Speakers

Jamie Andrew OBE – Keynote

Mountaineer

Jamie Andrew is an incredible and inspiring individual. He is the first quadruple amputee in the world to have climbed The Matterhorn in Switzerland, the first to climb Kilimanjaro in Africa, the first to complete a Marathon and the first to complete an Iron Man Triathlon.
Jamie Andrew’s story is quite simply one of the most gripping and inspiring you will encounter.

In January 1999 mountaineer Jamie Andrew and a climbing partner were trapped for five nights on the storm bound icy summit of a French mountain. The rescue, which was one of the most dramatic in the history of the Alps, came only hours too late to save his partner. Jamie, despite suffering hypothermia and appalling frostbite, survived. Days later all four of his hands and feet were amputated.
For many, this fate would have meant the end of all hope, but not for Jamie. Since losing his hands and feet Jamie has achieved some incredible feats. He has learned to walk again, taken up skiing, run marathons and iron-man triathlons, and remarkably, returned to climbing once more in the mountains that he loves so much.

Jamie’s story, recounted with honesty and passion, is nothing short of incredible.

Nicola Bennett

Application Support Specialist, City & Guilds

As the Application Support Specialist at City & Guilds, Nicola is the Surpass ‘expert’, providing dedicated system support to assessment development colleagues, specifically focusing on delivering innovative onscreen assessment solutions.

With over 10 years’ experience working in various assessment roles within two UK awarding organisations, Nicola gained a wealth of knowledge across assessment content design and delivery before transitioning to her current role in IT.

In 2018, Nicola gained a Postgraduate Certificate in Educational Assessment and Examinations from the University of Cambridge. Nicola is passionate about creating valid, engaging and inclusive onscreen assessments to better support learners to demonstrate their abilities through the use of technology.

Ian Brumfitt

Chief Operating Officer, BTL

Ian is Chief Operating Officer at BTL and has ultimate management responsibility for customer operational success and growth as well as leading the Service Delivery, Service Desk, and Live Services functions within the Operations department. As we operate in a high-stakes examination environment, the performance and continuous availability of the live service is key for our customers.  Ian applies a highly robust approach to the management of those services and any factors that may impact upon it.

Ian joined BTL in 2005 and prior to his COO role worked as the Head of Service Delivery and a Senior Account Manager, during which time he worked on some of BTL’s largest projects. He possesses a customer-centric focus and has a strong operational background.

Graeme Clark

Head of Digital Assessment Services, SQA

Graeme worked for many years in Further Education teaching Engineering, Mathematics and Computing and led the development and implementation of digital assessment and learning systems within FE and in SQA. He is passionate about the continued and increased use of digital technology to deliver a positive impact on the achievement and success of learners.

Phil Cowen

Business Change Manager – Operational Systems Programmes

Phil Cowen is a Business Change Manager in the Operational Systems Programmes team at OCR and is the key contact for Surpass in the organisation. Currently working on the migration of qualifications to HTML delivery, Phil has been involved with Surpass since it was first used by OCR and managed the migration to release 12. During his time at OCR, he has worked in the field of e-assessment including computer-based assessment, e-portfolios and on-screen testing.

Patrick Craven

Director of Policy, Strategic Partnerships and Stakeholder Engagement, City & Guilds

Patrick has over 30 years’ experience in the field of accreditation, assessment design and educational technology. From the design of educational resources with MESU/NCET and BECTa to running post-sales technology support departments with Apple Computer, his career has always addressed the fusion of education, skills development and assessment technologies.  

For the last 20 years this work has focused on the specific field of learning and assessment research and development linked to Government Policy and national accreditation programmes. This spanned work with the RSA Examinations Board, OCR Examinations and Cambridge Assessment Group. He now leads on Strategic Partnerships, Stakeholder Policy and Bids/Tendering work for City & Guilds. The role considers the growing impact of Policy and new technologies on the education and skills industry. It also identifies initiatives to enable City & Guilds to develop and extend the range and quality of learning and assessment products and services they offer. 

Jim Crawford

Chief Commercial Officer and Company Director, BTL

Jim manages BTL’s international business development and marketing functions, and works closely with technical departments to ensure that our products and services are strategically aligned with the growing Surpass community.  

Jim’s passion for creating better assessments started alongside his career in the education sector, when in 2005 he worked on e-learning design for some of the world’s most recognisable brands such as HSBC, UNESCO and Boots. As a Product Owner at BTL, Jim was responsible for overseeing the design and development of a new SaaS version of our core platform, Surpass, which is now used by the majority of Surpass customers to deliver over 3 million tests a year. 

