Verity is the lead for Digital Leadership & Skills at the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government. She is currently leading multiple projects and work streams across skills, data and intelligent automation with key focuses on; Digital Maturity, Data Maturity, learning pathways, competency frameworks, operating models and cost value propositions.

Verity is passionate about exploring and implementing innovative solutions, to support public sector organisations, meet key government priorities and ministerial objectives at local, regional, and national levels. She values diversity and promotes equality through inclusive services and design and is skilled in creating a vision through strategical direction and collaboration, to help clients reach their goals and maximise outputs.

James McGachie is a litigator and regulatory lawyer, with over 15 years’ experience in advising clients in all sectors in strategy and compliance in relation to data privacy/information security; public and regulatory law (with a particular focus on statutory regulation, investigations, inquiries and contentious procurement), and commercial and class action disputes.

He has particular interests in cyber resilience and response and is currently advising a number of multinational clients in mitigating the risks of cyber attacks, including ransomware, drawing on his experience in assisting clients recover and respond following a wide range of cyber and data incidents.

James is a regular commentator on data privacy issues in many reputable publications, including Financier Worldwide, Lexis Nexis and The Scotsman. He regularly presents on the key risk and pressure points in relation to data privacy to organisations such as the Security Awareness Special Interest Group, the Information and Records Management Society, and the Law Society of Scotland. James also regularly provides updates to clients on data privacy through the firm's "What In-House Lawyers Need" (WIN) initiative.

Kate O’Sullivan has been Chief data Officer for Research Data Scotland (RDS) since January 2026. She is part of the RDS Leadership team and oversees the organisation’s Data team as it works towards a core goal of making it faster and simpler for researchers to access a wide range of datasets for research in the public benefitt. She is an integral part of RDS’s mission to drive system-wide operational efficiency and demonstrate trustworthiness in how data is used across the public sector.

Kate O'Sullivan has extensive experience leading Secure Data Environments (SDEs) and advancing data-driven research for public benefit. She has served as Associate Director (Tech, Data and IG) at the Yorkshire & Humber NHS Secure Data Environment and Head of Secure Data Services at the University of Sheffield, where she oversaw the delivery of the University’s Secure Data Services platform and the Data Connect service - both supporting researcher access to routinely collected health data.

Kate has a strong track record in managing both on-premises and cloud Secure Data Environments (SDEs), driving research innovation and ensuring the highest standards of data governance and security. In a previous role as Operational Lead at the Grampian Data Safe Haven, she successfully led the delivery of a wide range of sensitive data for research, including iCAIRD, the Health Foundation's Networked Data Lab, and PIONEER. Whilst at the Grampian Data Safe Haven, Kate contributed to several initiatives in the Scottish Safe Haven Network.

She has played a leading role in national data infrastructure initiatives as a Co-Investigator on DARE UK Phase 1 projects Semi-Automated Risk Assessment (SARA) and Semi-Automated Checking of Research Outputs (SACRO). She is Principal Investigator on the TREvolution Early Adopter PANORAMA project, and as co-lead of several governance and information security working groups, including the Information Governance Interest Group, SDC-REBOOT, and SATRE Governance.

Kate's research interest is on data provenance, principles-based Information Governance and federation to promote trust and transparency in sensitive data processing in Trusted Research Environments.

Linzi Penman heads up DLA Piper's Technology sector group in the UK.

Linzi is a technology, data and AI lawyer who advises international private and public companies on matters relating to IT, commercial and compliance issues, with a particular focus on the Financial Services, Consumer Goods, Retail, Media and Entertainment sectors.

Linzi has assisted in several significant outsourcing and complex technology transactions; this work has involved business critical projects some of which have been valued in the hundreds of millions of pounds. Having gained considerable experience across a variety of matters, Linzi has invaluable insight and understanding of her clients’ needs and uses Design Thinking and Lean Six Sigma processes to find the right solution for each transaction.

Supporting the implementation phase across several global data protection compliance projects for some of the firm’s key clients, Linzi also has experience of producing pragmatic documents to ensure mature compliance with the data protection requirements. She has also negotiated complex data protection terms with some of the largest Silicon Valley tech vendors to ensure pragmatic compliance with the global myriad of data protection rules in line with her client's risk profile. Linzi has spent time seconded to DLA Piper's offices in Madrid and Washington D.C, and collaborates internationally with data protection colleagues in London, Amsterdam, Poland, Romania and Germany to provide consistent and pragmatic input on topical matters including AdTech, App User journey reviews (including cookie compliance, marketing consents and privacy notices) and data transfers. She was instrumental in launching Privacy Scorebox 2.0 - a global tool to assess and benchmark an organisation's level of data protection maturity: https://www.dlapiperdataprotection.com/scorebox/.

In 2021, Linzi was seconded to a global investment firm and assisted them with negotiations relating to several business critical SaaS solutions, including an investment data management platform to deliver a consolidated source of real-time investment data, as part of its drive towards a simplified cloud infrastructure. This work extending into assisting the firm to revamp its regulatory checklist in light of Brexit and ESMA Outsourcing to the Cloud guidelines.

I’m the founder and Managing Director of 17 Points, a Data & AI company helping organisations across Scotland & the UK turn technology into real business value.

My focus is on making Data & AI adoption accessible by anyone, whatever their skills, sector or technical knowledge.

Alongside consultancy, I design and deliver data and AI literacy programmes, from foundational skills to leadership sessions that demystify Data & AI and help teams use it safely and effectively.

Outside of work, I run Girl Geek Scotland, a volunteer group supporting women in tech.  And I'm a keen knitter, renowned for my ability to get yarn into any conversation about data and AI!

Starting with the organisation as a part-time project administrator for one of the ScotlandIS skills initiatives, Nicola is now the Chief Operating Officer for ScotlandIS.

She is passionate about tackling the skills gaps in the tech sector and has led on various ScotlandIS skills projects during her time with the organisation, including both the undergraduate paid placement programme, e-Placement Scotland, and the more recent Digital Critical Friends initiative.

A law graduate from the University of Aberdeen, Nicola is an avid supporter of the Scottish digital tech industry and has been for almost 15 years.

Mark is the Chief Architect for the Civil Division of Leidos UK.

Working across the Central Government, Devolved Government, Transport and Air Traffic Control sectors, Mark brings a wealth of experience to his customers. Mark is a seasoned professional known for introducing groundbreaking solutions to the market. His achievements include spearheading innovative projects such as Biometric services for Borders, Machine Learning applications, and Digital Twin technology for Intelligent Road Management.

Mark has also led initiatives in Robotic Process Automation for Passport Control and has contributed to Security Accredited Shared Services, significantly reducing ownership costs for Government Departments.