Organisation
ISPA's regulatory activity is coordinated through four subgroups which focus on particular issues of ongoing concern to the membership. The subgroups are a forum for members to share their views and, in consultation with the wider membership, determine how the organisation positions itself.
Council and subgroups are supported by a Secretariat which is responsible for the day-to-day running of the organisation.
Andrew joined ISPA Council in spring 2014. He is the Chief Executive of Bridge Fibre and Bridge Partners.
Bridge Partners provide outsourced ICT support to professional service companies around Cambridge and London while Bridge Fibre specialise in supplying and managing connectivity to science parks, innovation centres and multi-tenanted buildings.
Andrew is married to Janet (an Anglican Minister), lives in Cambridge with their Staffordshire dog, and has a 1st class degree in Maths and Computing from UEA. Enjoys cricket, gardening, jazz and crime novels.
Michael Maltby is the CEO and Founder of Jurassic Fibre Limited, an ISP building a FTTP GPON architected network across the South West of England. The project is funded by Fern Trading Limited, part of the Octopus family of companies. Michael has 20 years’ experience building similar networks around the world including in Russia, the Caribbean, Malta, Belarus and Ukraine. He is a Chartered Accountant and has degrees from Cambridge and Oxford. Michael is a resident of Sidmouth in East Devon.
Garry is a physicist by training, and worked in oil exploration and the nuclear power industry before coming to the Telecoms industry and BT over 30 years ago. In the early stages of his career as an engineer he was the EU standards rapporteur for common channel signalling standards supporting international interconnection of telecoms networks and also worked on standards for GSM/Mobile and Internet Protocol before moving into Product design and regulated network interconnection, in the early days of the duopoly with Mercury in the UK. He led industry negotiations for BT for the launch of key market opening products in the UK including Number Portability, Equal access and Local Loop Unbundling (LLU), before moving into a Regulatory role for BT interfacing to Ofcom and also the EU Commission where he was focused on seeking to ensure BT could benefit from the market entry approach and regulated access products of the UK in the rest of Europe.
Garry also spent 5 years working in mainland Europe with various BT in-country subsidiaries, representing BT Global Services as a “new entrant” negotiating access agreements across Europe from all the main incumbents, including leading negotiations on the availability of LLU from eircom in Southern Ireland, and new access agreements in Germany, Spain and Italy that sought to leverage the EU regulations to BTs benefit.
For the past few years he has been BT Group’s Head of Infrastructure Policy where he has led on the policy and commercial issues associated with BT’s infrastructure with Government and the EU. This has included developing BT’s policy on NGA fibre deployment in the UK, the use of State aid funds for NGA and UK clearance with the EU as well as leading the policy and commercial contract negotiations with BDUK for the main BDUK contracts for fibre builds across the UK to deploy fibre using State aid funds.
Garry is married with 3 sons, and in his spare time is a keen white water kayaker and cyclist paddling and pedalling on mountain rivers and roads across the UK and Europe.
Mick Everett is the MD and founder of Blue Spider Consulting – a provider of fully managed Internet and VoIP services into select multi-occupancy residential accommodation.
He is an apprentice-served comms engineer and has worked within the comms industry all his working life, operating at Director level within a variety of comms companies over the last 30+ years. Mick holds a number of current product-related accreditations including Avaya, Ubiquiti and Draytek and is a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (MIET).
During his career, Mick has been intrinsic in the provision and support of managed IP telephony, Internet and IPTV services into a significant number of student and keyworker residential accommodation sites across the UK, including at Universities, hospitals and housing associations.
Ali Law is Sky’s Head of UK Policy. He is responsible for public policy, government relations and industry engagement in the UK across all of Sky’s business areas including its linear TV channels, satellite platform, home communications products and Wi-Fi services.
Prior to joining Sky in 2013, Ali spent four years at the industry regulator Ofcom, developing policy and strategy for the communications sector.
Thomas Mangin started his career in 1999 at Legend Internet, Bradford historical dialup ISP. In 2003, he co-founded Exa Networks, which provides connectivity services and an in-house SaaS content filtering solution to schools and businesses across the UK. As Operational and Technical Director, he oversees, among other things, the business day to day, networking, R&D and information governance teams.