Jim has been with BTL for over 12 years and is a regular speaker at assessment events with a particular focus on innovation and emerging technologies. 

jim.crawford@btl.com

Amanda Dainis

CEO and Lead Psychometrician, Dainis and Co.

Amanda is the CEO and Lead Psychometrician of Dainis & Company, Inc. She holds a PhD and an MPA, both from James Madison University. Amanda is a lead psychometric assessor for the ANSI / ISO 17024 standard, and travels the world helping organizations develop credential programs and navigate the accreditation process. Dr Dainis is the author of To Validity and Beyond: A Handbook for Credentialing Exams, available on Amazon. 

Paul Edelblut

Vice President of Cognitive Computing, Vantage Labs

Paul is the Vice President of Cognitive Computing for Vantage Labs based in the USA. With almost 30 years of experience in both education and technology, his roles include: teacher, trainer, author, and product developer. Paul is known for his contributions on more than seven books in the field of medical licensure and for bringing Artificial Intelligence to large scale assessments at GMAC, ACT, ACER, ACARA, the US-CIS and the United Nations. Recently, Paul has focused on leveraging Big Data to revolutionise assessments around the world. Paul has published more than 50 papers and presented at more than 150 conferences. His recent chapter in ‘Adaptive Instructional Systems’ (Springer 2020) highlights the power of AI to provide real-time adaptive feedback to students, leading to dramatic improvements in knowledge.

Gavin Evans

Co-Founder and Director of Operations, the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC)

Gavin is a widely-respected Accessibility expert, with 18 years’ experience in the field of accessibility. Previously involved with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines working group (WCAG WG) primarily involved with Mobile Accessibility Task Force and Evaluation and Methodologies Task Force, Gavin has been in the accessibility arena since 2004. As well as running operations, he also delivers consultancy and training to DAC clients.

Lynne Frederickson

Project Manager, Michigan Language Assessment

Lynne holds an MA in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan, and has a broad background in software quality assurance and project management. She has been with the University of Michigan for ten years, and for the last two years has been a Project Manager at Michigan Language Assessment, where she is responsible for digital transformation initiatives. 

Robbie Furter

Senior Director of Assessment and Psychometrician, PAEA

Robbie Furter, PhD, is the Senior Director of Assessment and Psychometrician at PAEA, where he oversees PAEA’s suite of exam programmes. His current work focuses on communicating the value of assessment and supporting educators in their use and interpretation of assessment scores. Robbie’s operational, evaluative, and research interests include principled assessment design, the creation of robust assessment/data systems and optimization across the assessment/data lifecycle. In addition to his work at PAEA, Robbie serves as a lecturer for the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Bob Gomersall

Chairman, BTL

Bob Gomersall founded BTL in 1985 and is currently the Chair. He was educated at the universities of Durham and Bristol and worked as a theoretical physicist at the Max Planck Institute, Stuttgart. He has taught physics at Manchester Grammar School and Bradford Grammar School (where he was Head of Physics).

He is also Chair and founder of Advanced Digital Innovations (UK) Ltd and former chair (and founder) of the Virtual College Group (now a part of Netex Learning).

He was a longstanding board member of HF Holidays and is currently a national vice-president. Bob has a particular interest in innovation, and has formerly chaired the Leeds City Region Business Innovation and Growth Panel and was an ex-officio member of the Local Enterprise Partnership. He is married with four grown up children, all engineers.

bob.gomersall@btl.com

Emma Hall

Head of Business Development – BTL

Since joining BTL in 2011 Emma has worked closely with a diverse range of assessment organisations to help them explore how they can make the best use of technology, whilst understanding and tackling the challenges that moving to a new assessment system can involve. Since 2018, Emma has led the Business Development team at BTL’s UK Head Office, where she works to guide awarding organisations and assessment providers around the world through the process of selecting and implementing new assessment solutions. Emma’s work with new e-assessment adopters has given her a keen interest in how we can better support people facing this change, to ensure the least stressful experience for every e-assessment user and candidate, and to this end Emma has also been a board member of the e-Assessment Association since 2018.

emma.hall@btl.com

Ian Higgins

Lead UX Designer, BTL

Ian is the Lead UX Designer at BTL, after initially joining the company as an experienced graphic designer. His work includes the conversion of Surpass content to HTML formats, the redesign of Test Creation and NBME’s CAS system. He also provides advice on a range of other key projects, especially the provision of accessible navigation for test takers.

