Tom Chisholm

Tom, the Co-founder & Creative Director of Buck & Birch, grew up in Norway surrounded by wild fjords, forests and mountains. Early memories of picking berries and fungi with his grandmother never left him and sowed the seeds of possibilities of using local, seasonal and wild ingredients.

He would later move to Scotland where he would study fine art, before embarking on a 20+ year hospitality career in bars and restaurants.

Founding Buck & Birch with Rupert was a chance to bring all of his experiences and loves together, great flavours, great drinks and the great outdoors.

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Buck & Birch

Buck & Birch is an award winning craft producer of wild spirits and liqueurs celebrating the wild flavours of Scotland. 

At Buck & Birch they don’t follow convention. They create unique expressions of our landscape, each bottle a celebration of the incredible variety of flavours respectfully harvested from our adventures into the wild.

These are drinks for the pleasure seekers, the adventurers, the foodies, chefs and cocktail creators. They are for those with an affinity for the great outdoors and a delight in their connection to it.

Laura Brandenburg

Laura Brandenburg, ACBA, CBAP, internationally-recognized leader known for helping mid-career professionals start and succeed in business analysis careers. She is the founder of Bridging the Gap, the best-selling author of How to Start a Business Analyst Career, and the creator of The Business Analyst Blueprint® framework and program. 

Laura brings nearly 20 years of experience in the business analysis profession, filling several different full-time business analyst positions, as well as contributing as a consultant, hiring manager, trainer, and career coach.     

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Dr Penny Pullan

Dr Penny Pullan is recognised as a Master Facilitator by the International Association of Facilitators.

Her books include ‘Making Workshops Work: Creative Collaboration for Our Time’  and ‘Virtual Leadership’.

She has been the host of the BA Summit since 2010. Penny works with leaders and teams who are grappling with tricky change. They find that clarity, creativity, connection, collaboration and confidence grow when they consult Penny.

She has been undertaking ethnographic research on the ethics of inclusion for a second, part-time Masters degree and is keen to bring these insights to BAs. 

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Sudha Mani

Sudha Mani is a distinguished Business Architect/Analyst with over 25 years of Business and Systems Consultancy expertise and is a luminary in Business Transformation and Change Projects.

An unwavering commitment to value creation and the seamless alignment of strategy with business processes complements her rich software development and design background. Proficient in spearheading business change and service design initiatives, Sudha Mani's skillset encompasses Data Analysis, GDPR, and Cybersecurity, converging seamlessly with business analysis to deliver holistic solutions.

She is a dedicated advocate of pragmatic problem-solving and fosters harmonious team dynamics, and her influence extends across the Private, Public Sector, Higher Education, Banking, and Financial Services domains.   

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Peter Hopes

Currently Agile Practice Lead for Global Development in Computershare. Serving as a member of our departmental leadership team.

Conference speaker on the correlation between the Military and Business worlds, with a focus on communication, leadership and mission.

Co-organiser of Heart of Agile Scotland Meet-Ups and actively engaged in the wider Agile community in Scotland. 

He previously served seven years as a hydrographic surveyor in the Royal Navy. Working towards the delivery of projects relating to the hydrographic aspects of the country’s most important military assets.  

Nadia Macdonald

Nadia is a Business Analysis Practice Lead in Global Development Engineering at Computershare, based in Edinburgh.

Having built up a wealth of experience over the last ten-plus years in various roles, Nadia has worked across several companies and industries. This has allowed her to explore and experience different domains, organisational structures, working cultures and end-to-end delivery models.  

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Chris Moir

Chris is a graduate in Modern Languages from the University of Edinburgh and has spent over three years working in Japan as an English teacher.

Since returning to the UK, Chris has been developing his career as a Business Analyst working for Be Positive. 

In his free time, he likes playing golf, going to watch his local football team Hibernian, reading and trying new food. Chris also likes travelling both abroad and around the UK.  

