Manny Cohen is currently celebrating 30 years in the information and registration industry. He started in 1977 as a researcher of Company & Government records & is currently chairman of the RM Group, owner of the company information and anti-money laundering database aRMadillo, the first commercial company database on the web, which he was instrumental in conceiving & launching. It now covers 120 Million companies in 220 countries. RM is also a major supplier of UK and International company registrations, as well as trusts and foundations used in Wealth Management solutions. They are also major representatives in Europe of Mossack Fonseca & Co.

Manny is also a director of ACRA, the Association of Company Registration Agents, a former Royal Air Force reserve officer, a Freeman of the City of London and a long time supporter of the CiG and Company Secretarial Professional Practice Group also in The City of London.

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Grace Cordell works for professional services firm KPMG where she has held a variety of mainly project-based roles in the area of Knowledge and Information Management.

Her current role is European Head of CRM. She is responsible for developing a unified CRM strategy to support the newly created European firm and has been focussed on information access projects aimed at a joined-up simplified approach to knowledge and information provision.

Prior to joining KPMG, Grace worked for Capital Consulting, a Recruitment Process Outsourcing provider and was responsible for developing their research and service excellence capability. Previously she spent time with Spencer Stuart and TFPL in both research and client-facing roles.

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Alun Davies is Director of Knowledge Management at the global law firm Lovells. He is responsible for the firm’s knowledge management strategy and for developing the firm’s professional support, knowhow management and information services.

The firm’s KM team comprises over one hundred lawyers, knowhow managers and information professionals operating from most of the firm’s 26 offices.

Alun joined Lovells from Credit Suisse First Boston but most of his career to date has been spent in knowledge roles within the legal sector, twelve years with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and three years with Allen and Overy before that.

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Bob De Laney joined LexisNexis in December 2007 as the Director of News & Business for UK & Ireland. He is responsible for Sales, Marketing and Strategy for the Nexis suite of products and services, including the LexisNexis Analytics Solution line. Bob is a seasoned industry veteran who began his career with Thomson Financial in New York in 1990. He worked for Bloomberg Financial in New York and Toronto and was the VicePresident (Sales & Business Development) for Alacra. He was more recently the Director of Factiva Consulting (EMEA)based in London.

Bob lives in Surrey with his wife and two children and spends his free time playing football and watching his beloved Manchester United live and on television.

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Sarah Fahy is the Head of Global Library Services at Allen & Overy LLP, an international legal practice. She is responsible for the strategy of the firm’s library and information service across its global network. Her particular focus is on the promotion of library services within the firm’s different practice areas, the global development of the service to meet the changing needs of a modern law firm and consultation with the legal and business development teams to ensure they have access to the best resources to support their clients.

She advises the Knowledge and Training Board on all aspects of information and library management. Prior to joining Allen & Overy, Sarah was Director in the Corporate Finance division of investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort responsible for their global information service and the introduction of workflow systems. She has also worked with JP Morgan and McKinsey, and has gained extensive experience of restructuring information groups, project management and the introduction of new technologies.

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Piers Fallowfield-Cooper began his career in the financial markets of the City of London. After rapid promotion Piers found himself in Chicago learning about the futures and commodity markets and returned to London to establish a business unit in this arena. Later, after working with a major US bond house, Piers moved into general management and commodity markets and returned to London to establish a business unit in this arena. Later, after working with a major US bond house, Piers moved into general management with a focus on the development of global sales and marketing strategies. He worked on projects in Europe, the Middle-East and Asia-Pacific developing in the process great insight into geographical cultural differences.

Piers then became President, and later Chairman, of the International Division of Oster Communications Inc. best known for its FutureSource real-time market data service and the Oster-Dow Jones News services. Piers was instrumental in taking the business out of its traditional heartland in the Midwestern US, opening operations around the world.

He was a key member of and then leader of the team that increased the enterprise value of the business by a factor of 5 during an 11 year period whilst also taking the company from bottom quartile to top quartile in areas of service reliability, customer satisfaction and client retention.

Piers was also Chairman and a founder of Itsmobile, a Dublin based company that became a leading player in the mobile payment arena, managing to raise VC funding for a high tech start-up in the months following the dot-com fall-out.

He also sat on the advisory board of Finlab Geneva and is currently Chairman of Greycon, a company providing supply chain management optimization software to the paper industry. Recently Piers decided to follow his passion, the development of senior executive talent, and now works full-time as a business coach and mentor specializing in leadership skills and the development of executives and their teams.