ian.higgins@btl.com

Tanya Hollister

Associate Director, Examinations at Chartered Professional Accountants Canada (CPA Canada)

As the Associate Director, Examinations, Tanya oversees the examinations for CPA Canada’s Professional Education Program (PEP) and the Preparatory Courses (PREP). Working with a team of ten professionals and administrative staff, the team creates and oversees the marking of 94 examinations per year, some of which are offered in both French and English. Tanya has over 19 years of experience in various roles within the examination field and has been with CPA Canada for over seven years. Tanya is a CPA, CA in Canada and has a United States CPA (Illinois) designation.

Gareth Hopkins

Assessment Solutions Specialist, BTL

Gareth has over 17 years’ experience in the e-assessment field, focusing primarily on the creation of screen-based assessments. That work has included the transition of paper-based assessments to screen, design of screen-first assessments and the migration of item banks and tests into Surpass.

Gareth joined BTL in 2021, and works in the Solutions team as an Assessment Solutions Specialist, combining his experience of assessment development with the technical aspects of solutions development.

gareth.hopkins@btl.com

Janet Legge

Director of Awarding Body, ACT

Janet Legge has been Director of Awarding Body at the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) since May 2017. She has over 15 years’ experience in the education sector, working for leading awarding bodies such as City & Guilds and Pearson. With extensive experience of qualification design and development and assessment delivery, her passion lies in digital transformation and service improvement. At City & Guilds she led the transition from paper-based exams and marking to online assessment and marking.  

Since coming to the ACT, she has focused on reviewing the entire qualification suite, delivering the masters level Advanced Diploma in Treasury Management qualification and running all the assessments, using online invigilation. Lately, her focus has been on rolling out digital credentials to the ACT community and working with partner learning organisations, such as FutureLearn, to extend the reach of treasury qualifications to a wider market and support the rapidly developing need for ESG courses and qualifications. 

Janet has a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics, from Rhodes University in South Africa and a Level 5 Certificate in Leadership and Management from the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM). 

Meranda Lokey

COO, Dainis and Company, Inc.

Meranda currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Dainis and Company, Inc. She is responsible for overseeing the organisation’s day-to-day operational functions and ensures that the existing business infrastructure has the capacity to achieve the company’s strategic goals. In addition, Meranda is actively involved as a Project Manager for several clients. In this role, she ensures the timely achievement of project goals and objectives. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Communication from West Virginia University. Meranda is a credentialing specialist recognized by the Institute for Credentialing Excellence and specialises in assisting clients to develop certification programmes that meet ANSI / ISO 17024 and NCCA standards. 

Andy McAnulla

President, BTL Surpass

Andy has been heavily involved in the design and implementation of assessment technology for over 20 years. Andy has a strong technology background in software engineering and architecture and is highly experienced in leading software development at large scale. Earlier in his career at BTL, Andy received the IT Practitioner of the Year award from the UK’s Chartered Institute of IT for his leadership and implementation of the breakthrough assessment technology that later became known as the Surpass Assessment platform. Surpass now powers some of the world’s largest and most prestigious assessment programmes.

In 2017, Andy relocated with his family from the UK to establish the BTL office in Pennsylvania and service the North American assessment market. Over the past four years, Andy has been focused on the business growth of BTL Surpass in North America, which in 2020 was recognized with multiple American and international business awards including ‘Fastest Growing Tech Company of the year’ and ‘Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year’.

Andy has previously been a board member of the UK’s e-Assessment Association for several years and currently serves as a board member for the Association of Test Publishers (ATP). Andy also regularly presents at various industry conferences including ATP, ICE and the Certification Networking Group and is passionate about learning and sharing good practices that may help to provide students with the best possible assessment experiences and outcomes.

Andy currently serves on the ATP Board of Directors and represents members of European testing industry. Prior to this, Andy was a board member of the UK’s e-Assessment Association for three years and served on a number of committees providing guidance on the judicious use of technology in the assessment process. Andy has also delivered various presentations at ATP, ICE and the Certification Networking Group and is passionate about sharing experiences and good practices that may help organisations to provide students with the best possible assessment experiences and outcomes.

andy.mcanulla@surpass.com

Martin Mewis

e-Submission Delivery Manager, WJEC

Martin Mewis has worked in the Education Sector since 1998, starting out as an IT Technician in a secondary school in the West Midlands. He then moved to Wales, and to WJEC, where he became Content Manager for NGfL Cymru, a Welsh Government-funded contract, which was an online portal providing bilingual educational resources for schools in Wales.  

