Eric Lipscombe has some thirty years experience in the computer industry, initially with IBM. In 1980, he left an executive position at IBM to start a business distributing Telex compatible terminals which achieved a 6% market share by 1984, at which time the company was purchased by a quoted public company, MBS Plc. He served as a director of MBS until asked to start the Gartner Group in the UK in 1985.

In October 1986, Eric was approached by a founder of Teradata Corporation and started the European business. He remained VP Europe of Teradata until the company was purchased by NCR in April 1992. The European business had achieved a revenue run rate of $70m p.a. at the time of the acquisition. Eric set up the European organisations, recruited the staff and had line responsibility for the country business units for the five years prior to acquisition by NCR.

In 1992, he raised funding for a management buy in of WhiteCross Systems (now Kognitio) and recruited a team to develop a high end data base technology, initially as CEO and later Deputy Chairman of the company.

David Shuttleworth has over 30 years experience in the IT industry, initially in commercial applications programming and systems analysis, then gaining a broader technical background by working for hardware vendors as a systems engineer and consultant. This has given him the opportunity to work with a wide range of programming languages, operating systems, communications products and development tools.

Working for over 25 years in pre- and post-sales consultancy for Data General, Teradata and WhiteCross Systems on projects for major clients all around the world has provided a wide experience of different industries including telecommunications (Carphone Warehouse, British Telecom, T.A.S.A. (Argentina), CTC Mundo (Chile), TLD (Puerto Rico), Sprint (U.S.A)), transportation (SNCF (Paris), British Airways), banking (Lloyds Bank, Barclays Bank), utilities (Scottish Power, Anglian Water), media (Fuji TV (Tokyo)) and retail (Debenhams, El Corte Inglés(Madrid)).

In the last 3 years at Edge Associates David has specialised in the migration of data warehouses to the Netezza platform for major customers such as Debenhams, The Carphone Warehouse, Wandaoo (now Orange), NTL:Telewest (now Virgin Media) and T-Mobile.

David is a recognised authority in the areas of database technology, parallel processing in the database arena, data warehousing and data mining techniques. He also speaks at conferences and seminars (including creating and delivering the 'Parallel Processing for Commercial Database' seminar for Codd & Date and contributing to articles in 'New Scientist' and BBC Radio 4's 'Network' popular science program). He is a member of the Data Warehousing Institute and has spoken at their annual Leadership Conference and in 2007 gave the Netezza Masterclass presentation at the Netezza European User Forum.

Andy Goldthorpe has over 18 years experience in the telecommunications industry, starting his career in data networks, moving into operational support systems design and integration, and then consultancy practise focused on business analysis and project management. More recently Andy has headed a business intelligence department, driving both technical and business strategy, delivering critical insight, reporting, and marketing services.

Andy's experience encompasses work with major telecoms operators across Europe - BT, ntl (now VirginMedia), France Telecom, Telefonica, Telenor, Telecom Eire; international collaborative work through ISO and CCITT; and the UK government on ISP data retention.

Andy has, over his career, developed strong technical knowledge and skills, particularly in the areas of data architecture and design, combined with extensive knowledge of telecoms business operations. This combination is essential to delivering "business intelligence".

Andy was previously Head of Home Insight, Decisioning, and Performance Evaluation for Orange UK, where he drove the successful strategic migration of an outsourced data warehouse to a Netezza in-house platform.

After 2 years on the Unilever Graduate Development Scheme, Guy Lipscombe moved into the IT sector, joining Hewlett-Packard in 1995. Guy was initially involved in large systems and consultancy sales at HP, working on Department of Social Security and Inland Revenue contracts. He became European Account Manager for Citigroup in 1997, driving their global messaging deployment and outsourcing contracts in Europe. Whilst at HP, Guy was also nominated for the HP 'fast track' management program.

In 1998 Guy moved to Compaq as Business Development Manager for Financial Services in the UK, where he was responsible for development of strategic alliances with key application partners in Wholesale Banking, Retail Banking and Insurance. Guy left Compaq in 2000 to become founder and Managing Director of Survey.com Europe (now Survey Interactive) and a Director of Edge