Agenda Setters 2007

Tony Hallett, silicon.com editor and site director

Tony is this year's panel chairman. He has been an Agenda Setters panel member for seven of the eight years silicon.com has conducted this annual project - clocking up four times as panel host and four consecutive years as editor. He was part of the editorial team that launched silicon.com back in 1998 and is responsible for all silicon.com content.

James Bennet, consultant

James has worked in and around the tech sector for 15 years and has a wide network of contacts at global tech firms as well as at start-ups. As UK director of technology, communications and entertainment at Ernst & Young, he has extensive knowledge of how the tech industry operates. James also founded events company ETF, which until recently was owned by silicon.com parent company, CNET Networks.

Simon Briskman, tech lawyer

Simon specialises in outsourcing and IT law at Field Fisher Waterhouse and has considerable commercial in-house experience, having spent three years with Fujitsu Services. His work covers an assortment of sectors, including telecoms, financial services and retail, and his clients range from start-ups to some of the world's biggest names. Simon also advises on ecommerce, data protection and telecoms privacy, and is a member of the National Outsourcing Association and Intellect's Outsourcing Group Committee. He is a member of the silicon.com editorial board.

Ian Brown, academic

In addition to his role as research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, Ian is also an honorary senior lecturer at University College London. His work focuses on the public policy issues relating to information and the internet - particularly privacy, copyright and e-democracy. He also works on the more technical fields of information security, networking and healthcare informatics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the British Computer Society, and an adviser to Privacy International, the Open Rights Group, the Foundation for Information Policy Research and Greenpeace.

Charles Cameron, financier

Charles is a managing director at Jeffries Broadview investment banking group and has 18 years' banking experience in New York, Tokyo and London. He specialises in European tech companies and has been involved in high-profile flotations and some of the largest UK government privatisations. Charles was previously CEO of data storage and security services firm InTechnology and director at Kleinwort Benson, where he advised on mergers and acquisitions, privatisations and IPOs. He also formed a tech-focused advisory team in the mid-1990s and has worked with Goldman Sachs as an executive director.

Ian Campbell, IT director

With a career that has included senior business and IT roles at a number of blue-chip organisations, Ian also has significant experience of setting up new businesses in emerging markets. Before he joined British Energy as CIO, Ian held a board-level role at telecoms provider Energis, now part of Cable & Wireless. He was also CCO at financial services giant Citigroup. Ian is the chairman of blue-chip IT user group the corporate IT Forum.

Jon Collins, analyst

Jon works as both an IT industry analyst at Freeform Dynamics and an author. He has spent the past 20 years working in IT - as a programmer, IT manager, business analyst, security expert and consultant in the financial, telecoms and public sectors. His current main interest is the delivery and management of IT as a service to the business. He has also written a number of books about music, including the biographies of Marillion and Rush.

John Fisher, tech lobbyist

John is chief executive of Citizens Online, an organisation that promotes internet access and tackles digital inclusion. Having originally trained as an RAF jet pilot, John went on to work on local government leisure and recreation projects for nearly 30 years. He has extensive experience of forging partnerships with the community, businesses and the voluntary sector. John was a member of the government's digital inclusion panel and advised the minister at the 2003 EU e-Inclusion Summit in Crete. John has written extensively about digital equality and manages a number of research projects.

Carolyn Kimber, comms expert

Until recently the chairwoman of the board of directors and trustees of the Communications Management Association (CMA), Carolyn led the organisation through a severe downturn in the comms industry. She led the rebranding of the CMA - previously the TMA - in 2000 to reflect the convergence of the industry. Carolyn is now general manager of Cedar REACH, which specialises in dialogue continuity and understanding of customer needs. Her specialities include change management, re-branding, regulatory affairs, international relationships and industry-wide knowledge.

Steve Palmer, IT director

Steve is the head of ICT for the London Borough of Hillingdon and has taken a leading role in the authority's modernisation and transformation programme. He is responsible for the council's IT and comms infrastructure as well as a multi-channel call centre. Before his current role, Steve worked for 20 years at senior management level in local government delivering frontline services, from street cleaning to general engineering. In the past, Steve has chaired local government IT body Socitm and is a founding member of the European Local Government E-Leaders Forum.

Michael Parsons, editor, CNET.co.uk

Michael has been working in the technology field for the past 15 years. He spent six years in Silicon Valley during the internet boom as news editor at Infoworld and deputy editor of the Industry Standard magazine, and then came back to London as editorial director of the Industry Standard Europe. He remembers buying a Texas Instruments calculator with red LEDs and thinking it was pretty hot stuff.

Michael Smith, entrepreneur

Michael is currently CEO of interactive entertainment company Mind Candy. In 1998 he was also a co-founder of Firebox.com, which he helped turn into a successful multi-channel retailer. He scours the globe looking for new products and ideas and launched Mind Candy in 2003 to develop new brands in interactive entertainment. He also co-founded Second Chance Tuesday in 2006, a networking event for London's leading entrepreneurs and investors.

Richard Sykes, consultant

Richard is the only person to have sat on every Agenda Setter panel since the project started in 2000. He is the chairman of the outsourcing and offshoring group at Intellect, the UK's IT, telecoms and electronics industry trade association. Richard has held senior executive roles on major global multinationals as well as non-executive chairmanships at smaller organisations. He worked at chemicals giant ICI for 27 years, where he became group VP of IT, and was chairman of Morgan Chambers between 1999 and 2004. He is currently working as a board-level adviser on IT strategy and implementation and is an active member of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals.

Toby Wolpe, silicon.com associate editor

In his role as silicon.com's associate editor, Toby is also this year's Agenda Setters project editor. He has spent 29 years in business and consumer journalism, mainly in the technology field, where he has edited several major print weeklies.

Process

The panel met last month in central London to debate candidates for inclusion on the Agenda Setters list. In the 24 hours following the debate the panellists each nominated 20 individuals in descending order. That voting process produced the final Top 50.