Piers believes that coaching and mentoring senior executives requires a very special approach containing that 'something extra' to make a significant difference to the results. With over 20 years experience in senior management, Piers understands the pressures and challenges that confront the busy executive. He is equally aware of the opportunities for personal and professional growth that are available to executives with an open mind who are interested in developing themselves and those around them.

He sees coaching and mentoring as a unique opportunity to help others achieve their full potential. He always begins by defining what he describes as the client’s 'sense of purpose' and uses this ‘internal compass’ (which may or may not be immediately apparent) to act as a guide and anchor for all the work that he subsequently does with the client.

A great believer in the use of all the human ‘talents’ he was interviewed by the FT on the use of intuition in business and later, again in the FT featured as an example of an inspiring leader with an holistic approach to business. As a passionate believer in the power of people and with a willingness to propose a contrary view, Piers is respected by those who know him for his insight, wisdom and compassion.

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Graduated from the Royal Military Academy and subsequently served in the Scots Guards retiring as a Captain. During his commission Trevor served in Germany, Canada, Northern Ireland and The Gulf War and also undertook Intelligence collation training.

After retiring Trevor ran the minefield reconnaissance programme in Southern Mozambique for the United Nations and HALO Trust. On returning to the UK he pursued a nine year career in Executive Search culminating in a Partnership at a major global firm where he ran the Capital Markets team in London. Trevor is both the Founder and CEO of Coalition. Trevor is married, has three children and is based in London.

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James Hammond is Executive Vice President of ISI Emerging Markets, which eponymously publishes and produces market leading financial and business information services and databases. Based in London, Mr. Hammond is responsible for the company’s marketing, product development, including data acquisition editorial operations, and new product creation.

Prior to his current position, Mr. Hammond was the company’s Regional Director for Latin America, Country Manager for Chile, and Country Manager for Mexico. He has been with Internet Securities for 11 years. Previously, he was Associate Publisher for Latin America with World Times, Inc. James holds an MSM from the Hult International Business School (formerly Arthur D. Little School of Management) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a BA in Philosophy from Columbia University in New York.

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Alison Harman has been an information professional for over 25 years; currently she is Global Information Centre Manager at UBS Investment Bank.

Her role encompasses strategic management of the business information service as well as global co-ordination of the Investment Banking Department’s document management operation.

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Mark has been a consultant on knowledge management and organisational change since 1993. He has developed workshops and methods to discover both what needs to be done to make positive change happen and how it is best done, which he has applied at many small and large companies, national and international.

Mark was at ABN AMRO Bank for three years until January 2008 to re-structure and lead its global Business Information Services department.

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Mark Jewell was until recently Director of Global offshoring for Business Information Services and Computer Graphics at Lehman Brothers.

He was previously European Director of Business information Services, where he was responsible for the firm’s non-real time data expense and vendors, as well as research and information services. He also developed Lehman Brothers’ new client and counterparty due diligence research unit, and created the European records management programme.

Mark was previously European Research Services Manager for Booz Allen Hamilton and held posts in several academic libraries, including Librarian of Cranfield University School of Management. He has presented and facilitated at a number of industry events such as the European Business Information Conference, Perfect Learning and the City Information Group.

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Scott is an experienced business writer, trainer and coach. In 2004 he co-founded Write for ResultsTM, which delivers workshops, masterclasses and coaching in business writing. Within two years Write for ResultsTM had become the preferred supplier in writing training to Bank of America, PricewaterhouseCoopers and The Economist Group, to name a few. It also regularly delivers its own material to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office as an associate of another training company. Scott’s background includes eight years at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young (E&Y). As one of E&Y’s National Proposals Consultants he helped audit, consulting, tax and training practice teams to bid for and win major tenders.

During his three-year stint the firm’s win-rate doubled. Alongside Write for ResultsTM, Scott runs another training and consulting business in competitive tenders, sales proposals and funding applications — invitation2tender.com — which helps clients to win private and public sector contracts and grants.

Scott has spent time as a freelance advertising copywriter and has written a historical novel set at the time of the Cathar heresy in medieval France. For more information on Write for ResultsTM, including testimonials from previous attendees of the one-day workshop, go to: http://www.writeforresults.com.

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Rishi Khosla is CEO and one of the Founders of Copal Partners, a financial analytics outsourcing firm with operations in India. His primary responsibilities are overseeing the company’s global business development activities. Previously, he set up the family office and managed the private equity and venture capital activities of Lakshmi N. Mittal, the global steel entrepreneur. His 1999 tech vintage venture portfolio has realized two billion dollar enterprises – PayPal and IndiaBulls. Investments included the most successful Indian venture investment to date with a 150x capital return. Rishi continues to work closely with the Mittal family in an advisory role.