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Linda Parker

With over 30 years of experience as a Business Analyst, across a variety of organisations both commercial and public sector, Linda has a wealth of BA knowledge. 

She is a self-confessed BA nerd and as well as working closely with IIBA she is, of course, the CEO of BA Life.  She was also the winner of European Business Analyst of the Year in 2019. 

Currently, working as a contractor, when she isn't busy working on BA Life she mentors other BAs, runs half-marathons and has fun with her hubby and two dogs. 

Paul Brown

With 25 plus years of experience spanning the full SDLC/PLC, Paul has led in product management for a decade, emphasising user-centric design and agile delivery. His expertise includes product management, coaching, workshops, data, and diverse agile frameworks. 

He has driven enterprise agility, fostering innovation and metrics-driven strategies. Recent roles involved partnering, agile coaching, and designing educational programs, amplifying cross-functional team success. 

Passionate about refining strategies, driving innovation, and orchestrating agile transformations, he excels in nurturing high-performing teams for measurable outcomes. 

Sally Rogan

Authentic child of the 80’s, part time weightlifter and qualified yoga teacher.  

Sally had a vision that the voice of the customer was at the heart of banking 15 years ago. She has never lost that vision in a variety of customer design roles with RBS, Sainsbury’s Bank and Atos. 

She is currently a Senior User Researcher. Sally also provides a tech support function for her parents who cannot live without their iPad! 

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Wahib Kimera

Wahib is a Senior Consultant at Capco and is aligned to its Business Consulting capability. In addition, he is also part of the Adaptive Delivery team. 

He has extensive Agile coaching, Product Owner, and Business Analysis knowledge, providing pragmatic product-led and analytical solutions to business challenges in fast-paced cross-sector environments.  

Wahib’s delivery experience spans the full customer lifecycle, from product inception through to day-to-day delivery and refinement of product features. 

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Kevin Campbell

Kevin Campbell is an experienced Business Analyst with over 12 years experience working in the Financial Services industry, and more recently in Fintech. 

Working as a Lead Business Analyst with Atom Bank, the UK's first digital-only challenger bank to be granted a licence, he has delivered strategic change across startup and growth phases and is currently focused on helping to deliver value within the mortgage value stream.

He is a keen Business Analysis coach and enjoys supporting the ongoing development and evolution of the BA practice and community.    

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Alex Sharpe

Alex has 7 years’ experience working in Financial Services. 

Currently a Business Architect in the Phoenix Group, partnering to enable the business strategy for their trading channels. Alex has also worked as a BA and Lead BA, joining as a graduate in 2016. 

A key part of Alex’s role is bringing to life the business strategy, drawing the holistic picture, and telling stakeholders a story of organisation’s journey from where we are now to the target strategic and operational state.  

Alex has also presented at the IIBA Scotland Chapter in 2020 on the topic of Rich Pictures.    

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Andy Thomson

Andy is a Senior Service Designer, who has worked in a range of roles across UX, user research, customer experience and service design. 

He enjoys collaborating with teams and engaging with users to help create new and better experiences. Recent projects include assisting public and third sector clients to improve services, deliver new products and implement digital best practice. 

When not doing that he can be found discovering pain points in the gym, learning to surf or being involved in music. 

Sally Rogan

Authentic child of the 80’s, part time weightlifter and qualified yoga teacher.  

Sally had a vision that the voice of the customer was at the heart of banking 15 years ago. She has never lost that vision in a variety of customer design roles with RBS, Sainsbury’s Bank and Atos. 

She is currently a Senior User Researcher.

Sally also provides a tech support function for her parents who cannot live without their iPad! 

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Lavaneesh Gautam

Lavaneesh is a seasoned consultant and trainer accredited with Scrum.org and Pro Kanban.org, with a freelancing portfolio that exemplifies a fervent commitment to product delivery excellence. 

