Join our latest roundtable event for the Tech Leaders Collective – Manchester Data, where Hemant Patel, Founder of Anumana, will lead the discussion on how we can drive greater social mobility within the data sector.
This is an important focus for Hemant, who dedicates much of his time to the Anumana Code Academy – a not-for-profit programme to help break down barriers into technology for children with disadvantaged backgrounds.
Together, we’ll explore:
The current barriers to entry in data and tech for underrepresented communities
How businesses can partner with grassroots initiatives to create real impact
Practical ways to embed social mobility into hiring, outreach, and upskilling strategies
The role of leadership in building inclusive data teams
This session offers a valuable space to share ideas, learn from others, and help shape a more accessible data landscape.
Event Details
Topic:Making Tech More Inclusive – Addressing Social Mobility Challenges in the Sector
Date: Wednesday 9th July
Time: 7:30am for arrival & networking; 8:00am for discussion
Hemant Patel is the founder of Anumana and has a passion for ensuring organisations use technology to maximise the value they can extract from their data.
He has a breadth of experience building and leading analytical teams and capabilities across Financial Services, Manufacturing, Legal and other industries.
Location: Dakota Hotel, 29 Ducie St, Manchester M1 2JL
Presented by:
Hemant Patel
Founder & CEO, Anumana
Hemant is the founder of Anumana and has a passion for ensuring organisations use technology to maximise the value they can extract from their data.
He has a breadth of experience building and leading analytical teams and capabilities across...
Hemant is the founder of Anumana and has a passion for ensuring organisations use technology to maximise the value they can extract from their data.
He has a breadth of experience building and leading analytical teams and capabilities across Financial Services, Manufacturing, Legal and other industries.
This event is your chance to learn how specific architectural choices can reduce carbon emissions by 59%. These are real results that make a positive impact!
From faster load times to a smaller digital footprint, Ash and Lee will share how modern CMS and hosting solutions empower you to create high-impact experiences for users, organisations, and the planet.
This is our latest event in series of training courses designed to fuel your career growth, brought to you by Fresh Egg in partnership with iO Associates.
Event Details
Date: Wednesday 2nd July
Time: 11:00 – 12:00
Location: Zoom (link will be shared once you have registered)
Who: Whether you’re a developer, digital strategist, or tech leader, this session offers practical insights and inspiration to help you deliver sustainable, future-proof web experiences.
In this one-hour session, Lee and Ash will walk through the modern web architecture that underpinned the project, including the use of Netlify’s global edge network, and how it led to faster load times, improved scalability, and a 59% reduction in carbon emissions — the equivalent of 4,104 fewer passenger flight miles per year.
Join us for this session to:
Unlock the Future-Proof Stack: Dive deep into modern web architecture, which empowers developers to build high-performance, truly sustainable digital experiences.
Engineer for Impact: Learn about the technical decisions that led to a game-changing 59% reduction in digital carbon emissions for Agria Pet Insurance.
Build Lean, Build Fast, Build Green: Discover how building for sustainability directly translates to faster load times, improved scalability, and a more resilient web presence, making your projects stand out.
Lee started his professional journey immediately after university, founding the development agency Netescape Limited. For 17 years, he led the company, specialising in creating solutions for both public and private sector clients, including numerous...
Lee started his professional journey immediately after university, founding the development agency Netescape Limited. For 17 years, he led the company, specialising in creating solutions for both public and private sector clients, including numerous policing agencies and UK Public Transport Operators. Lee is now uses his experience and expertise in Artificial Intelligence at Fresh Egg, applying his vast experience across a diverse range of client projects as our AI Engineering Director.
Presented by:
Ash Hitchcock
Head of Front End Development, Fresh Egg
Ash kicked off his career in web design after graduating in 2005, quickly rising to Online Development Manager at Friday Media Group, where his work earned a Car Dealer E-Award in
2010.
He joined Fresh Egg in 2012, bringing a passion for...
Ash kicked off his career in web design after graduating in 2005, quickly rising to Online Development Manager at Friday Media Group, where his work earned a Car Dealer E-Award in
2010.
He joined Fresh Egg in 2012, bringing a passion for front-end development and a full-stack skillset
spanning HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Gatsby, NodeJS, PHP, and WordPress. Now Head of Front
End Development, Ash leads the build and optimisation of websites and user interfaces, with a
keen interest in JAMstack and open-source tech.
Outside the office, he’s a dedicated snowboarder, runner, and open-source contributor.
Tech Leaders Collective – Manchester Software Engineering Leaders
Join our latest roundtable event for the Tech Leaders Collective – Manchester Software, where we’ll be diving deep into one of today’s most pressing leadership challenges: how to effectively drive culture change.
