Speaker Biographies

Please note the the programme is under development.

If you would like to present a paper, chair a session or speak at Cycling + Walking Innovations 2018, please contact

Alistair Kirkbride

Active Travel Consultant

Until recently, Alistair Kirkbride was Executive Director of CoMoUK, the UK’s national charity that works to maximise the public benefit of car clubs, bike sharing, ride sharing and other emerging shared transport solutions. He now focuses on applying the progressive mobility thinking that is usually focused on cities to rural and visitor areas, especially national parks. He led on the development of the Lake District’s LSTF programme and the DfT monitoring & evaluation case study for the three national park LSTF programmes.

He also writes on mobility in the UK professional press. 

Bruce McVean

City of London

For more than 15 years, Bruce’s career has involved exploring and promoting the social, economic and environmental benefits of safe and attractive urban environments and sustainable transport. He leads the development of transport policy for the City of London, with the aim of ensuring that London’s financial district and historic heart remains a great place to live, work, learn and visit. Previous roles include Principal Strategy Planner at Transport for London, Senior Policy Advisor at the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) and Trustee of Living Streets.

Carey Newson

Associate
Transport for Quality of Life

Carey has worked extensively as a consultant in social and environmental policy, including for Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute, the Department for Transport and Local Trust. At the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare she leads the NHS Forest and Greenspace programme, which includes the development of green health routes. Carey formerly worked at the Campaign for Better Transport where she led many programmes to support walking, cycling and public transport through best practice. She is an associate of the specialist consultancy Transport for Quality of Life and an 'expert friend' to Playing Out, a not-for-profit organisation that supports the creation of safe spaces for neighbourhood street play. She began her career in journalism and broadcasting. 

Charles Butler

Founder & CEO
Freebike

Charles Butler is the co-founder and CEO of Freebike, which has bikeshare systems in 8 countries. After 4 years of research and development, the company launched the world’s most technologically advanced dockless electric bike in May 2018. Having founded diverse businesses that now have annual turnover of over £250 million, Charles is now devoting 100% of his energies to try to change city transport into something that is efficient, environmentally sound, healthy and fun. That is Freebike.

Chris Bristow

Chief Operating Officer
BetterPoints

Chris is a former senior executive of technology organisations in the USA, Asia-Pacific and UK. He co-founded the first ethical/sustainable reward programme in the UK, ‘Smartly Green Rewards’, which was acquired by BetterPoints in 2011. He leads the day to day running of BetterPoints and is a highly-regarded contributor to conferences and events. Chris has a real skill for understanding the broad and cross-cutting issues that BetterPoints can help organisations to manage. Eminently unflappable, Chris fulfils many roles across the organisation, all of them with efficiency and good humour.

Habib Khan

Director & Founding Partner
Meristem Design

Habib has spent the last 15 years in sustainable transport. He started with the UK’s first bike share scheme in 2005, going onto to manage all the UK offices of City Car Club before rolling out street cycle parking called Bike Hangars. 

Habib is now a Director & Founding Partner at Meristem Design, the award winning urban greening / design company.He set up Meristem Design just over two years ago, with 40 living walls and 12 on-street parklets already completed.

Jonathan Flower

Researcher, Centre for Transport and Society
University of the West of England

Jonathan is a researcher in the Centre for Transport and Society, UWE, Bristol. He has been building experience in autonomous vehicles and is currently working on CAPRI (autonomous pods project).

Alongside this work he is studying for a PhD exploring the relationships between road user behaviour, walking and cycling infrastructure, and highway regulations, particularly in urban situations where more highway space or priority has been allocated to walking and cycling.

Jonathan previously worked in International Development where he developed approaches to programme monitoring and evaluation that were used globally in more than 10,000 projects.

Kevin Mayne

Chief Executive Designate
Cycling Industries Europe

Kevin Mayne is the Development Director of European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) and in 2019 will become the Chief Executive of Cycling Industries Europe, an international association for cycling businesses.

At ECF Kevin is responsible for relations with the bicycle industry, fundraising and communications. His work enabled businesses to invest in advocacy to grow cycling, including the role of business in the European Cycling Strategy. He developed ECF’s strategy 'Cycling as a new technology', which places cycling in smarter, connected mobility.

