Dr Vanessa Lawrence CB

Dr Vanessa Lawrence CB works internationally as a senior advisor to governments, inter-governmental organisations including the World Bank and large private sector organisations. She is a Director of Location International Ltd which provides strategic advice and full operational capacity globally, to the public and private sectors, as to how to gain from improving their own use of location information to enhance their decision-making and to meet the ever-changing needs of their customers and stakeholders.  

In addition, Vanessa is a Non-Executive Director of the Satellite Applications Catapult, the innovation centre for satellite use in the United Kingdom, on the advisory boards of Seraphim Space LLP, the Space venture capital fund backed by the British Business Bank, the Spatial Finance Initiative, the Urban Big Data Centre and also she is the Honorary Colonel of 135 Geographic Squadron Royal Engineers.Vanessa is a Trustee of the Royal Geographical Society, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southampton and a Patron of MapAction, the UK-based international charity which specialises in supplying geographical information for humanitarian relief operations.

From 2000-2014, she was the Director General and CEO Ordnance Survey, Britain’s National Mapping Authority and the advisor to the British Government for issues involving mapping, surveying and geographic information. She is the longest-serving Director General and CEO of Ordnance Survey since 1875.

From 2011-2015, Vanessa was a founding co-chair of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM).