The Conference and Symposium sets the agenda for the IT Leaders Forum for the next year.
Event overview
A day on what IT leadership does next.
The morning: AI in practice - ethics, transformation and resilience – in four short talks, a round table and a plenary.
The afternoon: the SFIA skills framework and the impact of AI; how a BCS working group tackled availability and launched Engineering Resilience; and the future challenges facing IT leaders, from autonomous vehicles and quantum computing to the future of the profession and growing BCS across the regions.
One question runs through the day: what is the most important problem ITLF should tackle?
The closing plenary picks the forum’s priorities for the year ahead, with a call for volunteers, followed by drinks and networking until 18:00.
Speakers include: Chris Ambler, Dr Mohan Ravindranathan, Dave Sutton, Sarah Greasley, Ian Seward, Peter Leather, Gill Ringland, Professor Ed Steinmueller, Rony Zaman, Haiyan Wu and Dr Mercedes Arguello Casteleiro.
Chair: Gill Ringland.
Co-chairs: Julie Hendry, Ed Steinmueller and Kevin Eagles.
Lunch and refreshments provided. Please join us in person or online.
Agenda
11:00 - Event start with AI topics: talks, round table and plenary - Chris Ambler, Mohan Ravindranathan, Dave Sutton, Sarah Greasley
12:30 - Lunch
13:15 - SFIA Skills and Competency Framework and the Impact of AI - Ian Seward, Peter Leather
13:45 - Tackling a problem with a BCS working group - Gill Ringland, Ed Steinmueller, Rony Zaman
14:15 - Break
14:30 - The IT leader, meeting the future challenges: autonomous vehicles resilience (video), quantum computing (video), the future of the IT profession -Gill Ringland
15:30 - Afternoon tea
15:45 - Achieving BCS growth across regions - Haiyan Wu
16:00 - Round table: what ITLF can and should do on technology, leadership and BCS growth
16:30 - Closing plenary: priorities for the year ahead - panel including Dr Mercedes Arguello Casteleiro
17:00 - Drinks and networking
18:00 - Event close
Synopsis
Sessions will cover:
AI Ethics in Practice: From Principles to Responsible Decisions Chris Ambler
AI systems increasingly influence decisions that affect individuals, organisations and society, but ethical principles alone do not guarantee ethical outcomes. I will explore how moral psychology, competing ethical frameworks and human cognitive biases shape AI-assisted decision-making, and consider how organisations can translate responsible-AI principles into practical governance, accountability and assurance.
AI and Transformation: From Technology Adoption to Organisational Reinvention Dr Mohan Ravindranathan
AI transformation is not achieved simply by introducing AI tools into existing processes. To realise its full potential, organisations must fundamentally rethink how work is designed and delivered, reshaping services, decision-making, governance, technology, and workforce capabilities around a new partnership between people, data, and intelligent agents. This session will explore how organisations can move beyond experimentation and technology adoption to drive meaningful organisational reinvention and sustainable transformation.
The wider implications of AI Transformation - Dave Sutton (joining online)
The wider implications of AI Transformation for organisations. Preparing for AI Transformation: developing AI strategies and defining principles and policies; defining organisational and governance structures, practices and processes; and building readiness, delivery and service management capability. Looking to the future to build long-term AI capability.
The impact of AI in resilience Sarah Greasley
AI is increasingly being used to extend human capability to deliver resilience across architecture, anticipation, and recovery, and to minimise the impact of service failures and outages. However, it can also add opacity, fragility, and new points of failure. Like any technology, the design, training, governance and testing are crucial to successful implementation, and this presentation will draw out some of the key considerations.
SFIA Skills and Competency Framework and the Impact of AI Ian Seward and Peter Leather
A brief introduction to, or refresher for, SFIA, the employer-driven skills and competency framework, the Foundation itself and the global community of users. How SFIA version 9 already provides a foundation for organisations and professionals to use it as an AI and machine learning skills framework, and what is underway for the SFIA 10 release in 2027, with a Q&A to capture your needs and ideas.
Tackling a problem with a BCS working group Gill Ringland, Ed Steinmueller, Rony Zaman
The history of the Availability Working Group, lessons learnt, and the launch of Engineering Resilience, followed by open discussion.
The future of the IT profession Gill Ringland
AI, new labour models and our growing dependence on digital services are reshaping what it means to be an IT professional. This session looks at the skills and responsibilities the profession now needs, and the role of employers, the industry and BCS in building them, ending with questions for ITLF on what to do next.
