Kay Brown CIO50 2009

As head of IT for South Lanarkshire Council, Kay Brown looks after the technology for one of the largest unitary authorities in Scotland.

She manages 160 staff delivering services across the organisation, from switchboard operations to deploying applications, and has responsibility for making sure IT and business change are closely linked.

Recently the council has taken advantage of space freed up by consolidating the servers in its datacentre to offer hosting services for the University of the West of Scotland, the Scottish government and Shared National Infrastructure for Scotland. The council is also looking to expand its shared services capability.

Benchmarking has shown that the council's IT services is one of the best performing in the UK.

Brown has worked in local government since 1991, before which she held several IT management positions in the private sector for BOC, Cern, Alexander Stenhouse and Honeywell Bull.

She has also been a member of the Scottish Socitm committee for 10 years, as well as the British Computer Society and CITP and represents Scotland on the Local Government CIO Council.