Board Members

 

 

Dr. David Cleevely  FREng - Chairman
 

David Cleevely FREng is the Chairman of CRFS, the spectrum monitoring company, which he co-founded in July 2007, and the founder and former Chairman of telecoms consultancy Analysys (acquired by Datatec International in 2004). In 1998, he co-founded the web-based antibody company Abcam (ABC.L) with Jonathan Milner and continues as Chairman. In late 2004 he co-founded the 3G pico base station company, 3WayNetworks, which was sold to Airvana in April 2007. He joined the Board of Trutap (formerly Hotxt) - a mobile phone social networking provider in October 2005 and joined the Board of ionscope in 2007 and became Chairman in May 2008. He has been a prime mover behind Cambridge Network, co-founder of Cambridge Wireless and is a member of the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board and the IET Telecoms Sector Panel. 
After being sponsored to study Cybernetics at Reading by Post Office Telecommunications, he joined their Long Range Studies Division. A PhD at Cambridge was then followed by the Economist Intelligence Unit in London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the IET and he has recently held an Industrial Fellowship at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory

 

 

  
Stirling Essex - CRFS
 
Stirling Essex has over 25 years of commercial and product development experience in many areas of wireless technology, and has been intimately involved in the development of test systems for GSM, CDMA (IS-95), and then 3G (W-CDMA), including responsibility for the development and marketing of 3G Test Mobiles (a key enabler for the early rollout of 3G networks) at Ubinetics. He founded Espansivo, a wireless technology consultancy in 2005, and joined CRFS, developers of innovative spectral monitoring products and services, in June 2008 as Director of Business Development. He is a co-champion of the Cambridge Wireless Future Wide Area Wireless Special Interest Group
 

 

 

 

Graham Fisher  -  BathCube Telecoms & Innovation Consultancy

Graham Fisher is the founder and Director of the independent telecommunications and innovation consultancy BathCube Ltd.  
With a background as a radio and handset engineer Graham has been employed in a variety of technical, research and managerial posts within the telecommunications industry. Initially working for THORN EMI he moved to Unitel (now T-Mobile UK) at the start of the GSM revolution and for over 15 years held  many technical, operational and leadership roles within the France Telecom / Orange group of companies. He was Managing Director of France Telecom R&D UK Ltd (the UK R&D laboratory for the France Telecom / Orange Group) for over 5 years- leading the lab through a sustained period of growth and success. 
Throughout his career he has been involved in pushing the limits of applied technology to bring new innovations to the mass market. Graham has gained an in-depth knowledge of the increasing challenge to bring an exciting innovation by a small entity into a mutually profitable deployment by a large organisation. He sees new models of engagement between small and large companies as essential for the key to future growth for the UK high-technology sector and is a passionate supporter both for co-innovation within networks of trust and for Open Innovation models.  
He is always interested to hear of new technologies, start-ups and product concepts that he could assist or advise.
 

 

 

 

 

  
 
 
Jack Lang is a serial entrepreneur and business angel with high-tech and internet companies based in Cambridge, where he is Entrepreneur in Residence, Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, and an affiliated Lecturer at the Computer Lab. He is a by-fellow of Emmanuel College. A recent venture is as co-Founder of Artimi, which is making the next generation of ultra wide band wireless chips. Previously he was founder of Netchannel Ltd, an early Interactive TV company which was acquired by ntl: where he became Chief Technologist.  Before that founder of Electronic Share Information Ltd, one of the first online brokerages, acquired by E*Trade Inc. He is author of “The High Tech Entrepreneurs Handbook” (FT.Com/Prentice Hall 2001), He has other interests in molecular gastronomy and fireworks.
   

 

 

   
Ted Mercer - Edwin Coe LLP
 
Ted specialises in the commercial and regulatory aspects of the telecoms industry and has a wide experience ranging from the construction and installation of telecoms systems through to the particular problems caused by the insolvency or liquidation of network and service providers.
His experience includes advising on: 
  • the development and regulation of new services such as the provision of television on mobile handsets;
  • the outsourcing of telecommunications networks and services;
  • the contractual interface with consumers and telecoms privacy issues;
  • sector and competition regulation (including advocacy before the Competition Appeal Tribunal);
  • the powers and liabilities associated with the installation of systems in public and private land;
  • telecoms standards; and
  • regulation of broadcasting services.
 

