Cloud Pro expert panel sets out future direction

Cloud Pro is pleased to announce the formation of our expert panel, a group of cloud luminaries and specialists charged with shaping Cloud Pro’s editorial direction and helping to provide advice for readers. There are 22 members of the panel, all knowledgeable about particular aspects of cloud and SaaS. The list is not complete, the full list will have about 30 members when it has been finalised.

The current members are:

• Andy Burton – Cloud Industry Forum
• Ash Patel – EMEA Business Manager, Cloud at Insight
• Bob Harris  - Chief technology officer, Channel 4
• Chris Harding – Forum director, The Open Group
• Clive Longbottom –analyst, Quocirca
• Danny Attias – CIO, Grass Roots
• Darren Robertson – Chief scientist, Action for Children
• Dave Cartwright – ex-CTO and telecoms manager
• David Wilde CIO, Essex County Council
• Harish Rao Global CTO, Capgemini
• Ian Osborne - Director, Software and Electronics, techUK
• Laurent Lachal – Analyst, Ovum
• Lee Gillam – Editor, Cloud Computing Journal
• Marc Benson – CIO, Signage Live
• Matthew Graham-Hyde – CIO, Kantar (author of Essential CIO)
• Mike Cadden – IT Director, Retail Data Partnership
• Paul Lomax – CTO, Dennis Publishing
• Rocco Labellarte - Head of tech & service delivery, Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead
• Rob Greig – CIO, Royal Opera House
• Sam Johnston – Director Cloud Services, Equinix
• Steve Watmough – Ex head of CIO Services, KPMG
• Tim Kitchin – Innovation and Entrepreneurship Manager, British Computer Society
• Uff Ali – Contractor, various cloud companies
• Will Venters – Lecturer, LSE (co-author of Moving to the Cloud Corporation)

In addition to these, the panel will also be joined by two regular Cloud Pro contributors, Jon Collins and Steve Cassidy, both with many years experience at the sharp end of IT. We have tended to steer away from vendors and service providers as we wanted people to be independent and yet have a thorough understanding of cloud issues.

As part of their brief, they will help comment on pieces, help with the future editorial direction of Cloud Pro and also provide the expert guidance for a new feature we’re running – Ask the Expert. This is an opportunity for any readers to get their queries about cloud answered: this could be anything from advice on getting started; which services to consider, legal questions on compliance or anything to do with business acceptance. We will welcome questions from enterprises to one-person companies on any topic related to cloud.

If you have any questions for the panel, any queries about the initiative or would like to join the panel, please contact max_cooter@dennis.co.uk. Please note, the panel is not open to vendors/service providers and candidates would need to display a significant knowledge of cloud.