Community Chairs

Rachael has over 24 years of experience in SAP and the Public Sector, through the lens of Local Government and in the Private Sector at Sodexo. Role change to BAE IM&T Lead (ERP) in February 2024, SAP systems Product owner. Rachael is passionate about ensuring that the consumer of the software is at the heart of all we do. We are delighted to welcome Rachael onto our Board of Directors, as of April 2025.

Philip is Head of Group IT at Mercury, an industry-leading multidisciplinary engineering business with unrivalled experience in multiple sectors and geographic regions, delivering complex engineering projects that enhance development in technology, well-being and the built environment. In his role, Philip is responsible for the IT strategy, landscape & budget across the Mercury Group, comprising all applications, infrastructure, communications and IT innovation for offices and construction sites. Prior to joining Mercury, Philip worked for Accenture on projects spanning public sector and financial services. Philip is also a Director of the UK & Ireland SAP User Group and served as Chairman from 2013 -2017. He is currently on the Core Leadership team for the SAP User Group Executive Network (SUGEN) which includes leaders from multiple user groups worldwide who are focused on driving the market toward excellence and innovation. Philip graduated from The Queens University of Belfast with a master’s degree in Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering.

Emma has over 25 years’ experience in technical and business roles, linking business strategy to technical programme outcomes and ensuring service delivery meets operational needs. As Head of Apps & Platforms at Calor, part of SHV Energy family of companies, she is responsible for the multi-disciplinary teams delivering services and continuous improvement across Calor’s applications. Emma is co-chair of the UKISUG SAP S/4 HANA Community and sits on the Board of Directors. She is a dedicated advocate of women in tech and is committed to championing women’s development in the sector. She co-chairs the Women in SAP Community Focus Group.

Mike joined Alstom in 2012 with a financial background, using Microsoft products. He works with SAP, creating serialised parts and work orders via mass data loads. In 2020, he was involved in acceptance testing during the migration to a single global SAP instance.

Naresh has been working at Sanctuary Housing since 2004 predominantly in finance providing system support and group financial and management account information. Naresh is a qualified accountant which helps him provide the best advice to his peers on system capabilities to meet accounting requirements.

Over 30 years of experience, within the rail industry with Alstom in a variety of roles across its European Operations from hands-on manufacturing to production control, procurement to customer support, inbound warehousing, product distribution and supply chain improvements. More recently creating a London Materials hub delivering long-term material forecasting and short term material planning solutions within SAP. This has now moved to being a UK-wide role delivering material planning solutions for the legacy Bombardier business within Alstom.

Jennifer has over 18 years of experience in SAP and the Public Sector, through the lens of both Local and Central Government. She currently is the Principle ERP Architect at the Department for Transport. Specialising in Shared Services, Jenny is passionate about providing long-term strategic direction and leadership for the development, enhancement and implementation of systems, whilst challenging the status quo.

Craig has been involved in manufacturing for 25 years and has over 20 years experience working with SAP. His background includes sales, sales technical, finance and business analysis, before joining the dark side of IT. He is currently the IT Director – Europe, for Plastipak, a multi-national business manufacturing & recycling PET packaging.

Holly has been working with SAP for over 20 years initially as an end user and then working to deliver business transformation, User Experience and upgrade projects. Her background includes Sales & Distribution, FI/CO, Fiori and Personas. She is now SAP Manager at Shoosmiths.

James’ background in both arts and technology has given him a keen interest in user and customer experience. Over the past decade, he’s worked with internal and external process design, gone through two eCommerce implementations, and managed a global roll-out of Service Cloud, in addition to the BI and analytical work that forms his present-day job. James’ goal is to encourage great customer experience through data storytelling and cross-processed connected thinking.

Married, and with 2 boys, I started my professional career as an archaeologist and then shifted my analytical enthusiasm to the world of SAP. This I have been doing for more than 20 years now with most of those in Payroll support. I like learning stuff and passing it on to others.

Brian has been involved in SAP in both an IT Auditing and Security capacity since 2005. He has 21+ years’ experience as an IT Auditor across different sectors. He is currently involved in the security and monitoring of Tata steel’s SAP installations across UK and Europe. Brian has been a member of the SAP UK & Ireland User Group Board of Directors for six years.

