Tony Cann, CBE, DL, Hon. LLD

Co-founder of ACTIVLINGUA Ltd

Tony Cann, CBE, is the founder and Chairman of ACTIVLINGUA Ltd and is responsible for establishing and communicating the strategic direction of the company.

Tony's Vision is for students to enjoy the best interactive language learning experience.

In the 1970's Tony founded Terminal Display Systems specialising in graphics display systems and digitizers. Later this coalesced into Promethean as a result of Tony's interest in education. Tony was convinced that, given the right tools, teachers could dramatically enhance the learning experience which in turn would increase the life chances of the learners. This led Tony to direct the Promethean focus towards the provision of collaborative classroom solutions that enrich the teaching and learning environment.

Tony is committed to providing quality education for all. His interest in this area derived from his time as founder Chair of the East Lancashire Training & Enterprise Council (ELTEC), (consistently ranked in the top three within the country), a position he held for five years. This led to membership of the TEC National Council; founding membership of the Further Education Funding Council; membership of the National Advisory Council for Education & Training Targets, for its life; Chair of Lancaster University Finance and General purposes Committee; Director of Ufi (University for Industry); Governor of a local college; and Chair of the Management Committee (and Trustee) of the Ruskin Foundation.

Tony's dedication to the educational field stems from his wish to raise the standards of education for future generations. Awarded the CBE for his work in education and training, his commitment to education has also seen Tony awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Lancaster University.

Tony is married with five children and has lived in the Ribble Valley for over 40 years.

 

Alan Walker

Co-founder of ACTIVLINGUA Ltd

Alan is committed to evolving the language learning experience so that students can acquire languages more effectively and teachers can improve their work/life balance.

Alan's links with Terminal Display Systems - later to become Promethean, began over 20 years ago when he started his international sales and management career in the group at Dextralog and went on to become the company's top salesman for a number of years.

Later he moved to Synon, an international vendor of software development tools, - to grow their relationship with IBM in the UK. He was head hunted by System Software Associates, a Chicago based company, to manage sales campaigns into some of their top global accounts. He was then promoted to Business Development Manager for their Nordic region   -   responsible for direct selling and managing partner channels across four countries.

Alan went to school in Manchester and Bury and earlier in his career he qualified as a Mechanical design engineer. After studying at UMIST, he held positions at General Engineering and British Aerospace.

Originating in Lancashire, Alan is married with three children.

 

Stephen Jury

CEO of ACTIVLINGUA Ltd

Stephen Jury is a Director of ACTIVLINGUA and is also the Chief Executive Officer of Promethean Ltd.   Stephen has guided Promethean through tremendous growth and development and has seen the company become a major player in the UK educational ICT industry.

Stephen is committed to the continuing advancement of education and is a member of the New Education Technologies Group of the British Education Suppliers Association. He is also a member of the newly formed Department for education and Skills', ICT in School' Educational Suppliers (Industry) Stakeholder Group.

Prior to joining Promethean, Stephen was the CEO of Shropshire Chamber of Commerce, Training and Enterprise (formerly Shropshire TEC). In this role he served on various national policy advisory groups on Education and Youth Training and also Rural Issues.

Earlier in his career, Stephen worked at East Lancashire Training and Enterprise Council, managed a manufacturing business in East Lancashire and worked for P&O Freight Forwarding in London and Miami USA.

As a native of Lancashire, Stephen went to school in Blackburn and on the Isle of Man. He is married with three daughters. He holds a first class honours degree from Manchester University and an Open University MBA. Stephen is also a prize-winning Graduate of the Institute of Export.

 

Neil Johnson

Chief Financial Officer of ACTIVLINGUA Ltd

Neil joined Promethean as Chief Financial Officer in November of 2005. He is responsible for the Group’s Finance and Information Technology functions.

Prior to joining Promethean, Neil was Group Financial Controller at British Energy Group plc during its successful financial restructuring and re-listing to the FTSE 250.

Previously to British Energy, Neil was Finance Director at Teradyne Inc (NYSE - a world leading supplier of electronic test equipment), for its Diagnostic Solutions division, where he was responsible for the division’s worldwide Finance and IT functions.

Formerly, Neil was European Finance Director for GenRad Inc, a NYSE listed corporation supplying electronic and automotive test hardware and software.

In addition Neil has held various Senior Finance positions at Courtaulds plc, both in Europe and USA, and at Touche Ross (Deloitte & Touche) in Birmingham.

Neil holds a First Class Honours degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Aston University and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

 

Julia Glass

Director of Interactive Language Learning for ACTIVLINGUA

Julia Glass is Director of Interactive Language Learning, and heads the design and development team.

Julia began her teaching career nearly 20 years ago in Malta and has taught in the Middle East and in the UK at Lancaster University. As Director of Studies in Saudi Arabia she specialised in developing materials suitable for this and other Islamic cultures.

Her research interests include computer based text analysis, gender bias in texts and EFL materials design.

Julia is committed to producing high quality and user friendly EFL materials in the new and exciting environment of Interactive Whiteboards. Over the past few years she has been working on the development of materials for teachers to use in an Interactive Whiteboard language teaching environment.

Julia is originally from North Yorkshire with a UCLES/TEFLA and an MA in Linguistics for ELT from Lancaster University. She lives in the UK and Sweden and has three children.