Ian Ritchie is Chairman of iomart plc., Computer Application Services Ltd., the Interactive Design Institute, and Caspian Learning Ltd. He is Co-Chair of the Scottish Science Advisory Council and Chairman of Our Dynamic Earth, the Edinburgh Science Centre.

He is a board member of the Edinburgh International Science Festival. He was a founding director, and Chairman (1988-1990), of the Scottish Software Federation (now ScotlandIS). He is a board member of the GO Group, a trustee of the David Hume Institute, a trustee of the Saltire Foundation, a trustee of the Nominet Trust, and a member of the Council of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Ritchie has also been active in venture capital as a director of Northern Venture Trust plc from 1997-2001 and as a member of the advisory board of Pentech Ventures from 2001. He is a member of the 'Access to Finance' expert group at the UK's Department for Business Innovation and Skills.

Ritchie was awarded a CBE in the 2003 New Years Honours list for services to enterprise and education; he is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering; a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; and a Fellow and a past-President of the British Computer Society (1998-99). He was a member of Scotland's Cultural Commission in 2005/2006.

He has a BSc Hons in Computer Science from Heriot-Watt University (1973), and was awarded Honorary Doctorates by Heriot-Watt University in July 2000, the Robert Gordon University in July 2001, the University of Abertay Dundee in June 2002, and the University of Edinburgh in December 2003.

He has served as Chairman of Judges for the Young Software Engineer awards since inception, the Winners on the Web awards, and as Chairman of the Scottish Financial Director of the Year awards. He has also been a judge on the joint UK Research Councils Business Plan awards, the Economist Innovation awards, and the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRoberts' Awards (the UK's premier award for engineering innovation).

He has been the Founding Chairman of Voxar Ltd, VIS Entertainment plc, Orbital Software Group plc, Digital Bridges Ltd. and Sonaptic Ltd. He was a board member of Scottish Enterprise (1999-2005), the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC 1999-2003), the Scottish Higher and Further Education Funding Council (SFC, 2002-2007), Channel 4 Television Corporation (2000-2005), and EPIC Group plc. (1999-2005), the bespoke e-learning development company.

Ritchie founded and managed Office Workstations Limited (OWL) in Edinburgh in 1984 and its subsidiary OWL International Inc in Seattle from 1985. OWL became the first and largest supplier of Hypertext/Hypermedia authoring tools (a forerunner to the World Wide Web) for personal computers based on its Guide product. OWL's customers used its systems to implement large interactive multimedia documentation systems in industry sectors such as automobile, defence, publishing, finance, and education. OWL was sold to Matsushita Electrical Industrial (Panasonic) of Japan in December 1989.

He is the author of 'New Media Publishing - Opportunities from the digital revolution' published by Financial Times Telecoms and Media Publishing (1996).

Achievements

CBE, FREng, FRSE, FBCS, BSc, CEng

Positions

• Chairman, iomart Group plc
• Chairman, Computer Applications Services Ltd
• Chairman, Caspian Learning Ltd
• Chairman, Interactive Design Institute
• Co-chair, Scottish Science Advisory Council
• Chairman, Our Dynamic Earth
• Director, Edinburgh International Science Festival
• Director, GO Group
• Trustee, Nominet Trust
• Trustee, David Hume Institute
• Trustee, Saltire Foundation
• Past-President, British Computer Society (1998-99)