Michael has over 25 years retailing experience and over 22 years implementing and managing SAP solutions in multiple retailers. Within this time he has been involved with many full lifecycle implementations, SAP upgrades and strategic retail & logistics projects. Michael Currently manages the SAP solutions at Pets at Home.

Trish is the Head of Finance Systems at NATS, where she has been since 2008. Her focus is continuously improving people, processes and systems. She started this journey with Cloud CRM, before moving to Finance to focus on the business & system changes such as BW on HANA with BPC, Concur and Analytics. In the past, she has spoken at various SAP User Group events. Her focus is now on the modernisation of the NATS Integrated Business Systems to S4H, together with Success Factors, focusing on change management.

Duncan has an extensive 36-year career in the rail industry, starting in a finance department at British Rail Engineering in 1986. He has since held various positions within operations and headquarters, worked on process development in information systems and procurement and supported the setup of Bombardier's procurement office in Shanghai, China. Duncan now leads a team at Alstom, where he is responsible for developing, managing and maintaining reporting, data visualisation and business systems within the UK Services Business. He holds a Master's degree in Business Administration and is a Chartered Management Accountant.

Paul worked in a number Finance roles over a period of 17 years before switching to a career in IT. Paul has spent 12 years working as an IT Business Analyst largely supporting Finance teams using SAP ECC, SAP BPC and SAP BW. Paul currently works as an IT Delivery Manager responsible for the successful delivery of business change and system developments in the Finance, Commercial and HR functions. Paul has spent the past 17 years working for UK food manufacturing companies.

Leanne has been working at Pets At Home for five years, two years of this was working on the service desk overseeing access management and the past three years she has been part of the SAP Team as a Specialist predominantly in Security and Authorisations. She is new to the SAP world and very keen and driven to learn more about GRC.

Lynda has been working with SAP HR & Payroll for over 15 years in Bank of Ireland. Currently working as a Business Process & Testing Specialist, her role is to support the continuous improvement and changes to SAP HR and Payroll System. Lynda has a background in payroll (7+ years) as she commenced her career in BOI as a payroll officer, processing high volume payrolls for staff and pensioners for both ROI & UK.

Dwaipayan currently works as a Senior SAP Technical Solution Specialist for Dwr Cymru Welsh Water supporting the Security and Technical topics for the SAP S/4HANA programme. Over eight years of experience implementing various SAP solutions in technical roles including large Greenfield S/4HANA projects, Dwaipayan is always on the look to learn about the next thing and intends to continue the learning journey in Enterprise Applications.

Geoff has been working with SAP since the first release of R/3 in 1992. He was head of the finance practice at Diagonal Consulting for 12 years and has worked for Shell International since 2006. At Shell he is a member of the Downstream Process Integration team.

Richard manages SAP testing for Dwr Cymru Welsh water, who he has been with for 19 years playing a key role in a number of major implementations. Active in the user group since 2005, he focuses on the Implementation Community within ALM.

Sandeep has been involved in the Business Intelligence arena for the past 17 yrs. Over this time he has undertaken roles such as Bi Implementation and Exploitation Manager. In his current role Sandeep is looking at how technologies and data around Platform and Database can help drive new insight within organisations.

Rohan has over 16 years of SAP experience across technical and product areas specialising in ALM, SAP Operations and public Cloud technologies. He is passionate about innovating with SAP products, simplifying Operations and SAP best practices enabling customers to run world class SAP lifecycle stages with lower TCO. In his current role at Maersk, he is the SAP Platform Architect for ALM, Tooling and Automation. Prior to this, Rohan held similar roles at bp, GlaxoSmithKline, Centrica and the Royal College of Music. On a more personal note he captains a darts team, enjoys architecture, sports and loves to travel.

Rhian has over 25 years’ service working within the water industry, with a broad range of experience in IT Projects through to Water and Waste Operations and within this time has been involved in many full lifecycle implementations, SAP upgrades and strategic SAP Roadmap projects. Rhian works in Welsh Water’s SAP Collaboration Centre as an SAP Solutions & Assurance Lead, managing a team of Solution specialists specialising in SAP SuccessFactors, Cloud For Customer, Concur, SAP ECC Finance, Plant Maintenance, Reporting and Procurement. Being a key contact for all SAP support processes and SAP Licencing. Previously managed SAP Security team and was Co-Chair of the prior ACS SIG. Rhian moved to the ALM Support Community Chair role in March 2022.

