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Brian Ellis (Chairman)

Following  a short period as an Executive Officer in the Civil Service, Brian Ellis entered the  computer industry in 1959 when the industry was in its infancy. After several years with a (then) large computer supplier, Burroughs, he rose to the dizzy heights of Midlands Manager and left in 1970.

He started his first company - a Computer Bureau - Coventry Data Services in Coventry (where else!) in 1971. His interest was subsequently sold to a family member who still runs the company today. It is now a worldwide provider of computerised registration services to the Exhibition/Conferencing Industry.

The forerunner of Interchange Group was set up by Brian and a partner in 1976  and Brian joined the company full time in 1979. The company was sold to Granada in 1987 but he remained a director under Granada and bought the company back in 1990 and merged it with Optim in 1992. 

Brian sadly passed away on 31st December 2007 following a long illness.

Phillip Jones (Managing Director)

After completing an HND in Business Studies, Phillip studied Certified Accountancy. Having worked within the Public Sector and the Hotel Industry, Phillip entered the Computer Industry as Company Accountant in the early seventies with a USA Computer Leasing company.

He remained within the "hi-tech" environment moving to Kalle Infotec, the  office machinery supplier a subsidiary of Hoechst, as a Management Accountant and then as Finance and Administration Manager to Lucas Defence Systems who,  amongst other things, provided computerised fire control systems. Lucas Defence  specialised in MOD contracts and similar overseas government opportunities. In 1978 Phillip joined Datum an American supplier of peripheral systems to minicomputer OEM's where he was the European Administration Manager.

In 1980 he left with other members of the US operation to set up a UK  subsidiary for Digidyne a US minicomputer manufacturer. This company was  eventually taken over by MCS Minicomputer Systems the forerunner to Optim now  part of Interchange.

From being a founder director of Digidyne UK, until its takeover by MCS Inc. Phillip served as Operations Manager and then General Manager of MCS Inc. before  becoming Director of Marketing for Optim. He was Operations Director of Optim through to 1991 when he became Managing Director, a position which he maintained  on the merger of Optim and Interchange in 1992.

Ken Hodgson (Sales Director)

With a broad business background and widespread understanding of new technology developments, Ken Hodgson is now the Sales Director at Interchange Group.

A graduate of British Telecom's training programme, Ken began his career by gaining City and Guild qualifications in both telephony and telegraphy and an HND in Electronic engineering.

He joined Burroughs as a mainframe engineer before moving to Computer Investment Limited in 1983, where he specialised in mainframe computing and voice/data communication.  His role expanded to field service manager, at which point he also took on general management responsibilities. When a management buy-out took place from Granada in 1990, Ken became Business Development Director.

During the 1990s, Ken's career has developed into a number of executive roles including sales, marketing, project management and general management. Today he enjoys the challenge of new business areas that can capitalise on his extensive business experience and understanding of developments within the new technology field. 

Barry Fairburn (Technical Director)

After obtaining an honours degree in Computer Science from Warwick University, Barry enjoyed a stint with Capricorn Computer Systems writing  compilers / interpreters for the BCPL language and database management / 4GL systems including report writers and other tools.

Later at Optim Computer Group Barry migrated through development positions into support and technical roles ultimately as Technical Support Manager running  a team providing technical support to the customer base and internal  infrastructure. Barry joined Interchange Group as Technical Director in 1992.

Barry is responsible for Interchange Group's BS5750/ISO9001 registration and our move towards TQM. Within this brief he obtained the award "Centre of Excellence with Distinction" for Interchange from IBM three years in succession. Interchange were one of the first companies in the UK to achieve the TickIT  rating for software development, and operate a mature PRINCE based project methodology.

Barry has a long history of software development, projects have covered the  full range from Operating System device drivers through to commercial DBMS systems. Barry is fluent in 'C' and Java, but has good knowledge and experience  with a whole range of languages - they just seem to keep inventing them !