In this session, Andy Norton, Director of Engineering at Flipdish, will chair an open and collaborative discussion, exploring ideas such as:
Setting a clear, inspiring cultural vision from the top
Earning genuine buy-in from teams on the ground
Avoiding common pitfalls when shifting team mindsets
Aligning processes, behaviours, and leadership to support change
Measuring and sustaining cultural transformation over time
Complete the registration form at the bottom of this page to secure your spot.
Event Details
Topic: How to Drive Culture Change – how do you balance top down vision with bottom up buy in
Date: Wednesday 16th July
Time: 7:30am for arrival & networking; 8:00am for discussion
Andy Norton is an engineering leader with experience across billion-dollar unicorns, a Y Combinator-backed startup, one of the UK’s most recognisable high street brands, and is a member of the Team Topologies organisation.
He believes the real unit of delivery is the team, and focuses on growing people, building strong engineering communities, and applying pragmatic product thinking grounded in lean, agile, and DevOps practices.
An opportunity to network with fellow tech leaders in the South West area before a thought-provoking talk from WPA Health Insurance’sMike Downing.
The event will be held under Chatham House Rule, creating a trusted environment that encourages open discussion.
The Talk
Innovation at WPA Health Insurance – Build vs Buy and AI (Mike Downing, CIO at WPA Health Insurance)
In Part 1, Mike will explore WPA’s strategic approach to software development, including the rationale behind their Build vs Buy decisions, the evolution of their tech stack, and the major innovations that have powered the company’s growth. He’ll offer a candid look at the successes and challenges encountered along the way.
Part 2 will focus on the future, as Mike delves into WPA’s recent work with AI, from AI Agents and Copilots to practical use cases for Agentic AI and the emergence of vertical AI agents.
Sign Up Now
Exclusively open to South West-based tech leaders, we only have limited spaces available, so sign up today to secure yours.
We do our best to make our events accessible. Please let us know if you have any special requirements by emailing hello@iomeetups.com.
I started talking about DataOps and where the future of our industry needed to go an astonishing 10 years ago. Today, I want to reflect on some key questions: how has our industry moved on, what’s key today, and where does the future lie?
Streamlining Data Flows: Integrating Power Automate with Microsoft Fabric by Laura-Jayne Adamson
Learn how to leverage Power Automate to seamlessly read emails and push data directly into Microsoft Fabric. This demonstration will highlight the simplicity of setting up workflows, extracting actionable insights from email content, and automating the integration with Microsoft Fabric for powerful data storage and analytics.
The defence sector is navigating a rapidly changing digital environment. In this online panel discussion, we bring together leading experts, policymakers, and strategic thinkers to provide valuable insights on the pressing challenges and exciting opportunities that lie ahead.
Watch Now
The Discussion
In this discussion on ‘Post SDR: The Digital Defence Challenge’, our experts explore:
Why is there so much misunderstanding of SMEs?
Balancing Sovereignty in an increasingly international operating environment
Integration by Interoperability and connectivity
Implications of the Cybersecurity & Resilience bill
Resilience of the defence supply chain
Our Chair
Chris Parker MBE (Director of Government Strategy, Fortinet UK)
Chris Parker MBE serves as the UK Director of Government at Fortinet UK, a subsidiary of the world’s largest cybersecurity vendor. With extensive experience in both national and multinational operations, Chris has led and designed international strategies across various sectors. He is an enthusiastic collaborator between industry and government, actively supporting initiatives focused on integration, skills and sustainability.
Chris has held the role of Industry Co-Chair for the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) Integration Working Group since 2022. In addition, he chaired the DESNZ COPP from 2023-2024, where he led efforts to enhance resilience in the UK energy supply chain. Chris serves on two techUK Government committees and is a guest lecturer for the UK FCDO Chevening Fellowship, helping improve cyber leadership in developing nations.
Chris had a 20-year military career on nine combat and operational tours, notably as Chief of Staff 7th Armoured Brigade in Kosovo 2001 and Iraq 2003. He then held a range of senior corporate roles, including as Project Director of a £1B engineering project, Chief Operating Officer at a global oil exploration corporation and founder of three consultancy businesses.
Our Panel
Stuart Mckean (Founder & CEO, Nine23)
Stuart Mckean is a former British Army Lynx helicopter pilot with an accomplished service career spanning 23 years. Now the Founder and CEO of Nine23, a UK Sovereign High Assurance MSP, providing high assurance managed services, cyber security integration, private and hybrid cloud, collaboration, interoperability, and managed infrastructure solutions to UK Central Government, Law Enforcement, Defence Industry, and their supply chains.
Ben Baker (Head Strategic Engagement Land / Defence Enablers, Lockheed Martin)
Ben Baker is the Head of Strategic Engagement at Lockheed Martin (UK) for the Land and Integrated Force. This follows a British Army career where he served on operations globally in Land and Joint leadership and staff roles, often working with Allies and Partners.
