Rt Hon Baroness Morris
Pro Vice-Chancellor Sunderland University and Chief of the Strategy Board at the Institute of Effective Education, University of York.

Estelle Morris was elected to Parliament as Member for Birmingham Yardley in 1992. Formerly a teacher in the West Midlands, Baroness Morris taught for 18 years in an inner-city comprehensive school in Coventry.  She also served as a Councillor on Warwick District Council for 12 years, for eight of these as Labour Group Leader. 

She moved to the Whips Office in 1994, where she served for one year, before moving to Labour’s Frontbench Education Team as Shadow Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools and Early Years.

After the 1997 election, she was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for School Standards in the new Labour Government and in July 1998 she was appointed Minister of State for Education and Employment and she became a Privy Councillor in 1999.

Rt Hon Lord Mitchell

Born in 1943, and married with three children, Lord Mitchell was one of the founding Trustees of the e-Learning Foundation in 2000 and was Chairman from 2006-2010. He was Chairman of Syscap plc, an IT service provider until August 2006. Elevated to the peerage in 2000, he has sat on the Science and Technology Select Committee and campaigns on technology in education and foetal alcohol syndrome.

"Access to ICT in education for young people should be a right, not a privilege and the e-Learning Foundation is determined that every child in the UK has the same opportunities to succeed in their studies". Lord Mitchell

Rt Hon Lord Willis

Until the last election Phil Willis was the L:iberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Harrogate and Knaresborough and Chair of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. He became the first Liberal Democrat leader of Harrogate District Council in 1990, two years after joining it. He also served on North Yorkshire County Council from 1993 to 1997. In 1997, he became the first Liberal MP for Harrogate since 1906. He was a member of the Education and Employment Select Committee until November 2000, and is a vice-chairman of All-Party Groups on pluralism in education and further and adult education. He chaired the group on mobile communications and was treasurer of the All-Party Group on medical research.

A former Leeds headmaster, Phil Willis was principal Education and Employment spokesman in Charles Kennedy's "Shadow Cabinet", from 1999 to 2005, after being Further and Higher Education spokesman as deputy to Don Foster. His special interests include special education needs and inclusion in education. He is a keen supporter of Leeds United FC.

Karen Bach
Commercial Director, kidsunlimited

Karen is a highly qualified Commercial and Finance Director and gained a first class degree in Management studies and French before becoming a Chartered accountant. Karen worked at Ernst & Young before taking industry roles with international divisions of insurance and publicly quoted manufacturing companies, and moving into senior management of global telecoms and outsourcing companies. Subsequently, Karen was Director of a venture capital backed data centre business taking this multi-site international company public and through rapid growth followed by two Director roles within listed software businesses (Kewill and Advanced Computer Software).

Karen is now Commercial Director of kidsunlimited, a childcare and education business with close to 60 day-care nurseries. Karen brings governance and financial experience to the Foundation together with a technology and child education background.

David Burrows
Managing Director - Government Solutions
Worldwide Public Sector, Microsoft Corporation

Prior to his current role, David was in charge of business strategy and marketing for Microsoft’s UK public sector division, following six years as Director of Education/ Voluntary Sector for Microsoft UK.

David joined Microsoft in 1991 as the ‘City’ Sales Manager, and has held sales and marketing management roles within the UK subsidiary and at the European Headquarters. He previously worked for Digital Equipment Corporation and Olivetti. David has a BA (Hons) from Leicester University.

David is a past serving member of the ITCESSG, a task group within the Information Age Partnership looking at IT Skills as part of the National Skills Task Force, a board member of CC4G (Computer Clubs for Girls); a past member of the DELG Task-Force reporting to the National LSC (Learning and Skills Council) on workplace learning using technology and was appointed as a member of the MOD Defence Education and Skills Advisory Board. He is a past Chair of Trustees of the Learning Lab. In 2006, David was made an Honorary Doctorate of the University of Sheffield Hallum (UK) in the faculty of ACES in recognition for services to Education.

