Gary Barr

Gary is an IT leader with over 25 years experience in industry including retail, manufacturing, health and services. As IT Director at the National Blood Service (NBS) he led the successful implementation of the award winning Pulse programme which created a single system for managing the blood supply in England, from donor to hospital. After leaving the NBS he joined Welcome Break, the Motorway Services provider, completely refreshing and replacing the business systems. He then went on to lead the IT team at Sodexo UK & Ireland running a variety of systems over 2000 sites. He started to work for WM Morrisons in 2006, as IT Director where he was key to the launching and leading of the Evolve programme, one of Europe's largest retail ITtransformations. After leaving WM Morrisons he joined Dixons Group the electrical retailer as Group IT Director. In 2014 he decided that after 25 years in operational IT management it was time for a change and is pursuing a consulting and a non-executive career. He has also served as a Governor at Bedfordshire University, is a Governor of the Lantern School Ely, is the Honorary Secretary at Cambridge Rugby Club and has sat on several industry advisory boards.