Executive Briefing Programme

The final briefing of 2016 in our series of executive briefing events is with guest speaker Richard Holway MBE, Chairman, TechMarketView LLP.

Event sponsor

The Executive Briefing Programme is a series of lunch events designed to provide valuable information to senior executives, advisors and consultants in the technology sector.

Simon Orme, Managing Partner, Forensic Management Foundation, www.forensicmanagement.co.uk

We have conducted research to identify key business issues that are relevant to our sector and to identify speakers who bring real authority and expertise to the discussions.

The Executive Briefings will also provide opportunities to network with people who have a shared interest in business development in this sector.

The Briefings will be chaired by Simon Orme, Managing Partner of the Forensic Management Foundation.

Our guest speaker for the final briefing of 2016 is Richard Holway MBE, Chairman, TechMarketView LLP giving his view on ‘Being an Analyst’.

Richard Holway MBE was often referred to as ‘The UK’s Leading IT Analyst’ – mainly because, for much of his career, he was one of the ONLY Analysts specialising on the UK IT scene. Now his only indisputable title is as the UK’s Oldest IT Analyst. Having said that, the Financial Times christened him ‘the Wise Grey Owl’ of the IT sector back in 2000 for his accurate predictions of the dot.com crash. @WiseGreyOwl has been Richard’s Twitter handle ever since!

Richard will give a rare whistle stop tour of what it has been like being an IT analyst for the last 30 years with some insights into the characters he has met along the way and how he has only avoided being sued by the skin of his teeth.

Richard will give his views on the much-changed UK IT scene today and, as you might expect, give some of his outlandish (but irritating usually correct) predictions for the future.

Richard Holway MBE Biography

Richard Holway MBE is considered to be one of the UK’s leading ICT analysts.

Richard started in computing in 1966 as a programmer, joined Hoskyns (now Capgemini) in 1968 and progressed to join the board in 1979 as Group Marketing Director. In 1984, Richard was appointed Managing Director of Wootton Jeffreys plc before forming Richard Holway Limited in 1986.

Richard Holway Limited became the leading authority on the financial performance of the UK software and IT services market and its constituent companies. Richard launched the annual Holway Report in 1988. In 1989 he published the first edition of the monthly newsletter SYSTEMhouse and, in 1996, the Hotnews internet news service – one of the very first technology “blogs”. TechMarketView’s HotViews is the current manifestation of Hotnews and is required daily reading for tens of thousands of tech CEOs and directors.

In November 2000 Richard Holway Limited was acquired by Ovum and the service continued as Holway@Ovum. Richard was appointed as a director of Ovum as well as continuing as a leading analyst with Ovum.

In March 2006. Ovum successfully IPOed on AIM at 190p. In Dec. 06, Datamonitor acquired Ovum for £42m/300p; a considerable premium. Richard stepped down from the board at that time.

In 2002, Richard was one of the founding members of the Prince’s Trust Technology Leadership Group which has raised over £20m for the Trust since. Richard’s annual speeches have themselves raised over £1m to help disadvantaged young people. Richard served as the Chairman of the Group from April 07 to March 09. In 2009 he was appointed as Vice Chair of the Development Board. He then founded the Internet & Media Leadership Group which itself raised over £5m to date. In 2011, Richard took on the Chair of all the Trust’s Leadership Groups and was appointed to the Prince’s Trust Advisory Board.

Richard has considerable experience as an NED (both of private and publicly quoted companies) and as an advisor to the boards of leading ICT companies. Currently, Richard is a non executive director at the publicly quoted Allianz Technology Trust plc.

Richard joined forces with Anthony Miller once again in October 2008 to launch TechMarketView LLP, where he is now Chairman.

Richard was awarded an MBE in the 2012 Queen’s Birthday Honours for his ten years involvement as a volunteer at the Prince’s Trust. The citation read “for services to young people’. In 2014, Richard was made a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists.