Introducing Earl of Erroll

It's great to be able to formally announce that the Earl of Erroll has agreed to become Chairman of Pingar's UK Advisory Board.

Lord Erroll (Merlin) has worked in IT most of his life. He is also one of the Hereditary Peers who was elected to stay in the House of Lords, where he takes a particular interest in ICT, Countryside & the Environment, the Constitution and Scottish matters.

Working on software development in the accounts and agricultural field, he subsequently freelanced, developing portfolio management, communications and general bespoke databases, ending up as Director of Development at GiroVend, working with electronic purses and smartcards. He then moved into marketing and business training and went on to become chairman of an e-procurement consultancy.

Within Parliament, he plays an active role in several ICT groups, especially those looking at regulatory issues involving Communications, the Internet, Personal Identity and Government Data Sharing, linking this with a Local Authority perspective through his work on the board of LASSeO (The Local Authority Smartcard Standards e-Organisation). He sits on the council of PITCOM (Parliamentary Information Technology Committee), is on the board of EURIM (European Information Group), is Secretary of apComms (All-Party Communications Group), Vice-Chairman of the All-Party Group on Entrepreneurship, and Treasurer of the All-Party Group on Risk and Adventure in Society. In 2007 he sat on the Science & Technology Select Committee’s sub-committee on Personal Internet Safety.

He is President of E-RA (the E-business Regulatory Alliance) and also sits on other bodies such as the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) and the Nominet (UK) Ltd.

He has an extensive network of contacts across government, industry and the city, and is a professional public speaker, especially on ICT, security, legislation, the citizen and the state, and the internet, as well as traditional themes.