Operating system experience includes extensive knowledge of Unix (most versions during the last 20 years from Sys 7 to date), a good working  familiarity with Microsoft Operating Systems, and many other proprietary  systems. Barry is trained in NT support and administration, and although lapsed was a qualified AIX Support Professional.
And yes, he does like Linux.

Barry has Internet and World Wide Web skills and constructed the group's web and email infrastructure including name servers, web servers (12), firewalls, web applications and other "fun" technology.

Other activities include security auditing and performance analysis. For example working with our cobol supplier ACU in San Diego to improve their runtime performance under VMS, and more recently tuning Oracle SQL access under  Solaris using the "perform" tool to simulate large scaling systems.

Peter Neville (Business Strategy Director)

Peter Neville has 18 years experience in business consultancy and project  management at a strategic level within the IT industry. His breadth of knowledge comes from experience in his roles as consultant, senior consultant, applications support manager, business support manager and group business strategy manager for Interchange Group.

Formerly an audit manager at Coopers and Lybrand, Peter has an honours degree  in Industrial Economics and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. As Group strategy manager he is responsible for developing and  implementing key business strategies for all the Interchange Group's divisions, including consultancy.

Peter's experience covers most European countries, North America, South  Africa, Australia and the Middle East.

Dave Burrows (Research and Development Director)

Yorkshireman Dave Burrows, developed a passion for the technology industry whilst working as haematologist. The work he was undertaking in AI (Artificial Intelligence) gave him a feel for the industry and for the importance of good service and delivery against promises, as well as spurring him to a career  change in 1989, when he joined Interchange Group in 1989.

He quickly progressed to the consultancy group, where he specialised in  service contracts, artificial intelligence, helpdesk and knowledge distribution  techniques. His system design and product development received a DTI SPUR grant  for innovation.

David now heads our product development team which undertakes both research and software development

Married with two children, Burrows has a post graduate qualification in  Computer Studies in addition to his qualifications in medical laboratory sciences.

Leo Bijzet (Director of BV)

Heading up the Interchange Group team responsible for the European markets is Leo Bijzet.

With nearly 30 years' experience spanning the engineering and computing fields, Leo has spent the majority of his career based in Holland, where for the last eight years he has been marketing the Group's service management products and looking after its European customer base.

Having gained a degree in Engineering and Electronics, Leo worked initially for Philips and Rank Xerox before joining MCS in 1980 to pursue his career in the computing field.

His role developed into selling service management systems and when MCS became Optim two years later, he moved into the role of sales manager.  In 1990 he was asked to set up the Dutch office for Servasure and over the following four years successfully built the office into an 11-strong team.

In 1994, Interchange Group turned to him to set up its Dutch operation, which he has been operating ever since.

Andrew Moore (Director of Business Development)

With extensive experience across a wide range of business sectors in both the UK and international markets, Andrew is now a Director of Business Development at Interchange Group.

Having obtained an Honours Degree from the University of Liverpool, Andrew's first role was with the P&O Group, working in a range of business functions around Europe and Asia before joining P&O Japan, with responsibility for managing relationships with strategic Japanese corporations and partner companies.

During this period, corporate reliance on electronic communication as a means to improve business efficiency was rapidly developing, while at the same time the World Wide Web started to reach both corporate and consumer markets. The result was that Andrew soon took on responsibility for European communications in strategic P&O partnerships.

He then decided to “jump ship” and joined the IT industry proper with Interchange Connexions (formerly B&T Connexions), overseeing a diverse range of IT projects across the customer base.

Following the acquisition of B&T Connexions, Andrew was appointed as Director of Business Development (mobile) for the Interchange Group, where he is responsible for the development of customer projects with Mobile and Wireless Computing requirements.  In addition, he is involved in managing strategic relationships with key suppliers in order to ensure customers receive best value from their involvement with Interchange.

Andrew’s skills comes from experience in such customer facing roles as manager, consultant and company director and activities in a wide variety of sectors including Construction, Property Development, Shipping, Retail, Healthcare, Pharmaceutical and Transport.

Grant Jordan (Commercial Manager)
Rex Mayo (Operations Manager)
John Hyde (Senior Consultant)