David Butler OBE
Chief Executive of the National Confederation of PTAs

David was born and educated in Newcastle upon Tyne, studied statistics and mathematics at the University of Bath and took a postgraduate Diploma in Management Studies at what is now Northumbria University. Prior to taking up his role at NCPTA, he was Director of Marketing and Development at a FE college.
David’s involvement with PTAs began when his wife was Chair of the PTA at the Primary School attended by their children. He was recruited by NCPTA in 1998 to restructure the charity and increase the focus on services to its then 11,000 (now some 13,500) member associations.

In 2001 David was invited to become a Trustee of the e-Learning Foundation; he has also chaired the Finance Committee for most of his tenure as a Trustee. David is also a member of the National Judging Panel for the Teaching Awards Trust, a member of the School Meals Review Panel set up by DfES, a member of the Administrative Council of the European Parents Association (EPA) and a past member of the General Teaching Council for England.

Mike Butler
Chief Executive of Djanogly City Academy

Mike heads up Djanogly City Academy, in Nottingham, an award-winning school and a leader in the use of ICT in education. Mike has also recently completed a year as Chairman of the Independent Academies Association.

Alisdair Cameron, ACA
Finance Director, British Gas Residential

Alisdair Cameron is a leading Chartered Accountant and Finance Director for British Gas, part of Centrica plc, a FTSE 100 company. He is also a non-executive director of the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals.

Ian Carrel 
Chief Executive of the Avance Group

The Avance Group is a £16m, 1,000 employee Business Process Outsourcer. Previous experience includes senior roles with Bertelsmann, a global media and entertainments business and Convergys Corporation.

Prior to that Ian spent several years as a Management Consultant with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and has also worked for IBM. Ian is married with 3 children and is a keen supporter of Bath Rugby Club.

Charles Gould
Managing Director, Brightwave

The founder of Brightwave and its Managing Director, Charles has 13 years' experience of designing and producing e-learning solutions for corporate clients at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Epic, and BT. At the end of 2000 Charles left PwC, where he was a Senior Manager and Principal Consultant, to set up Brightwave. He holds an MBA from London Business School.

Rt Hon Lord Knight

James "Jim" Knight, Baron Knight of Weymouth, is a British Labour Party politican, who was Member of Parliament for South Dorset from 2001 until 2010. He held several ministerial posts during his time as an MP including Minister for the South West, Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, and Schools Minister where he spearheaded the Home Access programme. In October 2008 he became a member of the Privy Council and was made a life peer in the summer of 2010.

Diana Laurillard
Chair of Learning with Digital Technologies at the London Knowledge Lab, part of the Institute of Education, University of London.

Diana's main role is to lead research on e-learning, and to build productive collaborative projects between the Lab, educators, the digital media industry, and policy-makers. Her work focuses on theory-based design of learning and teaching methods and resources, learners’ conceptions and misconceptions and approaches to learning, flexible learning activity design tools for teachers, and cost-benefit modeling for the introduction of e-learning.

Professor Laurillard previously held a three-year term as Head of the e-Learning Strategy Unit at the UK Government’s Department for Education and Skills. From 1995 to 2002, she held two terms of office as Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the Open University. She has been a member of the Visiting Committee on IT at Harvard University, and a member of the Dearing Committee on Higher Education for the UK Government. This work has been recognized through her honorary degrees from the University of Abertay, the Open University of the Netherlands, and the University of Brighton. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an Honorary Fellow of University College London.

Robert Marsh
Chief Executive, The Eve Appeal

Director of Fundraising and Communications at the charity Combat Stress

Immediately prior to his current role, Robert was Director of Fundraising & Communications at Combat Stress. His career also involves a role at Epsom College and Harrow School in fundraising and development roles as well as qualifying with a PGCE, and a tour in Bosnia with The Light Dragoons. Robert now chairs the Fundraising Committee of the e-Learning Foundation.

Lynn Petersen

Lynn’s career spans director positions in sales and marketing with commercial organizations such as TIME Magazine, Kraft General Foods and Burson Marstellar, and fundraising for the UK charity The Outward Bound Trust. In 2010, she was in Ethiopia for the Swiss charity Rainbows for Children where she ran a school and is now on the Board of Governors.

Educated in the U.S., Lynn has a Bachelor’s Degree in English and a Master’s Degree in City Planning and has dual nationality in both the UK and USA.

Horses, dogs, walking and international travel fulfil the personal passions in life.