Advisory Board & leadership
Advisory Board Members include independent, neutral experts who volunteer their time to help advise Icebreaker One in the delivery of its mission.
Members are encouraged to act as a ‘critical friend’ to IB1, and to bring their knowledge and expertise to help deliver its mission to:
- Provide strategic guidance and direction based on their expertise & market insights
- Actively facilitate connections with senior leaders
- Where appropriate, represent IB1 in public forums
Reference: Terms of Reference for the IB1 Advisory Board
Founder and CEO of Icebreaker One, Gavin Starks has founded, funded and run over a dozen organisations including as founding CEO of the Open Data Institute, Co-Chair of the Open Banking Standard and CEO of global environmental intelligence company, AMEE. He has also been formally appointed to public office as Co-Chair of the UK Smart Data Council.
Celeste Connors has twenty years experience working at the intersection of economic, environment, energy, and international development policy. She previously served as the Director for Environment and Climate Change at the National Security Council and National Economic Council in the White House where she helped shape the Administration’s climate and energy policies.
John Elkington is an award-winning world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable capitalism, a bestselling author and a serial entrepreneur. John is the founder and chief pollinator of Volans, which works with leaders to make sense of the emergent future to unlock the potential of their organisation.
Irene Graham is the CEO of the ScaleUp Institute. She is a former senior banker at Standard Chartered Bank and was the Managing Director at the BBA responsible for Commercial Banking.
Founder and CEO of ds30, Volker Buscher is experienced in developing and implementing data and digital strategies. He supports organisations as a non-executive director. He was one of 53 Arup Fellows (out of a global staff of 16,000) and the global Chief Data Officer prior to launching ds30.
Baroness Bryony Worthington is a life peer in the House of Lords—a leading expert on climate change and energy policy, and was instrumental to the adoption of the UK Climate Change Act. She was Executive Director for Environmental Defense Fund, Europe and many other initiatives. Baroness Worthington was part of our founding Advisory Board and a collaborator in the design of Icebreaker One.
Research, delivery and implementation teams
Core
Gea Mikic — Co-founder & Programme Director (all programmes)
Gea leads projects focused on systems-level interventions that reduce vulnerability to disasters and protect livelihoods from climate change by changing the cultural mechanics of data sharing. She has a background in disasters, urban resilience, and languages with a particular interest in how we view and communicate risk.
Rob Young — Officer & Head of Finance
Rob is a legal co-director of Icebreaker One Ltd, alongside Gavin. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales (ICAEW). As well as Managing Director of the LYA accountancy practice, he is a Responsible Individual for audits, he has also held multiple voluntary roles including School Governor, Charity Secretary and vice-treasurer for an investment club. Previously he worked with larger corporations (PwC, Menzies), taking an active role in supporting teams from a technical perspective, assisting with complex accounting, and engaging with board members and department heads of listed companies.
Kathryn Corrick — Development and Strategy Director
With a keen interest in innovating responsibly and the impact of technology on society, Kathryn brings together experience of data and digital development, communications and change management with a practical understanding of public policy and compliance. She enables organisations to consider business, regulatory and technology requirements and to build cultures for sustainable change. She is founding partner of Corrick, Wales & Partners LLP, co-founded democracy platform Represent.me, was head of learning and content at the Open Data Institute, has run her own consulting business and was online manager for the New Statesman until 2006.
Michelle Prescott — People Development
With extensive experience and expertise in building teams and delivering people management and organisation development services that enable organisations to meet their goals, Michelle believes that people and organisations accomplish so much more if workplaces are collaborative, open, ethical, safe, supportive and enjoyable places for everyone.
Laura Townshend – Head of Communications
Laura has 12 years of strategic communications experience with a focus on digital. She specialises in translating technical complexity into human language and using technology to scale up the impact of campaigns. As a consultant, she’s worked on a range of climate action projects that aim to engage both business and consumers – including work on a green recovery, a business climate pledge, financing for renewables technology, and the climate consequences of Brexit.
