Vicky Higgin

Vicky Higgin is the CIO for Highways England, the government owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving England’s motorways and major A roads.  Formerly the Highways Agency, they became a government company in April 2015.

As well as all of the business IT and data, she is also responsible for the roadside operational technology and the technology in their 365/24/7 controls rooms that supports the operation of the strategic road network (SRN) and the delivery of digital capabilities.

Vicky is used to working for purpose driven and ‘mission critical’ organisations, given her previous role in National Grid, a multinational energy and utilities company where she held the position of VP IT Transformation and CIO.  As well as technology, she is also has experience of customer service, process excellence and transformational change and is passionate about encouraging young people in to STEM subjects and building diversity in IT

Malcolm Dare

Malcolm has over 25 years’ experience in FMCG, technology and heavy engineering industries having worked in procurement, supply chain, planning, logistics and operational roles. He has operated at both Executive Team and Country levels and has extensive complex business and functional change management experience.
 
At business level he has delivered a very large and complex SAP implementation on time and budget. He has delivered large cross-functional cost reduction programmes where the methodology has them been permanently embedded into the business. He has successfully redesigned procurement, supply chain and logistics operations and has been used to independently review other businesses complex change / IT projects.

His current role is the Executive Director, Commercial and Procurement for Highways England

Dr Philip Orumwense DBA, FCIPS

Philip is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supplies (CIPS). He heads up the Information and Technology Group at Highways England where he is also a Commercial and Procurement Director. He leads the delivery of commercial and procurement capability and leadership for all IT infrastructure, software, hardware, services, change and operational technology for the delivery of Highways England programmes and services. He previously headed up the Digital Platforms, Programmes and Applications Category at the Department for Work and Pensions where he was also Commercial Director for the Universal Credit Programme. He is engaged on several complex Change Programmes, developing sourcing solutions and delivering end to end category and contract management services across a broad range of Digital and Technology categories.

In recent years he led the DWP’s engagement on the creation of the Next Generation Shared Services (NGSS) and the Integrated Shared Services Centre ( ISSC 2) for the UK Government. He has also led the DWP engagement on the transfer of Common Goods and Services to the Crown Commercial Service with a view to leveraging the combined and extended buying power of the UK Government.
 
In 2010, Philip was short listed in the Chartered Institute of Purchasing Supply (CIPS) Procurement and Supply Chain Professional of the Year Award category. He holds a fellowship of the Institute.
 
He has a vast organisational experience in Business Process Outsourcing, Technology and Digital Systems and Solutions, Financial Systems, Automotive, Rail and Road Construction Industry Sourcing expertise that spans both private and public-sector organisations. 
Prior to joining the UK Public Service, he worked for Siemens where he had responsibilities for a multi site and multi business commercial activities spanning the UK, Germany and elsewhere in Europe, South and North America across a number of industry sectors including: Automotive, Transportation (Rail, Civils, Communications, Electrification and Signalling) and Financial/Business Services.
 
He actively mentors colleagues and plays an active role in the cross Whitehall Diversity and Inclusion agenda. Philip has completed the two year Senior Leaders Scheme (SLS) a talent scheme for UK Senior Civil Servants. After 14 years working in various roles in Central Government, he left the Department for Work and Pensions and the Government Commercial Function at the end of June 2019 to take on the IT Commercial Director role with Highways England. 
 
He has an MA in Political Behaviour (Essex), an MBA in Business Strategy and Procurement Management (Birmingham) and a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) from Aston Business School. His Doctoral Thesis was on value creation and retention through the appropriate adoption of transactional and relational procurement practice within the UK Public Sector.

Maxine Palmer

Maxine has over 20 years’ experience in Commercial and Procurement across the public sector having worked in procurement, supply chain, planning, contract management and operational roles.
 
At business level Maxine has delivered large and complex Commercial and Procurement solutions on time and budget, robustly contract managing key suppliers and high profile contracts within a number of public sector organisations. She has delivered large cross-functional change programmes where the process changes and methodology have been permanently embedded into the business, leading to greater resource and process efficiencies to enable swifter routes to market. Maxine has successfully run supplier communities and worked across Government to bring about changes to reporting for both technology and related roads equipment.
 
Her current role is the Head of IT Commercial – Operational Roadside Technology within Commercial and Procurement for Highways England.

