Current members

Digital Advisory Group member Dawn Ellis

Dawn Ellis - Chair

Dawn has worked in international publishing, digital marketing and communications for over 25 years. She began her career teaching English as a foreign language in Paris where she then joined Heinemann Publishers in their marketing department. She was Director of New Media at Oxford University Press and then moved to the University of Edinburgh to create and deliver digital platform strategies for multi-disciplinary and diverse university audiences.

Digital Advisory Group member John Howie

John Howie

John Howie is the Chief Information Security Officer for Climate Corporation. He is a Visiting Professor at Edinburgh Napier University’s School of Computing, and a Research Professor at the University of Arizona. John graduated from Edinburgh Napier University with a BSc (Hons) in Computing, in 1991, was awarded the degree of Doctor of Technology (h.c.) in 2012, and holds CISSP, CISM, CISA, CIPP/US, CIPP/E and CIPP/IT certifications.

Fiona Dent

Fiona Dent

Fiona is CEO of Makerversity, the award-winning creative-tech incubator. She was a Board Director of Time Inc and led the launches of newscientist.com and wallpaper.com. She is a member of leading angel syndicate 24 Haymarket and non-executive director of RPD, the pioneering technology start-up. She was named one of the most inspiring women angel investors by the UK Business Angels Association.

John Taysom

John worked for Reuters around the world before setting up their corporate venture fund, focused on the internet and information, in Palo Alto in 1994. He negotiated the first global free news distribution service for Reuters as part of a pre IPO investment in Yahoo. He took a fellowship at Harvard working on privacy preserving data sharing which resulted in Privitar. He’s a Fellow in the Cambridge University Center for Science & Policy and a Visiting Professor at UCL. 

Michael Taylor

Michael is CEO of Jump Shot Consulting, building advanced cloud-based business applications for companies in Sweden. He is the founder and Chairman of Code4000, Europe's first project aimed at teaching prisoners coding skills. He has over 25 years of leadership experience including International Cultural Relations and Development, IT consultancy and Digital Communications. He’s a serial entrepreneur with projects such as CoderDojo and Access All Areas. 

Digital Advisory Group member James Miller

Dr James Miller

James Miller has been Deputy Vice Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University since August 2015. He began his career in 1986 as a Clinical Nurse after graduating from North Lothian College of Nursing and Midwifery. He was appointed Director of the Open University in Scotland in 2010. He gained an MBA from Napier University in 1998 and a PhD from Edinburgh University in 2004. He is an alumnus of Harvard's Institute of Educational Management and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Digital Advisory Group member Vikas Shah

Vikas Shah

Vikas is Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship on MIT Sloan’s European Programme in Lisbon.  He is CEO of Swiscot Group, and is a serial-entrepreneur and angel-investor. Vikas is Chair of FutureEverything, President of TiE UK North and a member of the UK Government’s Industrial Development Board.  He is a trustee and board member of a number of charities including Mustard Tree, Street Soccer Academy and Cancer Research UK and publishes Thought Economics.

Dr Chris Westcott

Dr. Chris Westcott is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Policy Institute at Kings College, London, specialising in Open Source Intelligence. From 2003 to April 2015, Chris was the Director of BBC Monitoring, the BBC’s open source division. Chris led the development of BBC World Service’s digital media portfolio, founding the World Service New Media department in 1995. His awards include a Webby for World Service Online, and multiple BAFTAs.