Boasting over a decade of experience, he has made a significant impact on over 5,000 professionals across the globe through his enterprise, Edge Agility Ltd.

His work transcends borders, having connected with individuals in over 50 countries, leveraging his global insights to foster an inclusive learning environment that champions empathy, collaboration, and knowledge sharing.

Lavaneesh's vast experience spans multiple sectors - Banking, Government, Automotive, and Retail, to name a few - partnering with powerhouses like CBS, Jaguar Land Rover, NatWest, and British Petroleum. Recently, he has plunged into the innovative realms of EdTech, FinTech, and MarTech, synergizing with burgeoning startups to develop ground-breaking products set to transform the industry landscape. 

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Clara Anderson

Clara is a zig-zagger, returner, carer, neurodiverse, post-menopausal woman who has seen pretty much everything!

In the past she has worked as a Personal Assistant, Commodities Trader, Business Analyst, Scrum Master, Software Delivery Manager and she currently works as a People Leader for a financial services company, responsible for making sure the conditions are right for her colleagues to thrive in their roles.

This covers DEI, wellbeing, career development, retention, recruitment, ways of working, life-coaching, and anything else anyone needs.

Clara is also a Board Trustee for Scotland Women in Technology whose aim it is to achieve gender equality in the technology sector.  

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Kayleigh Kavanagh

Kayleigh is a software engineer with six years of diverse experience across industries like financial services and digital consultancy, contributing to companies like JP Morgan Chase and Thinkanalytics. 

Her varied background enriches discussions on technology topics, offering unique perspectives. Kayleigh prioritizes psychological safety, ensuring all team members feel valued and empowered to contribute. 

As a panellist, she brings technical expertise and a deep understanding of human dynamics essential for successful collaboration in the tech industry.

Lowri Davies

Lowri is a Recruitment Consultant based in Harvey Nash’s Edinburgh office. Lowri recruits across various skillsets, predominantly Change, Infrastructure and Security for Software companies, Financial Services and Public Sector.

Over the years, Lowri has realised that people don’t often recognise the skills they exercise every day. Teaching them how to effectively discuss situations which demonstrate their strengths at interview is her favourite part of the job!

Having partnered with a range of companies from start-ups and SMEs, to universities and Banks, her team have a great insight into candidate experience, ED&I and recruitment best practice.

Angela Prentner-Smith

Angela is the Managing Director of This is Milk, a consultancy, training and technology business. She and her team have built a reputation as innovators and have created a brand position in a unique place in the Scottish market. This is Milk have launched an innovative, neurodiverse-first hybrid learning platform.

Following this, Angela was named a Top 10 Female Entrepreneur in Scotland, 2023, and was commended at the Glasgow Business Awards as an entrepreneur of the year 2021.

Angela is a vocal advocate of equities particularly in gender roles, neurodiversity and human-centred business practices and is a practitioners of psychological safety indexing.

Edem Banibah

Edem Banibah is an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Business Professional with extensive experience in Project Delivery and Customer Success. 

He also provides business value coaching and training offering learnable, teachable knowledge and skills that enable everyone in an organisation, from senior business executives, business managers, operational staff, and project and technical specialists, to define valuable projects that execute strategy and deliver successful business outcomes.   

Edem’s other passion is the Project Management Institute (PMI), where he is currently an active volunteer and mentor. 

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James Compton

James, the founder of Confident Sage, brings a unique blend of over 20 years of hands-on delivery experience as a qualified coach and Business Analyst.  

His journey has taken him through a diverse range of projects in high-pressure environments, where he has navigated the challenges of burnout, stress, and anxiety.  

Drawing from his rich background in spiritual psychology, shaped by his past life as a monk, James has developed a deep fascination with the intersection of modern brain science and spiritual wisdom. This unique perspective has led him to devise innovative methods for overcoming life's obstacles, building resilience, and uncovering new meaning and purpose in the face of struggle.  