Richard Pedley

Richard has worked in small and large scale organisations spanning private and public sectors. He spent the first part of his career in the Army as a Royal Engineer where he specialized in Geographic Information Systems and Aerial Reconnaissance.  Since then he has worked in IT for the BBC, E-ON, Jaguar Land Rover and Severn Trent Water as infrastructure programmes director, moving into other senior IT leadership roles in Business Partnering, Programme Delivery, Strategy and Cyber Security.   He has worked in the Environment Agency, as the Head of Programme Delivery and Deputy CIO, which included the Business Partnering function.  Richard has also worked as an independent contractor working with clients such as KPMG, Capita, Skills Funding Agency and Met Police before gaining a Portfolio Delivery Manager role at National Grid where he delivered enterprise solutions in ERP, Service Management (ServiceNow) and other digital enabling platforms.

His most recent role at National Grid was to lead a major business change programme across the UK and the US over the last 2 years to design and deliver a new global Identity & Access Management Centre of Excellence team from scratch to improve the organisation’s Cyber Security posture.

Kelly Goodwin

Kelly has over 20 years experience in the transport, rail and engineering industries having worked in commercial, strategic planning and operational roles in technology and telecommunications. She brings a wealth experience in leading delivery of safety critical and national infrastructure systems for high profile organisations. She has operated at Board level, worked internationally and has significant experience in delivering complex change and transformation.

At a business level she has delivered large scale complex technology and business transformations on time and within budget which have delivered significant cost reductions and where methodologies have been adopted at a country and international level.  Her current focus is delivering the IT operating model and Digital, Data and Technology Strategy that will be a key enabler for the organisation during RIS2.

Having worked across both delivery partner and customer side she understands the importance of building strategic and collaborative relationships.

Her role is Director of Strategy, Transformation and Performance for Highways England.

Scott Miller

Scott recently joined Highways England to lead our Infrastructure and Platforms. The role which has been introduced as part of our transformation will enhance through lifecycle management of our strategic platforms to ensure they support vision and digital strategies for the future.
 
Over the past 20 years Scott has worked on major technology and organisational transformation programmes across a broad range of sectors and clients, these include HM Prison Service, Ericsson, Barclays, Ministry of Defence, Skills Funding Agency, Hewlett Packard and National Grid. Having worked across the full lifecycle from strategic procurements, through transformation and service operations Scott brings vast experience operating as a service integrator.

Chris Paton

Chris Paton is the Chief Technology Officer at Highways England, accountable for Architecture Services, Design Services and all Technology Services.
 
Chris is a highly experienced and adaptable technology leader with a proven track record of successfully delivering Strategy, Architecture, Solution Design and Enterprise Governance for complex organisations. Skilled in the transformation of organisations through the adoption of Digital Transformation and the development, design and deployment of safe, secure and fit-4-purpose solutions. Organisational evolution has been a constant theme through his career, from the earlier days of the UK’s first Electronic Patient Record, through to today’s Digital Agenda and the delivery of the Digital Solutions Hub at DXC.  
 
Chris has 25+ years’ experience in IT, spanning various Industries including Health, Freight & Logistics, Manufacturing, Retail, Technology Service Provider and Telecommunications; previously holding global leadership roles in Client organisations, and, the role of CTO at Hewlett Packard and DXC. Chris has extensive experience in Business, Operational and Technology Transformation.

Jason Bedford

Jason has over 25 years experience in developing and operating complex 24/7 mission and safety critical IT environments, spanning numerous industries in both the public and private sectors.
 
As the Service Operations Director, he is responsible for the running of technology and digital services across the business, including the transition, operation and associated service management elements of roadside technology, operational control room systems and business IT.

Philomena Lavery

Before coming to HE, Philomena led cyber security improvement initiatives in the Department for Transport in co-ordination with the Cabinet Office. Prior to this, she ran multiple transformative security and risk management programmes for London 2012, the European Commission and the US and UK Governments.
 
In her earlier career, Philomena set up and then ran, as Managing Director, a National Security and Defence High-Tech incubator for BAE Systems, MHCLG and local government. She also held roles as Director of International Corporate Development with Nortel Networks plc. and was Director of Scandinavia for Cable and Wireless plc. She holds an MBA from Cass Business School, an MSc with Distinction in Cyber Security from Warwick University and a Materials Engineering BSc from Aston University. Alongside her busy career she is a Guest Lecturer at Warwick. 

Martin Ritchie

Martin Ritchie is the ERP Services Director at Highways England, responsible for the systems that manage all of the company’s financial transactions totaling £4.5B per annum.  This includes paying all of Highways England’s supply chain, paying staff salaries and expenses, and controlling our Traffic Technology inventory.  Highways England is looking to maximize the value it derives from investment in ERP technology. Potentially, this means shifting our deployment from one that supports basic Finance, Procurement and HR processes to one that supports the company in maintaining the strategic road network.

Martin has 30 years’ experience in IT transformation and previously held the roles of CTO at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and Deputy Director for Business Intelligence and Shared Services at the Department for Transport.