Kevin joined ECF’s staff in 2012 after 14 years as CEO of CyclingUK. His first career was in food companies including Cadbury Schweppes, Coca Cola and Kraft Foods.. He writes for ECF on www.ecf.com, blogs about cycling on www.idonotdespair.com and tweets as @maynekevin 

Lucy Marstrand

Principal Transport Planner
Project Centre

With around 20 years’ experience in design of buildings, public spaces and highways (both public and private sector) Lucy has a strong design-based background influencing her approach to transport. Her areas of expertise are walking, cycling and urban design. She specialises in inclusive design, how the built environment links to wider social equality issues and querying inherited engineering wisdom. Lucy is the Healthy Streets Advisor at Project Centre.

Toby Cotton

Senior Insight Advisor
Transport Focus

Toby is a market and social researcher who has worked in the field for 12 years. Beginning his career working at large research agencies, he has experience of managing projects which have involved both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Toby has also managed research in a range of sectors including local government, crime and justice, and financial services.

Toby joined Transport Focus in August 2016. 

Martin Wedderburn

Director
Wedderburn Transport Planning

Martin Wedderburn is an independent transport planner with a focus on sustainable modes, especially walking. His experience covers data collection, analysis, forecasting, modelling, and economics. He has recently worked on high-profile business cases for active travel infrastructure in the UK, and on people-focused movement planning for the private sector internationally. 

Matt Bird

General Manager
InLinkUK

Matt Bird is General Manager for InLinkUK, the joint venture between Intersection and Primesight.  InLinkUK is a London- based tech startup partnering with BT to bring a new smart city platform and service to communities across the country, through InLinks. InLinks offer a range of free digital services, including the UK’s fastest free public Wi-Fi.  Appointed in 2016, Matt has extensive experience in the telecoms and technology industries, joining InLinkUK from TalkTalk where he held various roles, most recently as Director of Operations. Prior to his eight years at TalkTalk, Matt held senior roles at AOL and Carrier1. He has a degree in Communication Engineering.

Steve Gooding

Director
The RAC Foundation

Steve Gooding is Director of The RAC Foundation, a transport policy and research organisation which explores the economic, mobility, safety and environmental issues relating to roads and their users. The Foundation publishes independent and authoritative research with which it promotes informed debate and advocates policy in the interest of the responsible motorist. Steve  became director in May 2015, succeeding Professor Stephen Glaister. He was formerly Director General of Roads, Traffic and Local Group at the Department for Transport.

Will Norman

Walking and Cycling Commissioner for London

Will Norman is London’s first Walking and Cycling Commissioner, working to deliver the Mayor’s pledges to make walking and cycling safer and easier in the capital.

Will was previously Director of Global Partnerships at Nike. He spent more than three years working with not-for-profits, governments, UN agencies and European Institutions to tackle the global inactivity crisis, with a particular focus on getting children more active.

Prior to working at Nike, Will was Director of Research at the Young Foundation and also set up a successful social research consultancy.

Will has a PhD from the London School of Economics. He is an avid cyclist and enjoys both running and walking throughout the capital. He lives with his family in east London.

Will is based at both City Hall and Transport for London (TfL), and is paid via TfL.

Steve Garadis

Executive Director
Bicycle Association 

Steve Garidis is the Executive Director of the Bicycle Association of Great Britain, the national trade body representing the cycling industry.  Steve has spent the last 13 years working to promote cycling in the UK.  He led the executive team at Cycling England delivering large scale cycling programmes including the development of Bikeability, the national cycle training programme, and remains a trustee of the Bikeability Trust.  He has also run a number of businesses including a social enterprise, the Electric Bicycle Network, an early promoter of e-bikes for everyday leisure cycling.

Guy Boulby

Head Cycling and Walking
Department for Transport

Guy is currently responsible for cycling and walking in the Department of Transport, including delivery of the commitments set out in the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS), published in April 2017.Heis a qualified aeronautical engineer and project manager and has worked in transport, defence and energy programmes for twenty years, including as programme manager for nuclear defence research initiatives and as the project manager for the UK’s first plan for meeting binding carbon targets: the UK Low Carbon Transition Plan. He recently moved from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, where he was project team leader for delivery of the pilot phase of the £320m Heat Networks Investment Project.

Patrick Darlington

Founder
The Yellow Bike Company

Patrick Darlington is a chartered accountant by training and has a track record of building businesses. Following success in the wine industry, Patrick started Yellowbike to develop the integration of cycling into the urban landscape.

Supported by a grant from Innovate UK, Yellowbike has designed a secure transient bike parking unit, which it believes will offer greater on-street security than anything currently available in the UK.

The continued absence of core infrastructure has convinced Patrick of the need for low-cost/no-cost cycle facilities, to meet the needs of cyclists and provide the UK with the facilities that will support the delivery of better air quality, less congestion and a fitter, more agile population. Clamp-IT, delivering disruptive bike security, is now emerging.