James is not just a coach; he's a testament to the transformative power of integrating spiritual insights with practical, science-backed strategies. 

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Nicole Gomes

Nicole has over 20 years’ experience in Business Analysis with a prior background in software development. 

Currently working as a Lead Business Analyst at the Ministry of Justice, she has experience across several industries including telecoms, rights & royalties, leisure and the public sector. 

Passionate about the value a Business Analyst brings to multidisciplinary teams, she has worked as a consultant in the UK and abroad delivering a range of BA services.   

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Gillian Arnold

Gillian Arnold is currently the President of The Business Computer Society (BCS) and The Chartered Institute for IT, and is also an activist for Women in Tech.

She is the Managing Director of Tectre, a company which recruits professional women into technical roles in industry. Her company also trains boards of executives on the importance of diversity and the need to embrace it for the benefit of the business.  

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Hannah Pearson-Coats

Hannah is an enthusiastic business analyst based in Wellington, New Zealand with more than a decade of making stuff happen!

Hannah is particularly fond of untangling big messes! You'll find her on large programmes, driving big chats about gnarly problems, making work friends, and caring for all the messy details involved in delivering big solutions.   

When she's not contracting as a senior BA, she writes and talks about all things Business Analysis! 

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Bonita Norris

In 2010, Bonita became the youngest British woman to summit Mount Everest. Two years later, in 2012, she became the first British woman to reach the summit of Mount Lhotse, a testament to Bonita's determination. 

From an amateur climber to a world-renowned adventure in a staggeringly short amount of time, she now inspires audiences to take their own leap of faith, like she did.

Her journey against the odds resonates with audiences, leaving them with an improved perspective of their own potential. As an author of The Girl Who Climbed Everest and podcast host, Bonita has gained an international audience of committed fans. 

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Fabricio Laguna - The Brazilian BA

Fabricio is known the world over as the Brazilian BA promoting the BA the benefits of the BA role with his amazing style. Here are some accolades:  

• A Senior Advisor for the President and CEO of IIBA.  
• The main reference for Business Analysis in Brazil.  
• The first Latin American CBAP in 2008, he is also certified as PMP, AAC, and CPOA.  

As a consultant and instructor for more than 25 years, Fabricio has worked with methodology, solution development, business analysis, systems analysis, project management, business architecture, and systems architecture, and demonstrates extensive knowledge and understanding in these areas.

Performing live, on YouTube, or in his online courses, he always explains complex things in a fun, charming and approachable way. 

His online courses are appreciated by students in more than 65 different countries.  

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Pardeep 'Paddy' Dhanda

Paddy Dhanda is the Agile Practice Director at QA Ltd, the largest Technology training provider in the UK.

He is the former head of Agile learning for a global bank where he rolled out Agile education to over 100k Agilists.

Paddy has worked in the field of Business Analysis for almost 20 years and led a global Business Analysis Community of Practice comprising of over 2k practitioners. He is the former Midlands Communities Director for IIBA UK.

Paddy is passionate about creating engaging learning experiences through visual thinking, gamification and storytelling. He regularly shares insights with industry thought leaders via his podcast, the Peaky Agilist. He also tells really bad jokes according to his two young children.

You can find him on LinkedIn: @paddy-dhanda 

Grant Wright

Grant has over 20 years’ experience of delivering and leading enterprise-scale transformation and digital service design across government and financial services sectors.

He is a Principal Consultant and Director of Scarlett Solutions, a UK based consultancy specialising in Business Analysis/architecture, Agile product management and business transformation.

Grant combines his passion for Business Analysis with tools & techniques from other fields such as user/customer experience (UX/CX), P3M and lean / Agile delivery in order to clearly define problems and identify effective solutions for his clients.

He actively practices Visual Thinking throughout his work and is passionate about its ability to create alignment, improve understanding and generate creative ideas.

You can find him on LinkedIn: @grantwwright 

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