Howard Biddle

Howard Biddle is executive Chairman of 42 Technology Ltd. His area of professional expertise is in managing technology and the product creation process and helping clients to become more innovative. Prior to joining 42 Technology, Howard was at Cambridge Consultants Ltd, where he started as a junior engineer, moved on to spearhead the company's development into product design and development and finally rose to become CEO.

Howard has worked in many areas of innovation and new product development. He has been named in many patents including the Bass widget, several drug-delivery devices, a novel tablet manufacturing system and a high-efficiency domestic heat exchanger.

He has a degree in mechanical engineering from Queen Mary College, London and a Masters degree in Industrial design from the Royal College of Art.

Howard is also a member of the advisory board of Qi3, a Cambridge-based technology-marketing company.

Sir George Cox

Sir George Cox was appointed Chairman of the UK's Design Council in 2004. Previously, he had served as the Director General of the Institute of Directors, the body which represents 45,000 UK business leaders: a post he held from 1999 to 2004.

His background embraces entrepreneurship and senior corporate management, both on an international scale. Originally qualifying as an aerospace engineer, much of his career was spent in information technology: a field he first entered in its formative years of the 1960s. In 1977, he was co-founder of Butler Cox, the consulting and research group, and served as managing director throughout its development, international expansion and flotation on the London Stock Market. He subsequently ran of all Unisys services businesses throughout Europe.

In 2005 he carried out the Cox Review for the British government, looking at ways of getting greater creativity into British business. The recommendations were accepted and are currently being progressed.

He has served on various boards in both the public and the private sectors. He is currently the Senior Independent Director of Bradford & Bingley, the UK bank, and is a member of the Supervisory Board of Euronext and a director of Shorts, the aerospace company. He has also served on the Management Board of the UK's Inland Revenue and was Senior Independent Director of LIFFE (the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange).

He is currently a Visiting Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a member of the Council at Warwick University, where he also sits on the Advisory Board of the business school.

Sir George was knighted for his services to business in 2005.

Professor John Bessant, BSc., PhD.

Professor John Bessant currently holds the Chair in Innovation and Technology Management at Tanaka Business School, Imperial College where he is also Research Director. He previously worked at Cranfield, Brighton and Sussex Universities. In 2003 he was awarded a Senior Fellowship with the Advanced Institute for Management Research and was also elected a Fellow of the British Academy of Management. Author of 15 books and many articles, he has acted as advisor to various national governments and to international bodies including the United Nations, The World Bank and the OECD.

Professor Arnoud De Meyer

The University of Cambridge has announced the proposed appointment of Professor Arnoud De Meyer, a leading figure in business school management, as the new Director of its Judge Business School, from September 2006. He will succeed Professor Dame Sandra Dawson, who has led the School since 1995.

Professor De Meyer has been at INSEAD - a leading international business school with campuses in Europe (France) and Asia (Singapore) - since 1983, and is currently Deputy Dean. In 1999, De Meyer became the founding Dean of INSEAD's hugely successful campus in Asia (Singapore) and returned to France in 2002 to take up the post of Deputy Dean and Dean of Administration and External Relations at INSEAD.

Stuart Elmes

The sharp pang of guilt Stuart got from accepting a graduate job drilling holes in the ground for an oil company was quickly assuaged by a small annual donation to Greenpeace. However, he never took the position with the oil major because a holiday job with a start-up company in Cambridge turned into a ten-year odyssey.

BioRobotics designed and manufactured automated equipment to help molecular geneticists unravel the genome, and the board of directors there soon realised that Stuart just wasn't going to stop pestering them until they made him a Director too. Brazenly rejecting the evil world of venture capital, BioRobotics doubled in size every year funded only by re-invested profits, until at 100 people and a turnover of £10m, it was sold to an American corporation.

Stuart and the other owners of BioRobotics have subsequently been recycling their windfall into a new venture, Viridian Concepts. Viridian's goal is to create products that contribute to a sustainable civilization that's not based on tepee-dwelling and muesli. Its first project, a cost-optimised solar heating product for the building industry is nearing production in a pilot factory just outside Cambridge.

Joe Ferry

Joe Ferry is Virgin Atlantic Airway's Head of Design and has been with Virgin for the past ten years.

Joe graduated from Brunel University's Industrial Design Course and worked for London Design Consultants - Packaging Innovation. He left PI to study a Master of Arts in Industrial Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art in association with Imperial College of Science and Technology, London. Whilst at the RCA he worked as an in-house designer for Nokia Mobile Phones.

During his final year at the RCA Virgin Atlantic approached him to develop a new seat for their Upper Class passengers. The concept was the previous flagship product of VAA's J2000 Upper Class cabins.

Joe, with his team of in-house designers, is responsible for the new design and development of the cabin interior and onboard products in Virgin Atlantic's fleet. His responsibilities also include the design management for Virgin Atlantic's uniforms, Clubhouses and terminal areas around the world.

His team's recent projects include the multi award winning, Upper Class Suite, the new Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at London Heathrow and the interior design management of the longest commercial aircraft in the world, the A340-600.

