Andy has built a number of successful training and technology businesses in the UK, Europe and the Middle East. In 1996 he founded Progressive Learning, and as MD he and his team organised specialised training and learning events. From 1999–2001 he was CEO and co-founder of CourseLeader, and built the company into the fourth largest buyer of IT training in the UK, delivering solutions for a wide range of organisations including Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Barclays, Bloomberg and Reuters.

Adam moved to the UK from New York in 1992 to take up a post-graduate place at the Slade School of Fine Art. Upon leaving in 1994 he co-founded Crowbar Coffee, a chain of award-winning sites in Pre-Starbucks London. In March 2000 he joined First Tuesday, a global networking organisation bringing together entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Most recently he launched Basic Cat with First Tuesday co-founder John Browning, where, as CEO, he engineered the launch of a highly acclaimed executive research programme.

Since graduating from the London School of Economics in 1992, James has worked in the television and video production industry. From 1996 to 2000 he was senior producer at Inflight Productions, producing and directing numerous and varied projects for the world’s leading airlines, filming in over twenty countries across five continents. After a year working in New Business at Inflight Productions he left in 2001 to pursue a freelance career as a producer and director. James became the third co-founder of Fifty Lessons when he joined as Head of Production.

Derek brings fifteen years experience as a main board finance director, primarily with listed companies. During that time he has played a pivotal role in mergers and acquisitions, capital restructuring, architecting share incentive schemes, back office IT project management and public sector privatisations. Prior to his time in industry Derek had a successful career with KPMG.

Before joining Fifty Lessons, Derek spent eight years with SPG Media Group plc where he oversaw the acquisition of an established web publishing business and a leading conference producer for the $500bn pharmaceutical market.

His experience also extends to setting up international operations having established a 200 strong Indian subsidiary that formed the foundation of a strategic data asset of one million key decision makers worldwide.

In his spare time Derek has been active in education devising a business plan to save a local primary school which is now one of the most successful in its area.

Adam Singer has launched or managed over a dozen satellite television channels, and as Chairman and CEO, helped take Flextech Plc. from a value of £60 million to its eventual sale price of £2.4 billion.

Adam created and launched 24-hour coverage of Parliament in the UK (subsequently taken over by the BBC) and launched and managed the Discovery Channel in the UK and Europe. He was one of the architects of UKTV (the Flextech joint venture with the BBC) and chaired it and has dealt extensively with international broadcasters in France, Scandinavia, Argentina, Japan and the US.

He was the former COO of John Malone’s TCI International, and CEO of Telewest Plc, and has been a non-executive director of the Scottish Media Group. Among other activities he currently sits on the Ofcom content board, and regularly contributes to UK press, radio, and television on digital issues.

After graduating with a masters in marketing from Strathclyde University in 1995, Bryan spent nearly ten years in the visual content industry with PhotoDisc and Getty Images. He held several senior management positions during that time including European Sales Director for a division which he turned around from underperformance to become a significant growth area of the business. Bryan also held the role of Director of Operations where he was responsible for the integration of sales activities and the full ecommerce rollout in the US and Europe. Bryan brings a wealth of experience relating to IP and visual content and joined Fifty Lessons as Global Sales & Marketing Director in May 2005. He is responsible for all sales and marketing activity and will manage third party relationships.

Email: bryan@fiftylessons.com

James brings an extensive track record of successful business development to Fifty Lessons, built mainly from his experience in the communications and IT consultancy sectors. His previous roles in sales management include leading new business activity for the consulting arm of Cable and Wireless and IT consulting company marchFIRST. As well as working within large corporations, James has worked in a start-up environment leading the sales effort for wireless application developer Rila Solutions. James joined Fifty Lessons in September 2005 with responsibility for managing all Sales & Marketing aspects of Fifty Lessons through the direct sales team and resellers.

Email: james.reed@fiftylessons.com

On leaving university with a degree in Computational Science and Philosophy, Ian started out as a journalist before branching into graphic design. As a freelance graphic designer, and subsequently as a partner at Wigwam Publishing Services, he has produced work for organisations including The Independent, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Microsoft, IBM, Sun Microsystems and EMAP. From 1995, Ian’s combined skills in graphic design and software development have proved a natural fit for web site, CD-ROM and other ‘new media’ projects, and as managing director of HomePage Media he has produced over 100 web sites for numerous organisations in the UK, USA, Europe and the Middle East, dealing with multimedia presentations, eCommerce and data architectures. Ian is responsible for all technology issues at Fifty Lessons and has been working with the team since the beginning.

