Simeon Quarrie

Beyond Cyber Security - How to thrive at the forefront of the next digital revolution. Join us through a series of thought-provoking webinars, designed to help you and your business navigate through the future of cyber security, digitalisation, and innovation.

Like many, you may view cyber as a boring, techie, and an ultimately scary subject.

Lancaster University’s ‘Beyond Cyber’ webinar series provides an alternative and thought provoking look into using cyber as an innovative tool to help businesses.

The third episode in our series introduces Simeon Quarrie, CEO at Vivida. Simeon has been helping thousands look at cyber differently.

Simeon has used cyber as an exciting opportunity to drive his business forward, whilst simultaneously fulfilling his mission to change behaviours.

Simeon has never had the luxury of standing still with his business and he will use the session to change the way you view cyber. Instead of living in fear of a hack, you’ll view cyber as an opportunity to grow.

You'll hear from Simeon and our panel of experts, and have the opportunity to ask question and interact throughout the webinar.

"One of the hardest things for organisations to do is to get people engaged with content. Cyber threats are becoming increasingly potent. Chief security officers get it, but to be able to tackle this problem, we need everyone within an organisation to understand digital safety. When people are able to take subjects and blend them with a story, then all of a sudden they become understandable."
- Simeon Quarrie

Simeon Quarrie is CEO at Vivida. Simeon has been helping thousands look at Cyber differently. Simeon is one a few who have used Cyber as an exciting opportunity to drive his business forward whilst simultaneously fulfilling his mission to change behaviours. Simeon has never had the luxury of standing still with his business and he will use the session to change the way you view Cyber. Instead of living in fear of a hack, you’ll view cyber as an opportunity to grow.

A breath of fresh air in the cyber-security world, Simeon Quarrie brings his unique approach, creative skills and flair for innovation to an industry that has typically been dominated by IT specialists.

Simeon realised early in his career that the way to influence people and drive change is through the power of story-telling. Starting out as a film-maker, he went on to develop his company, Vivida, a team of passionate creatives, experienced in immersive storytelling, gamification and interactivity. They’ve applied their skills to produce work for international organisations including EY, Lloyds Banking Group, Sky, Barclays and ITV, to bring about internal, behavioural change and to communicate with external stakeholders.

Simeon and VIVIDA earned a place in the London Office of Rapid Cyber Advancement (LORCA). VIVIDA is also being accelerated by the NCSC. Also recently featured in The Times, Business Insider and Computer Weekly and awarded one of the top 15 creative entrepreneurs to watch in 2021 by The Great British Entrepreneurs.

Simeon is personally passionate about Diversity & Inclusion. A main highlight is the work with EY. 7 minutes in the body of a black man.

Saj Huq

Saj is the director of innovation at Plexal, the innovation company that’s building the UK’s most connected cybersecurity innovation ecosystem.

At Plexal, Saj accelerates collaboration between startups, scaleups, government, investors, academia and a cross-section of industry. Plexal delivers LORCA, the accelerator that has helped 72 of the UK’s most promising cyber startups earn more than £37m in revenue and secure over £200m in investment. It’s also delivering NCSC for Startups with the National Cyber Security Centre and Cyber Runway, the UK’s largest cyber accelerator for entrepreneurs, startups and scaleups.

Saj is a member of the UK5G Security-Sub Group (SSG) to the UK5G Testbed and Trials Working Group.

Saj started his career in the Royal Air Force, where he was a commissioned officer and pilot, and spent a number of years as a management consultant at Deloitte and PwC. He then moved into industry, leading strategic change at a PE-backed property finance firm where he helped them operationally scale towards achieving a UK banking license, prepare for the incoming GDPR and improve their cyber and operational resilience.

Holly Grace Williams

Holly Grace has sixteen years of experience working within cybersecurity, with a focus on penetration testing and cybersecurity consultancy.

Holly Grace is a CREST Fellow and has been a CREST Certified Application Tester since 2015. She has professional software development experience in Python and Rust, including taking software products to market. She has strong experience in building and securing cloud environments, with a focus on AWS and Azure.

She has performed a significant number of penetration testing engagements for a wide range of companies from innovative start-ups to multinational corporations, in fields ranging from e-commerce to banking.

She's also often found speaking at conferences and on podcasts all about technology, cloud computing, cybersecurity, chaos engineering, and more.

Session Chair - Daniel Prince

Dr Daniel Prince is a Senior Lecturer in Security and Protection Science within the School of Computing and Communications.

He specialises in Cyber Risk Management and Network Security in complex socio-technical systems, particular cyber physical systems and the financial services sector.

He also works closely with organisations to help them understand the economic growth potential of cyber security.