Achieving BCS growth across regions Haiyan Wu
UCL’s work expanding BCS membership among young graduates and researchers, prompting discussion on where else the approach might work.
About the speakers
Chris Ambler
Chris Ambler is a Fellow of BCS and a Graduate Member of the British Psychological Society, with more than 45 years’ experience in technology and quality assurance. Drawing on degrees in Computer Science and Psychology, he now focuses on AI ethics, governance and the psychology of human-AI decision-making.
Dr Mohan Ravindranathan
Dr Mohan Ravindranathan is a technology strategist, enterprise architect and AI transformation leader with more than 25 years’ experience delivering large-scale business and technology change across the public and private sectors. Within HMRC’s Chief Digital & Information Office he leads strategic initiatives in Generative AI and Agentic AI, including the development of HMRC’s Agentic AI Strategy, and has been at the forefront of introducing Agentic AI concepts into government transformation. He holds a PhD for his thesis on Heterogeneous Intelligent Systems from Edinburgh and an MBA from Warwick.
Sarah Greasley
Sarah Greasley has worked in IT, particularly with financial institutions, in many different guises. She was a Distinguished Engineer at IBM, before joining Direct Line Group as Group CTO, and then AWS as Director of Solution Architecture for EMEA. She is now pursuing a portfolio career and mentoring startups in the AI and Next Generation Computing space.
Ian Seward
Ian Seward, General Manager, SFIA Foundation. Ian began his professional work as a systems and software engineer within the UK aerospace and defence sector, initially in research and then developing experimental and operational equipment. He then focussed on developing organisational software engineering capability across several business sectors. He has led the SFIA Foundation for the last 12 years.
Peter Leather
Peter Leather, Update Manager and Global Lead, SFIA Foundation. 40 years of industry experience, with 25 years specialising in tech people and skills management and organisational performance for major UK and global IT companies. More than 20 years contributing to SFIA, leading global volunteer and community initiatives through the SFIA Council and User Forum. Served as a Subject Matter Expert and Project Manager for SFIA versions 7, 8, 9 and 10.
Rony Zaman
Rony Zaman MBCS CITP has spent approaching 20 years in operational resilience and availability leadership, with delivery experience across mission-critical communications, healthcare and emergency service technology estates, from availability engineering and service continuity through to board reporting in 24/7 operations. He has designed disaster recovery governance and RACI models, defined RTOs, RPOs and impact tolerances, and run tabletop and full-failover testing across 999 control-room, clinical and public-sector platforms, including major international sporting events where downtime carries patient-safety consequences. He has a proven record of converting regulatory obligation into practical controls, evidence and reporting that withstand scrutiny.
Dr Mercedes Arguello Casteleiro
Dr Mercedes Arguello Casteleiro has a PhD in Physics and is an elected committee member of BCS SGAI, the BCS Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence. For many years she carried out research in the Bio-Health Informatics Group at the University of Manchester. She is interested in Neuro-Symbolic AI and in the benefits and drawbacks of low-code and no-code AI with open-source LLMs, including AI agents. She has held lecturer posts at the University of Buckingham and taught computer science at the Universities of Southampton and Manchester. She is currently working on the TQ-FOODS project, funded by SCAF and Quantum ARC.
Gill Ringland
Gill Ringland is Secretary and Treasurer of the BCS IT Leaders Forum and a Life Fellow of BCS. A pioneer of systems and data architecture at CAP, Inmos and Modcomp, she went on to build a £3bn business at ICL, where her strategy work produced the book Scenario Planning. She was CEO, Director and Fellow of SAMI Consulting from 2002 to 2017. She co-chaired the ITLF Service Resilience Working Group with Professor Ed Steinmueller and co-wrote Resilience of Services: reducing the impact of IT failures. She has over 100 publications, including twelve books.
Dave Sutton
David Sutton is a retired IT executive with extensive experience across banking, utilities, hospitality and other sectors, specialising in major business change, enterprise architecture and IT management. His expertise includes IS/IT strategy, programme assurance, problem management, and data and database analysis and design. He is currently interested in AI to support business transformation, strategy and innovation, and is actively involved with the BCS IT Leaders Forum.
Ed Steinmueller
Ed Steinmueller is Professor Emeritus of the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at University of Sussex. His entire career has been devoted to the economic and social implications of information and communication technologies. Along the way he has consulted on competition and industrial policy and regulation and innovation in the ICT industries.
Haiyan Wu - Bio to follow.
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This event is brought to you by: BCS IT Leaders Forum
Supported by: Information Security specialist group, Enterprise Architecture specialist group, Software Testing specialist group.