Emily Judson — Head of Research
Emily is a sociotechnical researcher who is interested in the interplay between data, technology, sustainability, and social domains. Her PhD explored governance of the digital energy revolution for net zero by 2050 and was conducted at the University of Exeter. Alongside her PhD, Emily worked as a Research Associate for Icebreaker One since 2020. Prior to her PhD Emily worked in international education, research and innovation policy with a focus on the Middle East and North African regions.
Caroline Fraser — Programme and Policy Manager
Caroline is an environmental professional with experience in non-profits, government agencies, and the private sector focusing in resilience, environmental policy, and urban planning. She is passionate about finding innovative approaches to socio-environmental challenges and sustainable development, and its possibility to protect and enhance our current and future environmental, social, and economic well being.
Zoe Swiderski — Head of Project Management
With a background in Computer Science, primarily focused on user experience, Zoe has worked in a variety of software development and test roles for small companies, as well as a large financial institution. For the last 12 years, she worked as a project manager on public sector projects and she is particularly interested in leading initiatives that can make a positive influence on everyday life.
Jakob Howard – Sales and Bid Coordinator
Jakob has experience in planning, managing, and delivering a wide range of projects. With a background in engineering, he is passionate about using technology to solve pressing social and environmental problems. He has previously worked as a commercial manager scaling an AI start-up from a niche university spin-out to an established player in the UK’s autonomous vehicle sector. He was project manager for an Innovate-UK funded consortium delivering a framework for establishing the safety of operating autonomous vehicles on public roads in the UK.
Jack Hardinges – Philanthropic and Fundraising
Jack is an experienced consultant that helps to build new data products, infrastructure and organisations. At IB1, he’s evolving how we talk about our work to philanthropic audiences and identify new funding opportunities. Prior to this, Jack spent nine years at the Open Data Institute, where his work advanced the understanding and practice of responsible data stewardship. Jack is passionate about the potential for data to tackle the big challenges of our time – provided it’s governed and used responsibly.
Jenna Ilic – Executive Assistant and HR Coordinator
Jenna has experience in administration, executive and business support, previously playing an integral part within senior management on building and growing a small-scale charity. She has 12 years’ experience within the Charity/ Third sector with a particular interest in Learning Disability and community-based organisations and projects.
Emily Brown- Project Support
Emily is a environmentalist, passionate about protecting the natural world by tackling the big issues of our time. Having studied Human Geography at university, Emily is experienced in collaborative working for problem-solving across sectors. She has worked on projects in the fields of sustainability, environment and conservation and is driven to improve human connection to nature through engagement and communication.
Daniel Thomson – Senior Project Manager
Daniel is a product development and digital transformation professional with extensive experience in digital development, strategy formation, customer value proposition definition and programme delivery across financial services and net zero sectors. His passion is delivering value to customers and businesses through the connection of technology, design and experience. He has led the design and launch of key propositions to enable individuals to measure, reduce, and offset their carbon footprint.
R&D
Paul Johnston – Data Solutions Analyst
Paul is an experienced technologist and consultant with experience working for both UK Government as an expert consultant on projects such as One Login, and tech firms including AWS as a speaker and Senior Developer Advocate. A strategic consultant, he has experience as a keynote speaker and has been involved in setting up global conference series. Paul is a Director of Wolverton Community Energy, a community benefit society in his home town of Milton Keynes, which has provided him with experience and insight into the complexities of how to deliver renewables onto the grid.
Sheree Hellier – Researcher
Sheree has worked in Marketing, Insight, Research and Innovation in various sectors. She enjoys sharing and demonstrating the value of the consumer voice throughout the organisation and to stakeholders. She is passionate, enthusiastic and committed to enhancing the consumer experience through data and insight.
Ceri Stanaway – Researcher
Ceri is an independent research and writing consultant specialising in consumer issues, and a former Head of the Money Research team for Which?. Until 2017, she headed up the research team at Mapa Research, helping financial organisations improve their digital offerings – including with their response to new regulation. She is a consumer co-ordinator for the British Standards Institute (BSI) and is excited about the role that open data can play in driving innovation, efficiency and, ultimately, better, more sustainable products and services.
