Ordnance Survey's Directors

Vanessa V Lawrence CB

Vanessa Lawrence CB, Director General and Chief Executive, Ordnance Survey

Vanessa is the first woman to head Great Britain's national mapping agency and one of the youngest Director Generals in Ordnance Survey’s 217-year history. She is a world-renowned expert in how geographic information systems (GIS) can improve decision making at all levels of government and business. She is the official adviser to the British Government on mapping, surveying and geographic information.

Vanessa received her business training from the publishing company Pearson plc and has extensive experience in running organisations in several continents.  Before joining Ordnance Survey, she held senior positions at Autodesk Inc, the fourth largest PC software company in the world.  This gave her the responsibility to position GIS strategically with major organisations such as Governments, the European Union, the World Bank, national mapping agencies, cadastral agencies and most importantly new customers world-wide who were not currently using geographic information for decision-making.  During this time, Vanessa worked closely with the Chief Surveyor-General of South Africa to help create the ward structure for the country’s 1999 general election. 

Beyond her work with Ordnance Survey, Vanessa is Chair of the United Kingdom ACE Association,the organisation representing Chief Executives of Government Agencies, Trading Funds and Non-Departmental Public Bodies on behalf of the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell. She also chairs a high-level group with membership drawn from the public and private sectors advising Ministers on using location information to improve decision-making in government.

Vanessa is a patron of two charities, The Cure Parkinson’s Trust and MapAction, a UK-based international charity which specialises in the mapping of disaster areas and supplying geographic information for humanitarian relief operations. 

Vanessa is the Honorary Vice-President of The Geographical Association and a member of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society and of the University of Southampton.  Vanessa is a Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton and Kingston University. 

Vanessa is one of the few recipients of the Scottish Geographical Medal, a prestigious award conferred only occasionally since 1890 by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. In addition shehas six Honorary Doctorate degrees and is an Honorary Fellow of University College London.

Vanessa was appointed as a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (CB) in the Queen’s 2008 New Year Honours list.

Neil Ackroyd

Director of Data Collection and Management

Neil leads the organisation’s gathering of information from across Great Britain to maintain and update our digital mapping database. Prior to joining Ordnance Survey in 2001, Neil was the European Technical Manager for location-based services (LBS) company Trimble^®. He had a primary role in the adoption of GPS technology across both the public and private sectors.

James Brayshaw

Director of Sales and Market Development

James is responsible for the sales and marketing of digital data and paper mapping. He joined Ordnance Survey from the private sector in November 2001, bringing over 15 years’ extensive IT technical and consultative sales and marketing management experience. In his former employment, he established the UK organisation for a US B2B collaboration and e-commerce web portal solutions provider in 12 months, and launched the brand in an emerging marketplace.

Jan Hutchinson

Director of Human Resources and Corporate Services

Jan is responsible for a range of services, including human resources, health and safety, estate services and internal communications. Before joining Ordnance Survey in 2002, Jan held a number of senior posts at Centrica^® plc, the most recent of which was Customer Services Director with Goldfish^® – Centrica’s banking business.

Peter ter Haar

Director of Products

Peter is responsible for all aspects of product management including  product marketing, engineering, cartography and supply. He joined Ordnance Survey in November 2006, with more than 18 years’ experience in product management and business development in both the public and private sectors in GIS, location-based services and mobile technology. His previous roles include the head of GIS at the City of Amsterdam, and senior product and technical management roles in Geodan, Autodesk^®Europe and Intergraph^® Europe.

Bob Goodrich

Director of Information Systems

Bob is responsible for Ordnance Survey’s entire technology infrastructure. This includes the implementation of our new seamless database management system which will improve the speed and efficiency of how we handle and generate our geographic information. Bob was previously our IS programme director. He originally trained as  an Ordnance Survey cartographer before moving to research and development, and finally information services. It was there that he was instrumental in the 2001 delivery of OS MasterMap, the largest seamless geospatial database in the world.  

Mark Alexander

Director of Finance

Mark heads both our Finance and Procurement teams and our Programme Delivery Unit. He was previously at construction group Bovis Lend Lease^®, where he was Chief Financial Officer of its PFI business. Prior to that, he held senior posts in the rail industry as Finance Director for train operator Laing Rail, and in the technology sector for science and engineering group AEA Technology^®.

Non-Executive Chairman

Sir Rob Margetts CBE, FREng, FIChemE 

Beginning his career with the ICI Group in 1969, Sir Rob progressed through a number of appointments within the group prior to joining the Board in 1992, becoming Vice-Chairman for two years from 1998 to 2000. Since 2002 he has been Chairman of Legal & General Group plc and in 2006 also became Chairman of Ensus Ltd. 

He is also Non-Executive Director of Anglo-American plc and Chairman of the Energy Technologies Institute. Sir Rob was Chairman of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) from 2001 to 2006. 

Non-Executive Directors

Michael Sommers

Michael runs his own strategic marketing consultancy and is also a Non-Executive Director of the Department for Works and Pensions. His career includes marketing directorship roles for Woolworths^® plc and TSB^®, and managing directorships at Entertainment UK and MGM^® Cinemas.

Piers White

Piers White is the Chief Executive Officer of Insinger de Beaufort^®. His previous positions include Service Director of Barclays^® bank, Managing Director of Fleming Premier Banking^®, Chairman of Fleming Offshore Private Banking and a Director of the Save & Prosper^® Group Ltd. He is a Non-Executive Director of Symbia^® Ltd and a school governor.