Prior to managing Mr. Mittal’s portfolio, he was in the business development team at GE Capital, reporting to the President of GE Capital Europe. During his tenure he attained approval from Jack Welch to establish an early stage venture fund for GE Capital, which he co-managed. Rishi started his career in banking where he wrote one of the first equity research notes on the third generation of mobile telephony, and participated in a number of advisory transactions, including an asset swap between GRE and ING and a divestment program for the Polish government.

Rishi is a Board Member of TiE UK (a charity which promotes entrepreneurship) and a trustee of New Philanthropy Capital (an organization providing independent research and tailored advice on the most effective ways to support charities). He is also the Chairman of Dev Property Development, a London listed Real Estate Development Company. He holds a bachelors degree in Economics from the University College London, and a masters in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics where he was awarded a scholarship by the Economic and Social Research Council.

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Jim has over 20 years experience in the the financial services environment having worked for two clearing banks before joining Experian in 1996. Jim’s background is in risk management coupled with extensive involvement in business process re-engineering. Jim’s current role is as a Product Director with responsibility for Global Authentication and Identity Management.

Jim has been focused on the UK market in relation to Anti Money Laundering and Personal Identity initiatives in the private and public sectors.

Jim is now developing solutions for other countries around the globe.

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Hansa Pankhania is a dedicated and experienced Stress Consultant and Corporate Trainer. Hansa has been supporting individuals of all ages and backgrounds in both public and private organisations for many years. She is devoted to helping organisations and the people within them reduce stress levels and maximise health and potential. Hansa has extensive experience delivering stress management training courses for managers and employees.

As part of her degree in Counselling and two Diplomas in Stress Management Training (Individual and Corporate), Hansa conducted extensive research into ways of dealing with the impacts of stress and trauma. She is one of only seven stress management trainers validated by the International Stress Management Association in the United Kingdom. Hansa is passionate, energetic and enthusiastic on both personal and professional levels.

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Roland Peters is PI’s Capital Markets, where he is integral to the expansion and development of PI’s financial information products.

Before joining Perfect Information, Roland was Manager of Editorial and Data Acquisition at CMA (Credit Market Analysis), where he was responsible for content and product design of a credit default swap and bond quote management system. Prior to CMA, he held the role of Business Manager for Fixed Income and Derivatives at Thomson Financial, where he developed and implemented worldwide fixed income, derivatives, FX, commodities and economics data content strategies in conjunction with the product teams. In addition, whilst at Thomson, Roland held the following positions: Regional Manager for South Africa; and Data Content Manager for bonds.

Before joining Thomson, he spent a year as Junior Fund Manager in Equity Fund Management of DWS (Deutsche Bank).

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Lesley Robinson set up Lesley Robinson Consultancy Services Ltd in 1999, specialising in advising organisations on information, knowledge and records management strategies, the marketing and development of information services and the coaching and development of information teams.

She works in both the public and private sectors helping clients to run their information services more efficiently and effectively and maximise their value to the organisation. Some recent projects have included reviewing an information service within a law firm and devising a three year strategic plan, assisting a charity with the merger and realignment of two internal information services and working with a government agency to review the information flow in their core business processes to identify efficiencies.

Lesley speaks regularly at conferences, runs training courses and writes articles about information management issues. She can be contacted at lesley@lesleyrobinson.co.uk, telephone 020 8871 4284 or www.lesleyrobinson.co.uk.

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Tim leads Cisco’s Consumer Finance and Investment Banking team across the UK, helping financial services customers drive productivity and enhance customer relationships by harnessing the power of technology and the network.

After joining Cisco in 1999 Tim has held various roles including sales management, vertical business development and account management.

Tim has been in the networking and data communications industry for 20 years and has a wealth of IT experience gained from Newbridge Networks where he held a Sales Director role and Case Communications where he held various sales and engineering roles.

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Ben is responsible for leading and developing the Enterprise sales team addressing Transport and Business Services. In this role, Ben is focused upon helping customers and partners utilise Cisco’s technology to provide competitive advantage and create profitable business models. Prior to this Ben held a number of role’s within Cisco spanning ten years including responsibility for a number of strategic Service Provider clients across Europe and developing programs for Cisco’s channel partners.

In his most recent roles, Ben has been responsible for developing Cisco’s green strategy and working with Cisco Services to move into new markets.

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