UK IT Industry Awards: Meet the IT leaders vying for the title 'CIO of the Year'

Jeremy Vincent, Jaguar Land Rover

Jeremy’s extensive knowledge of modern, best-practice IT management helped smooth the transfer of Jaguar Land Rover’s ownership to India’s Tata Motors. After leaving the Royal Navy, Jeremy spent more than 20 years as a senior strategic business/technology professional at Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 multinationals, delivering mission-critical business transformation programmes, working in Germany, Japan and the UK. This period included a stint with Birds Eye Igloo Group during its separation from Unilever.

James Thomas, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH)

James joined UCLH in 2006 after a successful career at Oracle. As the trust’s new CIO, he found it was severely hampered by an archaic and outdated multiplatform IT infrastructure. Driven by a conviction that a radical overhaul of ICT could be achieved without massive expense, James stands out from his NHS peers in pioneering a cash-positive, results-orientated approach.

Mark Bramwell, Wellcome Trust

Mark is head of IT at Wellcome Trust, a charitable foundation dedicated to achieving improvements in human and animal health. He has a wealth of experience in IT leadership roles, having previously worked as the head of IT development at WH Smith. He is leading the transformation of IT for the organisation, enabling colleagues to exploit the maximum value from IT and aligning IT to the business.

Rob Fraser, Sainsbury’s

Rob became IT director at Sainsbury’s in August 2009. His remit was to transform the internal IT capability following an unsuccessful outsourced operating model. Since then, Rob has transformed the IT division, which is now achieving the highest levels of operational service, efficiency savings and delivering a significant capital programme of IT-led business change. Rob has accomplished this through a fundamental shift in the IT department’s organisational structure.

Keith Woolley, Home Group Ltd

Over the past year, Keith has directed a strongly performing ICT team to even greater success. Displaying exceptional vision, creative leadership and personal commitment, he has used modern, innovative ICT to maintain Home Group’s position as one of the leading providers of affordable and supported housing for people in the UK. His passion for ensuring his team remains focused on customer needs and his consistent drive to make his department more effective and efficient have resulted in ICT being a catalyst for, and enabler of, transformational change within the organisation.

Ian Cox, May Gurney

Ian has led the transformation of IT functions, services and platforms in complex environments across different industries on a permanent and consultancy basis. He is a creative thinker, with experience of defining and implementing business and technology strategy. Through his ability to create and deliver a strong vision and strategy, Ian ensures technology is used to provide a competitive advantage in terms of how a company operates and adds value.

Phil Pavitt, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)

Phil became CIO of HMRC in September 2009, having previously been CIO of Transport for London. HMRC deals with virtually every individual and business in the country, with IT contracts worth more than £700m. Keeping this vast IT estate efficient and cost-effective is a huge undertaking, but one Phil has embraced with significant success by investing not only in hardware but also in people, while delivering substantial budget savings.

The awards, run by Computing and the BCS, showcase innovation, excellence and best practice. The winners will be announced at a lavish prize-giving dinner at London’s Battersea Park Arena on 10 November.

To view the full list of finalists for each award, and to book your table, visit our web site at www.ukitindustryawards.co.uk