Simon Wills
Principal Consultant – Socio-economic Analysis for Spatial Data Infrastructure’s
Simon Wills has over twenty-five years of experience in the development and use of information systems, specialising in socio-economic analysis, the management of earth observation data, location-enabled applications and statistical modelling of spatial data.
He has held senior management positions in both the public and private sector in the UK and Southern Africa. These include as regional manager for a raster data software supplier covering Europe, Africa and the Middle East and the Managing Director of a GIS software supplier and consultancy based in Botswana. In a previous role in the UK public sector he managed a large team developing business cases for integrating specialist business applications for large local and central Government departments within the healthcare sector.
Simon has undertaken strategic assignments in Southern Africa, North America, Central Asia, and the Middle East. He is currently a self-employed consultant and an associate and consultant of ConsultingWhere, an independent IT consultancy specialising in the provision of strategic information technology and business advice. He is also a director and principal consultant of MW & Associates and an academic researcher at the Natural History Museum, London.
Simon’s current projects include: a member of a World Bank team advising on land administration system models for the Government of Vietnam with responsibility for the economic model analysis; socio-economic expert assessing the financial and social benefits of introducing a land registry for the Saudi Arabia National Real Estate Registration Company (with Land Equity International and Boston Consulting Group); and has recently concluded a project with ConsultingWhere developing a return on investment analysis for local authorities around UK street and property addressing for Geoplace (UK).
Simon was the lead consultant for the development of the socio-economic case for investment in a national Spatial Data Infrastructure for Kyrgyzstan working with the United Nations and World Bank Integrated Geospatial Information Framework for the Norwegian National Mapping Agency with ConsultingWhere.
Simon was also part of a multi-disciplinary World Bank team for two missions to Mongolia in 2019, developing the socio-economic case for investment for their national Spatial Data Infrastructure and has provided support and advice to the Republic of Botswana around a national Spatial Data Infrastructure and the Republic of Guyana around earth observation data collection. He was also a co-author of the 2021 publication, State and trends of spatial finance.
Simon’s expertise in economic assessment and business case development including Return on Investment studies stretches back to establishing the local ESRI distributor in Botswana in 1995. In a previous role at ERDAS Inc / Leica Geosystems, he was responsible for the distributor sales channel covering ERDAS remote sensing products across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
More recently Simon has worked in the UK public sector as ICT director for part of the National Health Service (NHS). In this role he managed teams of over 100 staff, developing and integrating business applications, providing core ICT support services and advising on digital transformation for clients including NHS bodies, other public sector organisations and the private sector.
Simon is a practical consultant, with a good understanding of “state of the art” information technology and a keen eye for detail. He is equally comfortable working with C-level executives and technical experts. He excels a building trust and consensus. His academic work has been widely presented at international conferences and published.