Data Services
Frank Wales — CTO & Delivery Manager
Frank has over 25 years of software development, management and innovation experience. From his start as a software engineer for mission-critical systems, he has developed products for many organisations including Hewlett-Packard, Oxford University Press, and the BBC. At Net-a-Porter, he built and ran the teams responsible for the customer, order and payment systems behind their world-class e-commerce service, invented their real-time fraud analysis system, and fostered innovation across the business. He co-founded one of the UK’s first Internet companies, Limitless, is a founding partner at data protection consultancy Corrick, Wales & Partners, and is Head of Data at The Floorr.
Chris Pointon – Product Manager
An internet entrepreneur and technologist, Chris has led the design and development of large-scale data products in areas including marketing, social media, cybersecurity and personal data management. He has been technical co-founder of six companies. Two exited, two are still operating, and two were “learning experiences”. Chris has a BEng in Computer & Electronic Engineering and is a Fellow of the RSA.
Kip Parker- API/Back-end Developer
Kip is a software developer who has built a wide range of web platforms and other digital things, from ecommerce sites to streaming platforms to social networks. For the last few years he has focused on projects working with data specialists. He likes finding simple ways to do complex things.
Ben Summers – Solutions Architect
Ben is an entrepreneur and technologist. He founded a software company where he designed and delivered research administration software for universities until the company was acquired. He now works with organisations that have an environmental or social purpose. He is a non-executive director of the Welsh Government’s Centre for Digital Public Services, and a trustee of the Centre for Alternative Technology.
Membership and Community
Julia Higginbottom – Community and Events Manager
Julia is a digital specialist with passion for community, open source data, and working in the open to the benefit of a wider sociocracy. She has experience of data and digital development, communications through technology, and event management. She enables organisations and communities through prototyping and experimentation. She has also worked to disrupt storytelling over the past 2 decades, experimenting with contracting, equity and creative commons attribution in her role as a tv and film producer.
Ross Crear – Content Production
Ross is an experienced Financial Journalist and Editor, specialising in climate change, renewables and renewables insurance. He has a genuine passion for conveying important messages through his research and writing and is particularly interested in the socio-economic influence of government and policy and the significance of this in creating a net-zero future.
Alumni
We convene domain experts into the team based on the specific work required. These Icebreakers are part of our broader network and we recognise all of their contributions.
Lewis Just – Researcher and Designer
Charlotte Mitchell – Perseus Senior Project Manager
Poppy Joyner- Project Support
Megan McHaney – Project Manager
Stefan Haselwimmer – Technical Analyst
Sam Haines – Project Support
Michael Bird — Researcher
Tom de Grunwald – Membership and Supporter Manager
Tim Werkhoven – Customer Development Manager
Jeremy Hindle — Insurance and Financial Products Lead (SERI)
Emmanuel Coker – Business Data Analyst
Sheree Hellier – User Needs Researcher
Trevor Hinkle – Interaction Designer (Open Energy)
Ed Dowding- UX/Web Developer (Open Energy)
Adrian Philpott – Creative Lead
Zoe Philpott – Experience Director
Ceri Stanaway – User Researcher (Open Energy)
Srini Sundaram – Product Innovation (Co-chair) / Agriculture Cluster Lead (SERI)
Nick Tyrone – Legal and Regulatory Lead (SERI)
Tom Hukins- API Developer
Tom Oinn- Information Architect (Open Energy)
Ann Edimo – Communications Team
Kasia Kulma- Data Scientist (Open Energy)
Chris Adams – Developer
Lily Zhang — Researcher (SERI)
Vichi Chandra — Open Engagement Manager (SERI, Open Energy)
Miles Cheetham — Data Infrastructure Lead (Open Energy)
Jennifer Cassidy- Researcher
Alpesh Doshi- Commercial Development Manager
Charlotte Hillenbrand- Product Strategist
Gary Lake- Front end/ UX Developer
Siobhan McVeigh – Executive Assistant
Manu Di Biase- Executive Assistant
The Icebreaker One Constellation
Icebreaker One engages a trusted network of domain experts across Climate, Environment, Finance, Infrastructure and Data (aka ‘CEFID‘).
They include dozens of peer-recommended domain experts in disaster risk modelling, insurance, investment, financial instruments, ecosystems, risk analysis, communications, design innovation, urban infrastructure and systems design. If you would like to get involved, please contact us.
Collectively they are the Icebreaker One Constellation.