Vanessa has a background in geographical information and space applications. From 2000-2014, Vanessa was Director General and CEO of Ordnance Survey and from 2011-2015, she was founding co-chair of the UN Committee on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM). Today, Vanessa is working as a senior advisor to overseas governments and private sector organisations. Amongst other appointments, Vanessa is a Non-Executive Director of the Alan Turing Institute for Data Science and AI, a Non-Executive Director for the Satellite Applications Catapult and a Non-Executive Director of UK Government Investments, the UK government’s centre of excellence in corporate governance and corporate finance.