Star techies: the next generation

As the clock ticks down to the climax of the UK IT Industry Awards on 10 November, we profile those who will be attending the prize-giving ceremony as finalists in the Young IT Professional of the Year category

Nicola Cooper, IBM

Nicola has worked as a senior business consultant across a variety of sectors, and has managed global, multi-vendor, design, build and testing teams in her six years with IBM. Most recently she was the test consultant for the largest implementation in the history of Shell’s Downstream-One Aviation Programme. This involved managing nine test phases for 29 IT systems concurrently, before a “big bang” deployment into 49 countries.

Samantha Paylor, SICL

Since joining IT infrastructure specialist SICL in 2009, Sam has excelled in every aspect of her role as a technical engineer, making a real difference to the company and its customers. Sam, who achieved a first in Computer Communications from Leeds Metropolitan University, was referred to SICL by a customer while she was on work placement. The firm did not have a permanent role available; fortunately, SICL did.

Joy Whyman, National Grid

Joy is a creative, passionate individual, who graduated in Business Computing in June 2009, joining National Grid the following September. Having completed the 18-month graduate scheme, she is now working in information services (IS), and is part of the interface team between National Grid’s operational business and IS, a team better known as Business Relationship Management. Joy has embraced many challenges over the past 12 months; her positive, motivational attitude contributing significantly to her success.

Chris Murray, Lloyds Banking Group

Chris is a 20-year-old support analyst, who has rapidly progressed to be a top performer in the 18 months since joining the Colleague IT Service Desk of Lloyds Banking Group. In addition to excelling in his day-to-day role of supporting his colleagues with their IT issues, he is taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh scheme and is a member of the Leadership Coalition, which looks at issues affecting his office colleagues.

Tom Mackintosh, Tesco.com

Tom joined the Tesco IT graduate scheme in September 2007. He spent 18 months on the scheme doing placements in research & development and in the Indian office. In 2009 he joined Tesco.com as a project manager. Tom, 26, is now IT programme manager for Tesco.com Wine & Grocery web sites in the UK and Ireland. Working with a large team of project managers and business analysts, he manages regular deployments to the Wine & Grocery web sites.

Vidhyalakshmi Karthikeyan, BT

Vidhya is a graduate in BT’s Research and Technology organisation in Ipswich. Vidhya develops new technologies for autonomic IT systems in network management. This enables networks to become autonomous, pre-emptive, self-learning and self-healing to make them ready for the next generation of high-bandwidth applications such as online gaming and IPTV. The success of her research work has allowed Vidhya to submit four patent applications and one journal publication over the past 12 months.

Steven O’Day, Standard Life

Steven works for Standard Life within a small Centre of Expertise team that has delivered the infrastructure for the relaunch of the company’s major web sites. Steven’s areas of expertise are integrating the Autonomy TeamSite suite of products with IBM’s WebSphere Portal, both of which are new technologies for the company, and used for developing and publishing digital content. Steven’s work has focused on delivering the technology, creating processes to facilitate application development and supporting these technologies pre- and post-implementation.

Andy Birds, Co-operative Financial Services

Andy is a dedicated and passionate IT service management professional, qualified in project and risk management. Andy is also a forward-thinking innovator with the reputation as someone who can deliver results efficiently and troubleshoot successfully. He is a resourceful team player who recognises the diverse strengths and abilities within a group and develops them to achieve a common goal through exceptional relationship, communication and management skills.

Adam Fidler, Network Rail

Adam joined Network Rail in September 2008 on the Information Management Graduate Scheme, experiencing a variety of roles including project management and infrastructure architecture. In May 2010 he applied for and was successfully awarded the role of assistant infrastructure solution architect. Today he is responsible for all mobile solutions and has already overseen the replacement of paper with iPads for the board of directors.

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.