I joined LOR as the IT Manufacturing Systems Manager. My role is to manage the implementation and support of all the IT systems used in our MLP Group (Manufacturing, Logistics & Plant) and to own and manage the SAP Platform. My career background has mainly been in the manufacturing sector, for 30 years and I have 26 years of SAP experience. I have over the years gained job experience in a wide range of roles that is required to handle the complete left to right-hand processes of an order enquiry through to delivery and payment settlement. With this breadth of experience, I am able to identify and relate to the processes required by the LOR businesses to ensure that they have the right IT processes in place. I have nine members in my team, ranging from senior roles to junior roles. We all support each other, really great teamwork from everyone. When I’m not at work I enjoy time with my family and our two ponies.

Costa has more than 20 years of SAP experience delivering global implementations, strategic projects, upgrades, infrastructure installations, licensing and cloud migrations. Costa's senior management portfolio includes CoE and Group Infrastructure management positions in global & FTSE organisations such as Pentland, RS Components and Dunelm. His focus is on service delivery excellence, innovation, Agile practices, and Kanban adoption. His aim is to provide long-term strategic direction and leadership for the development, enhancement, and implementation of systems, thinking outside the box and challenging the status quo to help maximise SAP capabilities and drive organisations forward. Costa has supported the SAP User Group as a board director and in various special interest groups for over 10 years, always bringing his skills and enthusiasm to the table.

Steve has worked with SAP since 1998, with experience of Basis, ABAP, GRC and some functional configuration. More recently he has been working in the area of User Experience – Fiori/UI5, SAP Screen Personas and Design Thinking. He is the SAP Solution Architect at the University of Warwick.

Lisa has worked on SuccessFactors since joining Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP) in 2014. Originally specialising in the Performance & Talent modules, she is now application owner for the full suite of SuccessFactors for CCEP. Her role today includes managing a team of subject matter experts, advising on product enhancements, encouraging user adoption and the reimplementation of SuccessFactors modules following a recent company merger.

With over 20 years of SAP experience, underpinned by a postgraduate MSC from University of Westminster, Caroline's role has involved leading Financial SAP teams and HR SuccessFactors teams. Her role ensures the smooth day-to-day operation of the SAP system, whilst planning and delivering SAP projects, this includes upgrades, migration and introducing new areas of functionality.

Chris is a Head Of Technology with 30 years IT experience across both the public and private sector. Chris joined Central Bedfordshire Council in January 2020 to head up an ambitious IT transformation program across all elements of IT.

John has been working with SAP BW and Business Objects for 13 years including 2 major full SAP implementations. Currently BI Solution Architect for Business Services in National Grid. John's key focus is around Data Visualisation and Design Thinking and how they can be a key factor in getting value out of BI and Analytics solutions.

Claire has over 20 years of experience in the affordable housing sector, working in a range of roles from front-line housing officer to her current role as Lead Functional Architect. She has been working with SAP since 2014, initially as part of a project team at Sanctuary Housing which delivered the first wide-scale implementation of SAP in the sector. Claire currently works in Sanctuary’s internal SAP team, working on a range of projects to deliver change and helping to ensure that the business can continue to develop and grow. Claire has been an active member of the user group since 2015 and has been chair of the Real Estate Focus Group for the past four years.

John has been working in IT for more than 20 years and supporting SAP Business One for the last ten years. In that time, he’s been involved in taking it from a vanilla Line 50 replacement to one that supports European distribution, warehousing and feeding multiple B2B and B2C websites with up-to-the-minute data. John not only supports the User Group as Community Chair, but also sits on the Board of Directors.

Fiona has over 17 years' of experience working with SAP systems and nearly 21 years in IT. Fiona has worked for EDF, Wales & West Utilities, Hewlett Packard and B&Q on their SAP systems in both technical and managerial roles. She has worked on SAP projects and BAU support.

Richard is the Make-to-Deliver Transformation Director at Royal Canin, where he leads a team designing global supply chain solutions for the first S/4HANA implementation at Mars Inc. A Chartered Engineer with an MBA and a background in the consumer products and food industry. Prior to Mars, he worked in manufacturing, maintenance and digital roles at Toshiba, Gillette and P&G. In 2022 he was selected as one of the top 100 changemakers in UK manufacturing by The Manufacturer for his work on digital innovation.