Joseph Butler - Director for Telecommunications, Ofcom

Joe is a director at Ofcom, (the independent organisation which regulates the UK’s broadcasting, telecommunications and wireless communications sectors) where he has played a number of roles mainly in the area of mobile and radio spectrum, including CTO for the spectrum group. Joe was one of the authors of the National Infrastructure Commission report on 5G and the future of mobile communications in the UK (an independent commission chaired by Lord Adonis), which made recommendations accepted by UK government on the future of mobile in the UK. He has also undertaken an interim role as Director for Telecoms at DCMS. Prior to working in Telecoms Joe worked in a number of tech startups, in computer vision, AI/machine learning and signal processing. He is a visiting Professor at the University of Bristol, has a PhD in Electrical Engineering from UCL and a first degree in Physics.

Richard Feasey - Inquiry Chair and Panel Member, Competition & Markets Authority

Richard is currently an Inquiry Chair and Panel Member at the Competition and Markets Authority, where he reviews mergers and other competition matters across a wide range of markets. He is also a Senior Adviser at the Centre on Regulation in Europe.

Between 2001 and 2013, Richard was the Policy Director at Vodafone plc, responsible for managing Vodafone’s engagement with regulators and competition authorities around the world. Prior to that, he had similar responsibilities for regulation and strategy at other telecoms companies in the UK and internationally.

In recent years, Richard has been a Senior Adviser to the Payment Systems Regulator, a member of the advisory boards of Gigaclear plc and Jersey Telecom, an adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on Europe and lectured at Judge Business School, UCL and Kings College. He advises businesses and has served as an expert witness in the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Europe.

Stephen Howard - Global Head of Telecoms, Media & Technology Research, HSBC Bank

Tony Lavender - Managing Partner, Plum Consulting

Tony Lavender is a managing partner at Plum Consulting. He has more than 35 years experience in technology, communications regulation, policy and spectrum management. His clients include governments, equipment vendors, network operators and regulators. Tony was a specialist adviser to the UK Parliament 2016 Culture, Media and Sport Committee Inquiry into “Establishing world class connectivity throughout the UK”, he chairs the Steering Board of the UK Spectrum Policy Forum and he was a member of the UK Government’s Expert Panel, established as part of the UK Spectrum Strategy, on “Incorporating Social Value into Spectrum Allocation Decisions”. He has worked on a wide range of studies including on the 5G mmWave ecosystem, spectrum sharing, spectrum valuation and more broadly on electronic communications infrastructure strategy. Tony is a Chartered Engineer and a member of the UK Institution of Engineering and Technology.

William Webb FREng FIET FIEEE - CTO, Access Partnership

William is CTO at Access Partnership. He was one of the founding directors of Neul, a company developing machine-to-machine technologies and networks, which was formed at the start of 2011 and subsequently sold to Huawei and became CEO of the Weightless SIG, a body standardizing IoT technology. Prior to this William was a Director at Ofcom where he managed a team providing technical advice and performing research. He has worked for a range of communications consultancies and spent three years providing strategic management across Motorola’s entire communications portfolio, based in Chicago. He was IET President 2014-2015.

William has published 17 books, 100 papers, and 18 patents. He is a Visiting Professor at Southampton University, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the IEEE and the IET. He has been awarded multiple honorary doctorates by the UK’s leading universities and in 2018 was awarded the IET’s prestigious Mountbatten Medal for technology entrepreneurship.