Martin then changed roles and headed up the e-Assessment team for WJEC – managing the delivery of on-screen examinations for a number of GCEs, GCSEs and Vocational qualifications, which has expanded to include the electronic submission of candidates’ work. 

Keith Myers

Chief Executive Officer, BTL

Keith has now completed 20 years as CEO. During this time BTL has grown to be one of the largest assessment technology providers in the UK serving the needs of most of the largest awarding bodies. From this strong UK position Keith has led the international expansion with an office in the US and millions of tests across the world now delivered through Surpass, while BTL has grown from a workforce of 20 to 220.

Keith qualified as an accountant which led to a variety of roles in accounting and the implementation of computer systems, firstly in accounting contexts and then more widely, though his favourite early role was two years working in Bermuda’s offshore insurance industry. Keith now spends his time on strategic direction and managing a highly talented team with as light a touch as possible. He is still striving to improve the experience and fairness of assessments to benefit an increasing number of test takers across the world.

keith.myers@btl.com

Ben Newby

Chief Digital Officer, WJEC

Ben is the Chief Digital Officer at WJEC, responsible for digital services such as e-assessment and IT. With 25 years’ experience in regulated sectors, he is now embracing the challenge of adopting technology in the awarding organisation landscape for the benefit of students, teachers and other stakeholders.

Adam Norris

Accessibility Developer, BTL

Adam works as part of the dedicated accessibility team in BTL. With eight years of development experience and four years working in the accessibility field, he brings a wealth of knowledge to the team.

Day-to-day, Adam works on identifying and fixing accessibility issues in Surpass products along with offering advice to other teams. He is passionate about his work and aims to make the assessment experience more inclusive for everyone.

Jamie Saldutti

Vice President of Application Services, NBME

Jamie is the VP of application development and support in the IT division of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME). She has been with NBME for 15 years and has led the implementation of several enterprise software solutions at NBME, including the initial implementation of BTL Surpass which commenced in 2017. She currently manages a team of software engineers that develop and manage NBME’s internal and external customer facing applications. She has her MBA from New York University, Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, and is a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO).

Mike Taylor

Senior Accessibility Analyst, the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC)

Mike has been using screen reading software for over 20 years, and tests websites and applications using different screen readers on various platforms. Mike is a Senior screen reader analyst at DAC and delivers training to QA teams on screen reading software. Mike has been blind since birth, and has a postgraduate teacher training qualification from Swansea Metropolitan University.

Ashleigh Whittle

Head of Supporting Services, BTL

Ashleigh heads up the Supporting Services department at BTL, which is made up of several services such as Training, Item Migration, Test Conversion, Publishing and The Managed Service. These services are utilised in the onboarding of new clients and her team members further support clients with their Surpass journey as they reach business-as-usual.
Ashleigh graduated from York St John University with a BA (Hons) in English Literature and an MA in Creative Writing. She continued to work in education for two years before joining BTL, specifically in event management, coaching students in employability skills and creating graduate opportunities with employers across Yorkshire. Ashleigh has worked at BTL for a few years in a few different roles, first starting as a Technical Author. Ashleigh is TAP and COLF certified and completed the APM Fundamentals in Project Management last year.

ashleigh.whittle@btl.com

Sonya Whitworth

Managing Director, BTL

Sonya leads the UK team at BTL and is responsible for business growth for the UK and internationally. She managed operations at BTL for 15 years, before becoming MD in 2017. 

As Managing Director, she supports various projects to drive continued improvement, business growth and promotion of company values. Sonya’s passion is to empower people to have variety, autonomy, challenge and satisfaction in what they do, so their input will make BTL a fantastic place to work as well as the best assessment service in the world.  

 In 2019, Sonya won an international Stevie Award for Women in Business, recognising her work and leadership at BTL. The Stevie Awards are the world’s premier business awards, and Sonya was the only UK finalist in her category. 

Sonya also focuses on the growth of our portfolio of services, which allow BTL to support their customers and provide them with flexibility. Ultimately, BTL’s aim is to make sure that we have customers’ and candidates’ goals at the heart of everything we do, and Sonya strives to ensure that BTL achieves that vision. 

sonya.whitworth@btl.com