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.
I am currently the Networks and Operations Director at Optify (part of PCCWGlobal) where I am responsible for leading the fibre design and build, maintenance, service IT, core network and Care functions
I have held senior leadership roles in the telecoms sector for over twenty years now where I have built copper and fibre networks, led large civils programmes, developed national field operations encompassing several thousand in house engineers and even more contractors and led large strategic change programmes.
I have seen the regulatory landscape change dramatically as the industry converged both in terms of the number of providers and also in terms of technology and have remained close to these changes through my career. With my current role, I have led the GDPR compliance programme within Optify and also helped drive the programme across the PCCWGlobal footprint. I also have responsibility for regulatory change within Optify, in terms of assessing how we should respond and developing operation plans in order to comply. Consequently I have a high degree of awareness of the current regulatory challenges and believe that this, coupled with my operational experience, means I can effectively support ISPA as part of the council.
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.
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.
Matthew has worked in the telecoms sector for over 15 years, managing regulatory affairs and developing policy in both the public and private sector. In 2002 he joined the Home Office leading on development and implementation of the UK communications data retention regime in the wake of 9/11. He worked extensively with many ISPs and other industry stakeholders to formulate a workable data retention policy balancing the needs of law enforcement and industry. From there he moved to Sky, managing regulatory affairs for Sky’s telephony product SkyTalk.
He sat on the Member Board of Otelo (the then telecoms ombudsman) for two years, representing smaller providers and setting strategy and direction for the organisation. In 2006 he left Sky to join Ofcom where he worked for over four years in the Competition Group developing telecoms policy and resolving industry disputes in the Investigations team.
Since 2011 Matthew has worked at Verizon, the global telecoms and technology company. He now heads the UK & IE regulatory, public policy and government affairs team and sits on the board of ALTO, the trade association for fixed providers operating in Ireland.
Steven has a network engineering background and has enjoyed 14 years in Telecoms. A founding Director of M247, Steven has been at the heart of taking the business from a startup to a £60m organisation, including successful negotiation of two management buy outs and is one of the team that led to the acquisition of two companies in the last 2 years (M247 and Venus Internet). He has held various roles including responsibility for network and customers support and is now taking a more commercial role in the delivery, planning and investment of network rollout.
Steven also sits on the IXManchester Steering Committee and has been a respected industry figure in technical circles for many years. Steven would bring a wealth of commercial and technical expertise to support the policy work of the Council, in particular, focusing on the practical and customer impact of industry and policy changes to day to day ISP Operations.