• Business process transformation
• Management training
• Data modelling
• Quality assurance
• Standards for geographic information

Les has more than twenty-five years experience of working with location-based data, some twelve years of which he specialised in the development and management of IT systems, particularly for the storage and maintenance of very large databases of spatial data. He has held senior management positions in the public sector and transitioned successfully into programme management and independent consultancy in the private sector.

Currently Les is a Director of ConsultingWhere an independent IT consultancy specialising in advice on strategic IT and business development particularly where location-based data is being used. His expertise lies in business process analysis and data modelling, data management strategy, and quality management and improvement. Through his work at the national and international level he has wide knowledge of spatial data infrastructures (SDIs).

After working on land resource surveys in Africa for fifteen years, Les joined Ordnance Survey, the national mapping agency of Great Britain, and worked in R&D, digital map production and IT project management before becoming Corporate Data Manager where responsibilities included the specifications, quality and integrity of all spatial datasets. Latterly he was the head of programme for MasterMap, a major re-engineering of the Ordnance Survey’s large-scale topographic database. Les then worked for ESRI (UK) for two years as a programme manager before moving into independent consultancy in 2004.

Les has been an active member of the British Standards Institution (BSi) committee on geographic information (IST/36) for eighteen years. Les served as Chair of IST/36 from 2007 until April 2011. He has also been a working group convenor for Technical Committee 211 (Geographic Information) of the International Standards Organisation (ISO) and chaired the steering group for the latest revision of the national gazetteer standard for streets and land and property – BS 7666. Currently he is a member of the UK Location Programme’s Interoperability Board.