Simon Phipps has engaged at a strategic level in the world’s leading technology companies, starting in roles such as field engineer, programmer, systems analyst and more recently taking on executive leadership roles around open source. Simon worked with X-series standards in the '80s, on collaborative conferencing software in the '90s, helped introduce both Java and XML at IBM, and was instrumental in open sourcing the whole software portfolio at Sun Microsystems as founder of its first staffed Open Source Program Office. He is now managing director of Meshed Insights, which offers open source policy consulting and executive office services

A great deal of his time has been spent on volunteer roles such as founding the Open Source hosting non-profit Public Software CIC, formerly as president and as a director of the Open Source Initiative, formerly as a director of the UK's Open Rights Group and as formerly a deputy director at The Document Foundation.  Simon holds a degree in electronic engineering and is a fellow of the British Computer Society and the Open Forum Academy.