet applied insights.

Darren’s book, Building Brand Experiences: A Practical Guide to Retaining Brand Relevance has been translated into Korean (2020) and will be launched in Mandarin (simplified) during 2021 and Turkish (2022).  He is a Visiting Lecturer in Corporate Brand Management at the University of Warwick

Darren is the Honorary Consul for Lithuania in Birmingham, UK. This means he represents the interests of Lithuania in Birmingham and acts as a main point of contact for a broad range of issues relating to Lithuania in the city spanning business, science, education and culture. 

In his spare time Darren enjoys spending time with his wife and family, playing tennis, socialising, travel, scuba diving, snoozing in his Mexican hammock, yoga and watching Birmingham City Football Club. Granted, some are more enjoyable than others.

Session

As a Microsoft Regional Director and Office Servers & Services MVP, Christian has a deep background in collaboration, social and graph-based technology, supply chain, and marketing tech. He is the Microsoft GTM Director for AvePoint Inc., the largest Microsoft 365 data management solutions provider, and runs the popular CollabTalk Podcast and monthly community panel discussions. Additionally, he is an advisor for revealit.io, an AI and blockchain-powered interactive video technology company, as well as tyGraph, a leading Microsoft 365 analytics solution provider.

Christian has been involved with SharePoint since 2005, but has been working with various social and collaboration technologies since the late 1990’s, including several years consulting around project and portfolio management systems. Part of his Microsoft career was spent with the team that launched a hosted SharePoint platform, now part of Microsoft 365, after which he spent almost a decade as a chief evangelist and chief marketing officer for several leading SharePoint ISVs, and was instrumental in 2 major acquisitions. Within the community, he has helped launch and run more than a dozen annual SharePoint Saturday events across the West Coast and Canada, co-founded the Seattle chapter of IAMCP (International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners), and has been on the board of the Puget Sound (Seattle) SharePoint User Group (PSSPUG), and Utah SPUG. As an RD, he is especially interested in driving Microsoft-focused community events within Utah, including the Insider Dev Tour, Azure Blockchain Saturday, Windows Dev Boot Camp, and the annual SharePoint Saturday Utah event.

Session

Nick Cavalancia has over 25 years of enterprise IT experience, is an accomplished consultant, speaker, trainer, writer, and columnist, and has achieved industry certifications including MCSE, MCT, Master CNE and Master CNI. Nick has owned an MSP focused on the SMB, an enterprise IT consulting company, and today runs Techvangelism, where he serves the IT community as technical evangelist, working with some of the most recognized tech companies today. Nick has authored, co-authored and contributed to nearly two dozen books on Microsoft technologies, and regularly speaks, writes and blogs on a variety of topics.

Nick is also CEO of Conversational Geek, a custom ebook publisher that helps technology companies educate IT pros on today’s most pressing challenges. Using industry experts, Conversational Geek provides its readership with free quality ebooks written in a conversational tone.

Follow Nick on Twitter @nickcavalancia, @Techvangelism, or @ConvGeek.

Session

A 30-year veteran of working in the technology industry, Heath Davies became the CEO of Exclaimer in January 2020. Since he began his tenure at Exclaimer, the company’s revenues have grown by over 70%, employee headcount has increased by over 50%, two strategic transactions have been completed, and one pandemic is still being navigated. He was previously the CEO of Clearswift, an email and cyber-security service vendor, for 7 years where he oversaw the company’s transition from a cyber hygiene security vendor into a high-value data loss prevention provider.

His other CEO roles include Alterian PLC, a campaign management and real-time marketing software company, where he supported the company’s sale onto the UK FTSE 250, and French technology organization Sword Group SE (Software and Services Portfolio), where he grew revenues over an 8-year term from €33m to over €185m.

Heath’s mantra for making the businesses he runs the best they can be is to set a clear vision, build high performance teams, and to have fun. This is what has made him successful in his four CEO tenures across both public and private equity firms. Heath holds an engineering honours degree from the University of Greenwich and is a National Engineering Scholarship winner.

When Heath isn’t keeping busy with work and family, he continues his 30-year active participation in martial arts, having studied Wado Ryu Karate and Lau Gar Kung Fu. He is currently training for his Nidan in Shotokan Karate. Heath also enjoys wine tasting (more drinking than tasting, especially when it’s in Provence).

Session