After studying Electronics at Lehrwerkstaetten in Bern, Switzerland, Phil started his IT career with Hewlett Packard Switzerland and spent a number of years in various Enterprise and Network Support roles, latterly managing the Swiss Network Support team. From there, he progressed into HP’s Professional Services Organisation where he acted as Senior Consultant, assigned to large scale Email backbones and complex HP OpenView Systems & Network Management projects. His customers were Swiss Bank Corporate (SBC), United Bank of Switzerland (UBS), the Swiss Post and the Swiss Central Government.

 

In the late 90s, he co-founded a very successful independent consultancy together with former HP consultants. He and his team continued to deliver IT solutions to the likes of Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) and UBS (United Bank of Switzerland).

 

In 2000, Phil moved over to the UK and joined Motorola in an EMEA IT role, operationally overseeing a multi-million budget. From there, he moved on to the Royal Bank of Scotland where he was project manager of a UK-wide PeopleSoft project for RBS's 85,000 employees.

 

Before co-founding SymetriQ, Phil was COO/CTO of XCalibre and a driving force behind Europe’s very first Cloud, FlexiScale, gaining highly specialist knowledge and expertise in the Cloud market. He is a core team member of the global CloudCamp organisation, a regular speaker at their events as well as active chair of the Scottish and North-East England CloudCamps.

 

Phil also provides advice to institutional investment funds in the US on Cloud Computing and Data Centre trends as an external expert and consultant.

 

 

 

After studying Electronics at Loughborough University, Steve started his career in IT with Du Pont, before leaving to run various IT infrastructure programmes in the City of London. After gaining a wealth of experience with SBC Warburg (UBS Investment Bank) and NatWest Markets (RBS Global Markets), Steve moved to Scotland and took up an IT consultancy role, where his financial services experience continued with engagements with Alliance & Leicester, Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

 

Steve then founded Ballintrae in order to address the knowledge gap between the corporate/commercial IT organisations and their suppliers. Initially focusing on the delivery of IT infrastructure programs and projects, Steve built up a unique business model that Ballintrae are now actively taking into other markets and geographies.

 

Steve is an active business angel and is passionate about building and developing world class technology companies based in the UK.

 

 

 

Donald is a Managing Director with BearingPoint in London where he has responsibility for the Financial Services Practice.

His consulting career spans over 20 years, starting with Boston Consulting Group and he was latterly a Senior Partner at RSM Robson Rhodes and Ernst & Young.  He has specialised in Business Strategy and Change within the Financial Services Industry and has successfully grown several major high performing National and International Consulting Practices.

 

Donald also spent a year at HBOS in 2006 where he worked in the Strategy and M&A Department with responsibility for acquisition integration and preparation for disposal of major business units.

 

Prior to starting his consulting career, Donald held senior roles at ADT, where he had responsibility for worldwide acquisitions and disposals, and Norcross plc, where held responsibility for Group Strategy and M&A.

 

Donald is a qualified Chartered Accountant (FCA), has a Masters from Business School.