For 8 years, he acted as an elected Non-Executive Director for the London Internet Exchange. Thomas also helped setup IXLeeds, Leeds' Internet Exchange where he served as director for 5 years. He currently sits on the computing industry advisory board of Bradford University. He has been living in West Yorkshire his whole working life having previously obtained an Msc in computing in Lyon, France. In his spare time he is an open-source software author and contributor.
Neil Watson is now Head of Technical Operations at City Fibre. Previously Neil worked as Head of Service at Entanet, the Telford-based wholesale voice and data connectivity provider with a channel-focused distribution strategy. In role for more than a decade, Neil was responsible for the strategic direction of the firm's service offering including Technical Support and all Customer Service activity. He regularly collaborates with the wider industry and frequently represents City Fibre at industry forums and events.
Over a decade ago, Sam embarked on the journey of building Vostron, driven by the desire of wanting to change the way things are done in the ever-developing world of the Internet and telecoms.
With that in mind he has passionately dedicated himself to building a business that provides an unrivalled service and customer experience. From developing a bespoke internal monitoring system, to building a customer service ethos, that is like no other, Sam has been the driving force behind Vostron and will strive to always improve every element of Vostron, for our customers.
When not at work, Sam devotes most of his spare time to his two children but he still finds time to follow his passion for sailing, running and various other outdoor activities. He is also a great cook! Sam is determined to deliver a better experience for our customers and is always available to answer any of your queries.
With more than 20 years of experience in the telecoms industry, Steve Leighton is CEO at Voneus, the champion of rural community and leading provider of wireless superfast broadband infrastructure for poorly connected or difficult to reach communities.
Prior to working at Voneus, Steve co-founded Keycom Plc in 2000, a company specialising in the delivery of voice and internet services to the UK’s tertiary education sector. Here he held the role of Sales and Marketing Director for four years before becoming involved in other online start-ups, including Greenroom Digital and Findsyou Limited.
Before transitioning to the telecommunications industry, Steve had a successful Government career, culminating in the role of Head of Communications Sponsorship at the Department of Trade and Industry.
As CEO of Voneus since 2011, Steve aims to ensure all communities within the UK receive superfast broadband and for Voneus to become the market leader for rural broadband provision.
Jacquie Mellor is the Associate Counsel at Virgin Media. She joined ISPA Council in 2012.
Jacquie is commercially focused and adaptable lawyer, with a very broad range of commercial and regulatory experience obtained in an organisation that has seen enormous change over the years.
She specializes in Intellectual Property Rights, Telecommunications, Information Technology, Outsourcing and Procurement, Data Protection, Network Security, Consumer Broadband, Public WiFi, Content Acquisition, Product Development, Interconnect, Regulatory.
Malcolm Hutty is the Head of Public Affairs at LINX, the London Internet Exchange. Malcolm’s role involves liaising with government and regulatory authorities on behalf of the LINX membership, representing the interests of members to government and briefing members on regulatory developments.
Malcolm is a former President of EuroISPA, the pan-European organisation of membership associations representing the interests of Internet Service Providers. He acts as Regulatory Affairs spokesman for Euro-IX, the European association of Internet Exchanges.
Gemma is the Head of the Regulatory and Government Affairs team for UK and Ireland at Verizon. Her responsibilities cover all public policy, regulatory compliance, and government relations for these two jurisdictions. Gemma also covers areas such as network security, cyber security, and sustainability across the European region.
Before joining Verizon in 2017, she spent three and half years working across multiple disciplines at the UK regulator, Ofcom, including areas of international policy, content policy, radio licensing, and competition policy.
Kathryn Bowden is Head of Regulation, Policy and Compliance at Shell Energy. She previously worked at the Post Office for 3 years before Shell Energy purchased the telecoms business. Prior to this, Kathryn spent eight years at BT with a variety of roles including time spent in Openreach covering the wholesale market where she utilised experience from her first class degree in Industrial Economics.
Kathryn has recently moved to Bray with her family and are renovating both the house and garden in their spare time. It's a big project that she thinks will take about 5 years to complete but is looking forward to the challenge.
Joining Trenches Law in 2019, Georgina has years of industry experience, including a wayleave manager position with Virgin Media for 2 years. As Trenches Law’s head of wayleave and trainee solicitor, Georgina is a valuable colleague and an active presence at industry meetings and conferences to ensure we remain abreast of the ever-changing wayleave regulations, protocol, and best practice.
She is also a regular guest speaker at sector events, most recently discussing wayleave legislation changes.