His final military appointment was supporting Defence’s most senior leaders as part of the UK Ministry of Defence Strategy Unit. He is currently an industry member of the DIJC Market Engagement Task and Finish Group. He has a particular interest in the history of Combined and Joint Operations.
As part of our ongoing partnership with FreshEgg to deliver opportunities for professionals to enhance their careers through a range of interactive and practical training sessions, we are pleased to share details of our latest full-day workshop.
This session is ideal for developers who want to improve their skills in BigQuery. It will make you even more indispensable to your organisation’s marketing team and strengthen your CV for future job opportunities. Book your spot today.
Early-bird offer – £199 (from 22.04.25 – £399)
Event Details
Date: Wednesday 7 May
Time: 10:00 – 16:00
Location: Online
Who: Developers, technical marketers, and data-savvy team members who want to strengthen their analytics knowledge, become more cross-functional, and add future-ready tools to their toolkit.
Zac is a data scientist and engineer with a rich background in technology and computer science research. During his doctoral studies, Zac worked on developing autonomous marine robots, designed to track and...
Zac is a data scientist and engineer with a rich background in technology and computer science research. During his doctoral studies, Zac worked on developing autonomous marine robots, designed to track and study marine life, providing valuable insights into fish behaviour and their ecosystems while contributing to scientific endeavours through publishing papers. This work combined his technical expertise with a passion for solving real-world environmental challenges through technology.
In today’s data-centric world, building a culture where every employee understands and values data is crucial.
Join the Tech Leaders Collective – Manchester Data for this roundtable discussion, chaired by Mark Wheeler, as we explore strategies to improve data literacy across all levels of an organisation, ensuring that data becomes an integral part of decision-making processes.
With fellow data leaders, we’ll discuss practical approaches to engage employees and share success stories from establishing data-driven cultures.
Mark Wheeler has a track record of providing innovative solutions which unlock insights to support business decision making.
He is a seasoned, people-centric, data leader with over 20 years’ experience working in the legal industry. Over the years he has covered a wide variety of data functions: from Reporting & Management Information to BI; Data Engineering and Data Architecture.
Currently, Mark is leading the Data Engineering function for Clyde & Co, a large international law firm, and is a key part of firm-wide transformative projects such as Case Management system migrations and creating a modern Enterprise data platform in Azure.
Expanding the Horizons of Defence: FibreCoat’s Pioneering Journey
In this episode of the Defence series, host Harry sits down with Robert, one of the founders and CEO at FiberCoat, to explore the innovative journey of transitioning from a university project to a significant player in the defence industry.
Robert delves into the unique challenges faced by FibreCoat in adapting their product for defence applications and how geopolitical shifts have accelerated their growth trajectory. With exciting insights into FibreCoat’s development of an aluminium coated glass fibre, Robert elucidates their impact on defence technology, particularly in shielding and countermeasures.
The conversation also touches on the company’s strategic global expansion plans for 2025 and 2026, showcasing their ambition to establish production sites in Germany and beyond. With fresh funding, FibreCoat is set to revolutionise how materials shape our world.
For anyone interested in innovative materials, the defence sector, or entrepreneurial growth in complex industries, this episode is packed with inspiration and strategic insights. Tune in for Robert’s advice on pursuing ground-breaking ideas and capitalising on global opportunities!
Edinburgh Tech Leaders: Working Culture in Technology Teams
Over the years, the tech industry has seen significant shifts, from the rise of remote and hybrid work models to the increasing emphasis on work-life balance. Successful managers have had to adapt to these changes, navigating the challenges and opportunities brought about by new technologies and evolving employee expectations.
At this Tech Leaders Roundtable, we’ll discuss how we’ve navigated these changes over the years, adapting to the evolving wants, needs, and success factors of our teams. We’ll then explore the strategies to ensure teams are positioned to thrive in an ever-changing environment.
Event Details
Topic: Working Culture in Technology Teams – The Evolution of Hybrid and Remote Working and How we Structure our Working Environment
Having worked in a variety of Tech related roles for over 25 years, Sarah Thomson leads the Tech department at People’s Postcode Lottery. As Head of Tech UK, Sarah’s role is to provide leadership to the team and to oversee the development, delivery, maintenance and support of the technology that enables the local Business, as well as working together with peers in the other markets, to deliver the Postcode Lottery Group Tech strategy. The Postcode Lottery Group is a non-profit organization that operates charity lotteries worldwide to raise funds for good causes and social initiatives.
Sarah lives in Edinburgh and outside of work enjoys spending time with family and friends, staying active, reading and travel.
Register
Sign up now to secure your spot at the discussion.
