Business


Shafe Biography

Laurence Shafe BSc BA MSc MA PhD CEng MBCS

Interim IT Manager

Laurence is an experienced senior IT manager within the financial services sector and was formerly chief executive of
software and consultancy businesses.

His most recent assignment was interim Head of IT at Chesham Building Society where he ran day-to-day IT operations and
managed a project to move the society’s IT systems to a managed service run by Skipton Building Society. He completed the
project on time and within budget and the new service enabled the society to operate without an IT department. Skipton has
since acquired Chesham Building Society.

Laurence has also worked for The Catalyst Group as an M&A advisor and in 2008 sold a Scottish defence systems
manufacturer to Curtiss-Wright, a major US defence contractor. He was formerly Chief Executive of IE plc (now part of Parseq PLC),
a company he founded in 1985 and floated on the AIM market in 1996. IE’s strength is in Internet and mobile-based
banking systems and Parseq provides contact centre support and hosting services for financial services organisations
and is one of the ten largest BACS Bureaux services in the UK.

Laurence is experienced at running software and consultancy businesses, IT management, corporate fund raising,
corporate strategy, managing IT projects, presenting at board level and introducing innovative next-generation
banking solutions that improve service levels and reduce costs.

  • 2010 Research, Laurence is carrying out part-time research at the University of Bristol, but is available to
    work as an interim manager in the London area.
  • 2005-2009 Interim Head of IT, at Chesham Building Society where he ran IT operations and managed a project to
    outsource all the IT systems from TietoEnator Summit to a managed service.
    • M&A advisor, at The Catalyst Group.
    • Board advisor, QA Systems Limited, a small financial expert systems company.
  • 2002-2005 Management consultant, advising companies on IT direction and carrying out technical and commercial
    due diligence for investors. Projects included advising a company selling location-based data, a document
    output management company and an internet security company.
    Non-executive director, Intelligent Environments Group plc, an AIM-listed retail banking software products
    company specializing in cards and retail funds.
    Non-executive director, Fluency Voice Technology, a software speech recognition company specializing in speech
    enabling call centres for the finance and travel sectors. Joined the board in June 2002 to help grow the company
    and left in September 2003 when the company acquired AIM-listed Vocalis plc.
  • 1996-2002 Strategy director, Intelligent Environments Group plc advising on business development
    within the financial services sector.
  • 1985-1996 Chief Executive, Intelligent Environments Limited where he was responsible for long-term strategy and
    day-to-day operations in the UK and the US. He helped float the company on the AIM market in 1996 and raise
    £30 million in the City. As part of the company’s expansion he acquired a US consultancy company and
    sold a software asset in the US that was no longer required. He was also responsible for the
    creation, development, launch and marketing of many new products and services including software
    development services, financial applications, development tools, middleware, and infrastructure software.
  • 1982-1985 Helix Software Consultants Limited
    Helix provided services to investment and central banks for systems that included portfolio
    management, bond trading and central banking systems. Laurence joined as Associate Director
    responsible for supplying services to Robert Fleming, he also worked for the central bank of Sweden and helped found Helix Expert Systems.
  • 1968 – 1982 Marconi Research, Leasco Software and Conversational Software
    Project Manager for many large turnkey systems implementation for Mirror Group, Christies, Express Dairies, VMF Stork in Amsterdam and others.

Personal

  • Author of Client/Server: A Manager’s Guide (London: Addison Wesley, 1994)
  • PhD, Computer Science, Queen Mary College, University of London
  • MSc, Computer Science, Birkbeck College, University of London
  • MA, Courtauld Institute, University of London
  • BA, Birkbeck College, University of London
  • Chartered Engineer and Member of the British Computer Society

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.