Edge's Chief Executive Andy Powell has worked in a wide range of organisations including a college, small business and IBM, before becoming chief executive of a UK-wide charity, Action Resource Centre. As chief executive of NTO National Council he was responsible for significantly raising the status of National Training Organisations and their eventual transformation into the current Sector Skills Councils. In this role he sat on a number of government committees advising on areas such as foundation degrees, occupational standards and NVQs, and was the prime mover behind the development of British Training International.  

Andy worked with Garry Hawkes and the trustees to set up Edge – an independent campaigning organisation that aims to raise the status of practical and vocational learning. He believes passionately that we have to get rid of this country’s obsession with academic achievement as the only path to success if we are to enable every young person to develop their potential.

^ back to top

Kate Bellingham did not set out to become a TV presenter. She was ‘spotted’ whilst working for the BBC as an electronics engineer and invited to audition for a Schools TV programme, ‘Techno’. Having embarked on a career in ‘show biz’, her engineering background, along with a degree in physics from Oxford University and experience as a computer programmer, came in useful during her four years as a presenter on ‘Tomorrow’s World’.

Kate went on to present her own weekly programme on Radio 5 Live, ‘The Big Bang’ on Children’s ITV and other programmes for the Open University, BBC Schools and Channel 5. Subsequent broadcasts included a seven-part science series for the Open University, an engineering series for the BBC2 ‘Learning Zone’, and ‘Testing Times’, a series for Radio 4 about the challenges faced on major engineering projects. She recently completed a series on maths for BBC Schools Radio.

Kate regularly hosts conferences and seminars for major companies and is also involved in projects promoting science, engineering and technology to the general public. She is President of Young Engineers, the national network of engineering clubs in schools and colleges, and recently hosted the Young Engineers for Britain Awards Dinner in London. She currently sits on the advisory board for the publications arm of the Institute of Electrical Engineers.

In 1997 Kate was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Technology by Staffordshire University in recognition of this work. In 2003 she obtained an MSc in Electronics with distinction at the University of Hertfordshire.

^ back to top

Ben Saunders is a record-breaking long-distance skier, with three North Pole expeditions under his belt. He is the youngest person ever to ski solo to the North Pole and holds the record for the longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton. Since 2001, Ben has skied more than 2,500km (1,500 miles), which he recently worked out equates to two percent of his entire life living in a tent the high Arctic. Not one to rest on his laurels, Ben has a groundbreaking polar expedition lined up for 2006/7.

Born in 1977, Ben grew up in Devon, was educated at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and currently lives in London. He is passionate about the great outdoors and spent four months walking and climbing in the Nepalese Himalayas aged 19, going on to work as an instructor at the John Ridgway School of Adventure in the Scottish Highlands (once billed as 'the UK's toughest management training school'). John was (and is) a role model and mentor of the highest calibre - in 1966 he and Chay Blyth rowed the Atlantic in an open boat, and John went on to break records in non-stop round the world sailing.

John's wife, Marie-Christine, remembers a nineteen year-old Ben asking her to photocopy the 'Antarctica' pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 'That's where it all started', says Ben, 'I blame it all on John'.

Ben is a keen athlete - after an unpromising start ('I was the podgy kid at school that was always picked last for the football team') he discovered mountain biking in his teens and went on to race bikes on and off-road at national level. He has run several marathons (New York is his favourite course and 2:55 is his best time to date), two ultramarathons, and aims to start competing in Ironman-distance triathlons before too long.

^ back to top

Sally’s interest is in helping the business community realise the opportunity presented by sustainable development. Sally is particularly interested in assisting the retail, construction, transport and financial services sector tackle sustainability. She is very keen to demonstrate the competitive advantages of leadership on this agenda for business.

Sally joined Forum's Business Programme in 2002. Since then she's been working with business partners across all sectors get to grips with sustainability, has overseen and contributed to a wide range of research projects – all designed to unlock the links between sustainable development and successful business – and has presented at both national and international conferences.

She has been appointed by HRH Prince of Wales as an advisor to Duchy Originals. She is also an independent advisor to The Carbon Neutral Company and most recently she has become the independent chair Land Rover’s carbon offset scheme. Sally is a judge on numerous sustainability awards, including the Network Rail awards and IGD foods industry awards. Sally co-authored the Forum’s ground-breaking publication Leader Business, which sets out what we think constitutes best practice in embedding sustainability into business.

Prior to joining the Forum, Sally founded and directed the Sustainability Group at private consultancy Casella Stanger (now owned by Bureau Veritas).

Sally has a PhD in environmental science from Imperial College and also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the rainforests of Borneo.

