Mark Atkinson

Mark began his career with a variety of roles across the UK MOD, including postings in procurement, HR and the Naval Staff. He gained experience outside MOD through a secondment to the Treasury and working with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the then Department of Trade & Industry and DFID. Several years of experience followed leading various contract negotiations with the US Government, involvement on export control and managing relationships between various UK government agencies.

Through this work Mark gained valuable practical experience in change management and business improvement, which he applied in the MOD with the introduction of the MOD Business Management System, and subsequently through work for the NATO Reform Programme. Mark joined Salamander in 2006.

John McNaughton

John's career began with service in submarines and surface ships in Communication, Navigation and Operations Officer roles in the UK's Royal Navy. He was the first Warfare Officer to undergo the Advanced Information System Course at the Military College of Science before transferring to the Navy’s Information Systems Engineering Specialization.

John subsequently worked in a variety of roles in Bristol and London, focussed on organizational change to deliver the benefits from investment in information technology and modernising government initiatives. John joined Salamander in 2006.

Gurdeep Kler

For the past 10 years Gurdeep has worked within a variety of different organisations and roles. Beginning within UPS around global logistics provision and integration of eCommerce process for organisations including Compaq, Dell and British Telecom. He then moved onto to i2 where he was responsible for managing organisations throughout the UK and Europe within National Security and Policing, helping them to develop and implement technology in the arena of Intelligence analysis. Recent projects have been focused towards government and policing policies directed towards the National Intelligence Model and Data sharing initiatives. Gurdeep joined Salamander in 2009.

Bernard Edwards, Chief Executive

Bernard is responsible for driving forward Salamander's agenda for innovation and market development, and, since its formation in 1996, the company has achieved consistent growth of 30-40%. The blend of strong consulting skills coupled with world-class technology has proved to be a very successful and highly competitive proposition for the company.

Prior to co-founding Salamander in 1996 Bernard was Director of Marketing & Financial Services at the UK Building Society N&P, where he was part of a successful turnaround. Before that he was Director of Marketing & Product Programmes at Unisys. He started his career with the National Health Service where, following training in behavioural psychology and group dynamics, he was responsible for clinical practice and in lecturing on human behaviour and motivation.

As a management consultant, Bernard has undertaken transformation work in the financial services, information technology, manufacturing and government sectors.

Dick Whittington, Chief Technology Officer

Dick is responsible for shaping and directing Salamander's technology, promoting an innovative architecture-based approach to solution development that is becoming established as a standard in a set of focused markets.

Prior to co-founding Salamander in 1996, Dick lectured on computing at the University of York. During his time there he managed a successful research team addressing innovative project support environments, publishing a number of research papers and books, including Database Systems Engineering (Oxford University Press, 1987), which became a standard undergraduate text within many universities.

With more than twenty years of development and consulting experience in industry, defence and the wider public sector, Dick's focus combines a keen involvement in method and tool development with programme delivery across a range of corporate clients.

Simon Smith, Chief Architect

Simon began his career as a Research Associate at the University of York, UK, developing and applying methods of working in requirements engineering and formal logics in conjunction with Logica. He followed this with a position as lecturer in software engineering at the University of Durham, UK, where he managed research and development in corporate knowledge and evolutionary software architectures, funded equally by government science councils and industrial partners such as BT, BAE Systems and ICI. 

Simon has twenty years of experience in software engineering research and practice, and combines this with a deep understanding of the exploitation of architecture-based software technologies across a wide range of industries.

Simon joined Salamander in 1998.

David Ward, Chief Financial Officer

Since qualifying in private practice, David has worked across a range of industrial sectors in entrepreneurial, private, public and venture capital backed enterprises. Prior to joining Salamander he was Finance Director of Spearhead Exhibitions Group. David joined Salamander in 2005.

George Davies, Head of Business Development

Before Salamander, George was the Vice President and General Manager for the EMEA systems integration business of a leading computer company. George was responsible for the strategy, direction and P&L of this business, achieving an annual business plan delivering circa $1.5Bn revenue. He led a UK-based professional services business prior to this, and led both businesses to be more profitable than they ever had been, achieving benchmark performance world-wide.

George has experience of the Telecoms, Utilities, Distribution and Manufacturing sectors and has led significant change programmes around client engagement, solution selling, project delivery, and growth. George joined Salamander in 2007.

Laurence Beardmore, Head of Delivery

Prior to joining Salamander Laurence was Director of Integration Programmes and leader of Corporate Strategy at General Dynamics UK. Having amassed some twenty years of experience in the defence sector Laurence has specialized in driving change, performance enhancements and growth in small, medium and large enterprises.

Laurence's management experience spans a range of disciplines including Programme Management, Business Development, Strategy and Consulting. Laurence joined Salamander in 2005.

Robin Tullett, Solutions Director

Formerly the Director of Consulting for HP in the UK, Robin has spent most of his career within large IT services firms including IBM & HP. Robin has acquired significant management expertise in a wide range of business strategies including a strong focus on technology-enabled change. As a consultant, he has twenty years of experience in business change and systems integration, IT operations, IT governance and project and process management. Robin joined Salamander in 2005.

Roger Hawes, Director

A corporate finance partner at law firm Burges Salmon LLP for 20 years having trained at Linklaters. Roger headed up a division of Burges Salmon comprising over 100 lawyers for 5 years and regularly advises corporates on general commercial governance and on optimising and protecting their contractual and intellectual capital. Roger joined Salamander in 2009