After starting his career in Staff/Labour relations with Ford Motor Company, John spent over 20 years with IBM including international assignments at both their European and Corporate Headquarters in Paris and New York respectively. He was Personnel Director for IBM UK when he joined British Telecommunications plc in 1989. In 1990 he was appointed Group Personnel Director and a member of the Executive Management Committee, with overall responsibility for HR strategy, policy and operations across the Company. He managed the significant downsizing programme between 1991 and 1996 which reduced employee numbers voluntarily and without any industrial unrest from 250,000 to 130,000. He led successful culture change and leadership development programmes, oversaw major merger and acquisition programmes building international alliances around the globe, developed BT’s widely acknowledged diversity activities, and forged a very successful partnership with the unions which embraced change. He also led BT’s pioneering work in the area of HR outsourcing, which led to a J/V and subsequent sale of BT’s HR administrative activities to Accenture. John left BT in 2002 and has continued to develop a portfolio of interests, including two years as Chairman of Accenture HR Services Advisory Council and six years as a Non-executive director of CIPD Enterprises. Currently he is a Non-executive Director of Via Net.Works Inc., a Council member of ACAS, a Governor of Henley Management College and a board adviser to AON Consulting Services. John joined the Fifty Lessons Board as Non-executive Chairman in February 2005, and then handed over to Adam Singer for the admission of the company onto AIM.

Ian’s career spans 30 years in the IT and academic sectors. Starting at Dowty Group, he subsequently moved to the IT company ICL, where he was responsible for business development, major bids and client management. He then spent five years with the IT company ASE Group, handling new business and established clients. In 1994 Ian moved into academia, joining University of North London Business School as Commercial Director. Two years later he joined the Centre for Management Development (CMD) at London Business School, latterly becoming its Chief Executive. There he was responsible for its overall business strategy and commercial success, and under his tenure revenue and profits more than doubled. Ian has subsequently been the Associate Dean for Executive Education at London Business School for four years, where his responsibilities include both the Custom and Open programmes portfolio. He serves on the School’s Executive Management Committee.

Hugo was recently appointed Managing Director, Europe of Advertising.com, the AOL/Time Warner-owned digital performance marketing leader. He spent the past 10 years at The Telegraph Group, as Managing Director of the Group, and previously as the company’s Marketing Director and New Media Director. Hugo was responsible for planning, launching and building Electronic Telegraph (telegraph.co.uk), the UK’s first online national newspaper. He helped to launch and served on the boards of several digital businesses, including handbag.com, Newsplayer (now Catalyst), Stream Group and Whittard of Chelsea plc. Prior to The Telegraph Hugo was International Director of Reed Telemedia, launching audiotex (automated telephony) partnerships across Europe. His early career was spent overseas with Coats Viyella, the textile group, where he held Marketing and Sales Director roles in South America and Europe. Hugo is Chairman of the British Internet Publishers Alliance, and a regular contributor to the trade press and digital publishing conferences.

Sally is a qualified accountant and has spent 16 years working in various parts of the financial services industry. After leaving Oxford, where she read PPE, she went to Price Waterhouse in 1990 working first in the audit and then corporate finance and insolvency departments. In 1994 she left to work for JP Morgan, starting in mergers and acquisitions and then moving to debt capital markets and finally the fixed income trading floor. As a Vice President on the Fixed Income Syndicate desk she facilitated private and public bond issues for a range of institutions. She gained an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College of Science and Technology in 1999 and then joined Quester, an early stage technology VC. From 2000 to 2004 she worked as an Investment Manager, sourcing, negotiating, executing and managing early stage technology investments and sitting on a variety of boards as an Investor Director. She left Quester in 2004 to pursue her interests as an early stage business consultant, helping in particular with commercial and financial strategy.

Victor is the former Chief Learning Officer, European Pfizer Research University (2000-2004). Victor’s leadership of innovation transformed Pfizer’s global best-practice and R&D productivity. He is the inventor of a number of Knowledge Management Techniques including ‘BoxLogic’, ‘Barefoot’ and ‘Predator’.

Victor is Visiting Professor to the Open University Business School in Knowledge Management and Innovation, and board member to three Knowledge Management publications and the Samsung KM Advisory Board. He is the author of Made to Measure Problem Solving and his Knowledge Activist’s Handbook – Adventures from the Knowledge Trenches from Capstone/Wiley & Sons was recently cited as the “best management book within the last ten years”.

Paul has spent over 20 years developing creative but pragmatic business solutions for Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, British Airways and American Express amongst others. His recent experience includes post-merger integration within a NYSE high technology company, and founder/senior management exposure within two European VC-backed online ventures, in both B2B and B2C environments. His last venture was included in the Financial Times/Bathwick Consulting Hot 100 as one of the top 75 European Start Up businesses. Paul is also a director of Corporact Limited, has an MBA, the Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and is a member of the Securities Institute. Paul has been an adviser to Fifty Lessons since September 2003.

Simon’s twenty year career in media planning and buying included being deputy managing director at Carat (1994–1998), after which he took on the role of chief executive at Mindshare (1999–2002), the world’s largest media investment company, founded through the merged media departments of the two global advertising agencies, J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather. Simon joined Fifty Lessons as an adviser in March 2003.