Neil Glover

Studied at Cambridge University, as both an undergraduate and postgraduate, from 1988 to 1995. Joined Rolls-Royce in 1996, initially working in the Critical Parts & Lifing Group within the Materials Function, before becoming Team Leader for Fan and Compressor Aerofoils, 1999 to 2001. Materials Laboratory Manager, Bristol from 2002 to 2004, with responsibility for total materials support to the Defence Aerospace and Marine Gas Turbine businesses. Then spent 1 year in the Marine business, co-ordinating R&D strategy development, before moving to current role as Project Manager, University Research - Materials, with responsibility for all university and collaborative research in materials.

Clive Grinyer

Clive Grinyer is Director of Design at Orange France Telecom. Based in the ExploCentre innovation centre in Paris, where he is designing the next generation of communication services across mobile, fixed phone and the internet.

Clive has held senior design management roles in both consultancies and corporate design. As a consultant he worked for IDEO in the US and UK, was European head of product design for Fitch and was a founder of design company Tangerine with Jonathan Ive (now VP of design at Apple).

As Director of Design for Samsung he set up the European design team in London, and was head of design for TAG McLaren Audio, a collaboration of the watch company and Formula 1 racing team. He went on to be Director of Design at the Design Council, creating the design demonstration projects with UK manufacturing and technology companies.

Clive is a passionate advocate for design and design thinking, writes and speaks at conferences on design innovation and technology, and is the author of the book "Smart Design".

Gert Hildebrand

Gert Volker Hildebrand, 52, the Chief Designer of Mini, has had a prolific and influential career in automotive design. After completing University studies in engineering and design in Karlsruhe, Braunschweig and the RCA London, Hildebrand joined Opel where he was part of the Kadett E design-team and the Opel JUNIOR show-car team 1983.

Next, the Lörrach, Germany born designer moved to the Volkswagen Design Center where he performed on the Golf III, and IV, in addition to the Sharan Face-lift and the Bora. In 1995 Hildebrand was appointed Chief Designer of the Volkswagen owned Seat Automotive Co. in Matorel, Spain. At Seat, besides designing the 1998 Toledo and Leon models, he also created the new face and the future designdirection for Seat.

After a successful career at the Volkswagen Group, he ventured to the Mitsubishi European Design Center where he was Chief Designer. Hildebrand also has experience in the automotive supply industry, working in the European subsidiaries of 3M and JCI. Since the beginning of 2001 Hildebrand leads the Mini Design Studio at BMW in Munich.

Ewen Kellar

Dr Ewen Kellar joined TWI in 1996 to work on adhesives technology and applications in the Advanced Materials and Processes Department. Over the subsequent years he has managed projects in a wide range of areas including, surface coatings for medical devices, durability and lifetime prediction of adhesively bonded joints, assessment of adhesives for the offshore industry and the recycling of bonded components in the F1 industry. His interests include finite element analysis (FEA) of bonded joints, the modification of surfaces to promote adhesion, application of adhesives/polymers in the medical sector and hybrid joining technology (where the joint consists of a combination of a fastener and an adhesive). Current work includes the development and evaluation of coatings for biopsy needles to enhance ultrasound visibility and the continuing development of the web based Adhesives Design Toolkit.

Andrew Till

Andrew Till is the Director of Strategy and Portfolio for Motorola's Mobile Device Business in Europe. In this role he is responsible for driving the development and execution of a winning business strategy for the European region. This includes ensuring that the company remains highly customer focused while at the same time driving innovation within the market. Andrew is also responsible for the management of the European product portfolio covering handsets, companion products and applications.

Andrew previously held the positions of Director of Customer Strategy and Business intelligence Manager within Motorola.

Andrew has over 10 years' experience in the telecommunications field, having previously worked as a market analyst for Dataquest Europe Telecommunications Group, in the fields' analogue and ISDN communications, and as Technology Strategist for both Psion Dacom and Psion plc.

Andrew holds a degree in International Business Administration and Italian. He currently resides in the UK.

Alexander Van de Putte

Alexander Van de Putte is Director and Head of Global Practices (Global Risks and Scenario Planning) with the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland.

Previously, he was the Senior Strategy & Portfolio Advisor to the Committee of Managing Directors (CMD) at Shell International. At PricewatershourseCoopers, he was director and co-leader of the Shareholder Value initiative. At McKinsey, Alexander was a core team member of the European Corporate Finance & Strategy Practice. During his career as a consultant, Alexander has worked in more than 25 countries primarily for energy and metals and mining companies.

An applied economist and decision scientist, Alexander holds advanced degrees in computer science and management from Boston University. From 1993-1995, he was a Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) at Harvard University, and holds a PhD in Applied Economics from the University of London. Alexander is also a graduate of the International Teachers Program - a faculty development program - from IMD, Switzerland. In 2004, he was named an Honorary Teaching Fellow at the University of London (Birkbeck College), elected as a Brains Trust member with the Evian Group at IMD, and is a Fellow with the American Academy of Financial Management.

Alexander is an adjunct professor of scenario planning at INSEAD. From 2000 to 2004, he was part-time (full) professor in finance and dean of the Grande Ecole Programme at the Rouen School of Management (France) and a teaching fellow at the University of London. Alexander has been a guest lecturer in executive education at Cambridge University (UK), INSEAD (both France and Singapore), IMD (Switzerland) and Wharton (USA) and has taught at the Solvay School of Management and Boston University.

His latest publication, "Thirty years of scenario planning at Shell," was published in the California Management Review (2005).