 

 

   
Rob Morland - Astutim
 
Rob Morland is Director of Astutim Ltd, a new Cambridge company that works with leading organisations that are looking to make money out of technology.  Rob was previously Managing Director at Cambridge start-up company, Intrasonics Ltd.  Intrasonics developed a unique acoustic datacomms system for use in mobile-media interactivity applications linking broadcast TV and radio with mobile handsets and the internet.  Rob was one of the founders of Intrasonics, which was incubated within Sagentia (formally Scientific Generics) before its successful buyout in December 2007 by a group of Dutch media industry investors.  Rob led the company through its first 18 months of growth before handing over to a new team and founding Astutim in September 2009.  Whilst managing Sagentia’s communications business from 1999 to 2005, Rob was actively involved with the early days of Cambridge 3G and developed major client relationships with Vodafone, Ofcom and the GSMA.  Prior to Sagentia, Rob was MD of Ionica International and before that he was a founder of Scientific Generics’ communications activities in the early 1990s.  His early career was spent designing custom LSI chips with Philips, followed by seven years at PA Technology, where he designed the first transmission plan for Racal Vodafone’s UK cellular access network. 
 

 

 

  
Geoff Varrall - RTT Online
 
Geoff Varrall is a founder Director of RTT Programmes, a company specializing in providing technology and engineering consultancy to the wireless industry.
A co-author of three books on telecommunications, Geoff has recently completed a series of studies for the GSM Association on the RF Cost economics of handsets and is widely respected for his ability to combine a broad understanding of industry technical issues with economic and business analysis.
RTT has been running training workshops and strategic seminars and conferences in Europe for over 20 years. Part of his involvement with Cambridge Wireless is to help facilitate the development of new member services including workshops and conferences that can provide the basis for information exchange and business development opportunities for Cambridge Wireless members. He is co-Chairman of the Future Wide Area Wireless Special Interest Group and is presently working on developing a Wireless Heritage Special Interest Group. The role of the Wireless Heritage Group is to provide a forum in which the very substantial historic role of Cambridge in the wireless industry over the past 70 years can be promoted internationally.    
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

William Webb - Ofcom

William joined Ofcom as Head of Research and Development and Senior Technologist in 2003. Here he manages a team providing technical advice and performing research across all areas of Ofcom’s regulatory remit. He also leads some of the major reviews conducted by Ofcom including the Spectrum Framework Review and development of Spectrum Usage Rights. Previously, William worked for a range of communications consultancies in the UK in the fields of hardware design, computer simulation, propagation modelling, spectrum management and strategy development. William also spent three years providing strategic management across Motorola’s entire communications portfolio, based in Chicago. William has published ten books, eighty papers, and four patents. He is a Visiting Professor at Surrey University and DeMontfort University and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the IEEE and the IET where he has served as a Vice President. His biography is included in multiple “Who’s Who” publications around the world. William has a first class honours degree in electronics, a PhD and an MBA. He can be contacted at william.webb@ofcom.org.uk. 

 

 

 

  
Peter Whale - Qualcomm
 
Peter has a long track record of conceiving, developing and marketing successful technology-based solutions within the wireless telecoms sector.
Peter is Director of Product Management for Xiam Technologies Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qualcomm. Xiam is the market pioneer in discovery and personalisation solutions for Mobile Operators. Peter is responsible for driving further innovation into the product in order to create and sustain the market-leading position for Qualcomm in this sector.
In addition to being a board member of Cambridge Wireless, Peter is co-champion of the Cambridge Wireless Handset Special Interest Group, which explores and develops thinking around handset design issues, partnership and ecosystem development, and scrutiny of new business model opportunities.
Prior to Qualcomm, Peter was a long-standing member of the management team which developed TTPCom into a major global software licensing business, variously holding roles as an Engineering Group Manager, Key Account Manager, Head of Product Management, Third Party Ecosystem Manager and Head of Product Strategy. Peter was responsible for leading developing and marketing software solutions which shipped in over 100 million handsets, with over 40 handset manufacturers globally, and for developing strategic partnerships with a range of complementary mobile software providers. Peter’s earlier career was as a Consultant within the Telecoms sector with both TTP Group and LogicaCMG. In these roles he gained valuable experience in developing complex real-time software solutions for products in Private Mobile Radio, Paging, GSM Type Approval and Voice Recognition.
Peter has an interest in the non-profit sector, and building on Qualcomm’s philanthropic corporate giving culture, in 2008 built the first corporate relationship between Qualcomm’s European offices and the RNIB. Peter is a Member of the British Computer Society and a Chartered Engineer, and holds a honours degree in Computer Science.