^ back to top

Cynan joined the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in 1975 and spent two winters at Signy Island, Antarctica studying microbes in freshwater lakes. He was the Winter Base Commander of Signy Station in the 1977 season. In 1980, following his return to UK where he wrote up his doctorate, Cynan became a permanent member of BAS staff, undertaking post-doctoral research on polar limnology (polar lake research!). He was made Head of Freshwater Ecology in 1981 and subsequently the Project Leader for Ecosystem Evolution and Environmental Change. He was awarded the Polar Medal in 1986.

Following these first two winters Cynan undertook a further eleven summer field seasons in Antarctica, working with British, Swedish, Estonian and Australian scientists, two seasons in the High Arctic, working with British, Austrian and Russian scientists and four trips to Sub-Arctic Abisko Station, northern Sweden.  In 1995 he was the first biologist to get involved in subglacial lake exploration and has subsequently been a leading member of the international effort to get into these lake systems, hidden beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, which may contain unique life forms. Around 2000, he switched from Antarctic fieldwork and instead contributed to an Antarctic Astrobiology project and was also responsible for overseeing long-term lake chemistry and microclimate monitoring programmes at Signy Island whilst developing European research programmes.

In 2003 Cynan was made Head of the new BAS Programme Office (BPO), a small group tasked with supporting and helping to coordinate BAS science. The BPO became the core of a new BAS Division - the Science Coordination Group in 2004. His particular responsibilities include international coordination. He also became involved in the developing International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008 during 2003 and helped establish an International Programme Office (IPO) for the Polar Year at BAS. Cynan took on the role of Acting Director of the IPO between October 2004 and May 2005 and is currently seconded 50% of his time to IPO activities as a Senior Advisor, meaning he spends much of his time travelling around the world promoting IPY and coordinating or taking part in various IPY activities.

^ back to top

Ben founded his first company when just fifteen. Attracting media attention following his early success, he was featured in numerous media stories, culminating in an approach by a firm of Jersey-based venture capitalists. Before his eighteenth birthday, Ben had negotiated a £25m deal to launch an internet-based business to business data aggregation service which continues to trade.

He was New Business Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2000, which led to him consulting to the UK and US government on 3rd Generation Mobile Technology. He oversaw the technical due diligence and the technology investment arm for the Rotch Property Group in 2001 where he developed his passion for environmental technologies. He then started a successful mobile innovations company that developed one of the first remote monitoring medical devices as well as many other projects, this evolved into the Rainmakers after developing a number of successful innovations for clients and the market. The Rainmakers continues to grow and due to its success he was able to appear on the prime time channel 4 documentary "The Secret Millionaire", where he gave away tens of thousands of pounds of his own money in a philanthropic act.

He is now regarded as one of the leading experts on web 2.0 the Semantic web and also sits on $100m venture capital fund called Brightstation Ventures.

^ back to top

Founder and Director of ISSET Chris Barber has a long record of school leadership and transformation. Prior to his work in education he worked in finance in the City of London as an insolvency loss underwriter and corporate credit management specialist.

Within schools he has been a successful head of department in both rural and inner city comprehensive schools. Following this he had 14 years experience in school leadership at deputy head level in two schools. In his last school he was instrumental in improving results to almost treble GCSE attainment to over 80% achieving 5 A*-C and at A Level the average attainment being the equivalent of over 3 grade As per student. Chris led the school rebuilding programme, raising over £7 million with the buildings on completion valued at £17 million. Chris' strengths include active styles of learning, behaviour management, tracking of student results leading to improved attainment and school leadership.

Chris fulfils a successful consultancy role with schools across the country, particularly those in challenging circumstances. This has had a high level of success in helping schools improve student attainment, develop successful middle and senior leader effectiveness, improve student classroom learning experiences, improve behaviour management and emerge from special measures.

^ back to top

Jane Insley is the Senior Curator at the Science Museum in London and has worked at the Museum since the early 1970s, having joined as the most junior sort of curator. Looking after the nation's treasures from the history of science, technology and medicine soon became an all-enveloping passion, and she has stayed there ever since, in a number of roles.

She has prepared exhibitions on subjects as far apart as printing, making surveying staves, the meteorologists in the Royal Society and oil pollution, and contributed to larger projects such as the space gallery and the steam engine gallery at the front of the building. High points have included spending a morning covering the Apollo 10 capsule in bubble wrap before building work began, opening three exhibitions in two venues on the same day, and winning the Jehuda Neumann Prize for the History of Meteorology. Her present research is focused on the history of dioramas in museum displays – little landscape models – which once you start looking are found all over the place!

She has always enjoyed travelling to follow her interests in scientific exploration, as one of the best things about the history of science is the amazing things that people did in the past. She skies as often as she can, and is full of admiration for the sheer hard graft and endurance of polar explorers.

^ back to top