PTFS EUROPE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the PTFS Europe Team
- Junior Software Engineer
Alexander Blanchard Position: Junior Software Engineer Location: The Wirral Favourite book: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell After completing a PGCE, Alexander began a career in education, working as a teacher for six years. After four years working in primary schools and two years working in SEN, his interest in problem solving led to a career change. Outside of work, Alexander likes to be in the water, usually surfing or kayaking, or exploring the woods with his dog, Kaia. He can also be found reading a good book or watching a documentary about human psychology.
Andrew Auld - Chief Commercial Officer
Andrew's career has been across multiple sectors, from industrial gases to legal publishing, local government to artisan baking.
With PTFS Europe since 2019, he brings the commercial knowledge gained in his various roles to the company in his responsibilities for finance, sales, marketing and new business and product development.
Having studied languages and then marketing, Andrew is an enthusiastic communicator. Outside of work Andrew works in various community voluntary roles, runs and swims - by preference accompanied by his dog Hector.
Job Titles:
- Customer Services Consultant
After completing a library degree in France, Aude worked for many years in Newcastle upon Tyne's public library service. She was named Public Librarian of the Year 2017 by the CILIP Public and Mobile Libraries Group for her work on library open data and achieved CILIP Fellowship in 2021. Her professional interests include digital literacy, privacy, open data and intellectual property. Outside of work she enjoys playing board games and hiking.
Job Titles:
- Data Migration Specialist
Before coming to PTFS Europe, Bernard worked in academic libraries and the library of the Natural History Museum. He has always worked on the systems side of librarianship because he enjoys how it's always changing and presents new and interesting challenges.
After graduating with a degree in music, David worked in the library of two leading London music conservatoires before moving into the library IT industry, and has worked at PTFS Europe since July 2013. He obtained an MA in music in 2016 and music continues to be a very important part of his life outside of work. He will be commencing a music PhD in September 2022. Other than music, he enjoys reading (mainly cozy crime and biographies) and making a fuss of any passing cat.
Job Titles:
- Head of Sales and Account Management
Fiona graduated from Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen in 1998, with an honours degree in Library and Information Studies but her career with libraries launched back when she was just 15 years old when she started working Saturdays, as a Library Assistant in Dunfermline libraries, which progressed to after school evenings and full time during university holidays. Following graduation, Fiona then secured her first professional role working in a Pharmaceutical Library in Essex where she was mentored through her CILIP Chartership. During this time, Fiona assisted with the implementation of a new LMS and this is where the career with library systems began. Fiona has had numerous roles with LMS supplier companies since 2000 and has a lot of experience in the Customer Services / project implementation side before latterly moving into Sales and Account Management. Aside from work, Fiona is kept busy with her family, dog walking and yoga!
Job Titles:
- Director and Part - Time Data Conversion Consultant
Ian has always loved programming and working with bright people and he has been lucky enough to still be doing this after over 50 years.
Before joining the PTFS Europe team, Jacob had originally studied Mathematics and began his journey into software engineering through self-teaching. Whilst learning, he worked to support clinical/pharmaceutical trials with their data management and improving task efficiencies.
Jacob is an enthusiastic learner and enjoys being faced with challenges and problems to solve.
Alongside his passion for computer programming, Jacob's other passion is cooking and he previously used to work as a chef. Jacob currently lives in Swansea with his partner and two cats
Jake's role at PTFS Europe is to maintain our fleet of customer and internal services, as well as to perform upgrades, install customisations, and continually improve our infrastructure and service offerings. He is passionate about odd music and media and a lover of all things cliche!
Janet has worked at PTFS Europe since 2011. She did an MA in Library and Information at Loughborough University and worked for OCLC Europe and Soutron before spending 13 years as System Librarian at the University of Leicester. As a Cambridge English graduate she has a love of books, especially paper ones so with PTFS Europe values trips out to libraries that are implementing Koha. Apart from that she enjoys gardening and painting and is currently working on a series of amateur art forgeries though Turner is apparently proving tricky!
Jonathan founded PTFS Europe in 2007 and has been working in libraries and library automation since 1990. His original desire to work in the music business was side-lined when he got a job at the Royal Academy of Music library, entered the world of libraries, and never looked back. Over the years he has worked as in training, customer/technical support, implementation, product management and sales but has always found time to pursue his musical interests in his spare time. His goal has been to grow the use and love of open source software within libraries in the UK. He lives by the sea with his wife and two cats.
Job Titles:
- Senior Customer Services Consultant
Lucy has worked in the library and information sector since graduating. She has worked in higher education, legal and NHS health libraries in Yorkshire and Worcestershire.
She helped to implement the Koha library management system while at Worcestershire Health Libraries and enjoyed working with PTFS Europe and Koha so much she decided to try and make it her full-time day job! Luckily PTFS agreed and she now leads implementation projects for a whole range of different libraries and contributes to the customer helpdesk. Lucy has a keen interest in the natural world and conservation and enjoys walking (and a bit of running) to explore new places and wildlife.
Job Titles:
- Head of Development and Community Engagement
Martin graduated with a masters degree in Physics from Liverpool University and upon returning home to Hertfordshire, he found himself sitting at a table with former colleagues who were starting a new business, PTFS Europe. Martin became the tea boy and data migrations man and has dabbled in most departments over his 10 years at the company.
He is an open source evangelist and has taken on a number of roles in the Koha community of which he is an active member.
When he's not at the keyboard however, Martin is likely to be found somewhere outdoors, half way up a cliff climbing or down a river kayaking…often with some Scouts in tow.
After graduating in 2016, Matt worked for 6 years in Procurement and Supply Chain before discovering a passion for coding. What started as a hobby led to a career change and Matt has been with PTFS Europe since November 2022. Outside of work Matt likes to keep active and is a keen runner, rock climber and squash player. When not outdoors you can normally find him sitting in front of a true crime documentary or reading a good book.
Alexander Blanchard Position: Junior Software Engineer Location: The Wirral Favourite book: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell After completing a PGCE, Alexander began a career in education, working as a teacher for six years. After four years working in primary schools and two years working in SEN, his interest in problem solving led to a career change. Outside of work, Alexander likes to be in the water, usually surfing or kayaking, or exploring the woods with his dog, Kaia. He can also be found reading a good book or watching a documentary about human psychology.
Job Titles:
- Customer Service Consultant
Nason has been working with library automation and scholarly communications systems for the past 10+ years. He previously was a library systems manager at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). Away from libraries, Nason is an avid follower of international politics, governance and international development issues.
Nick has a wealth of knowledge and experience of the library sector. In his early career from 1980 as a library and information professional Nick held a range of posts including at the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health. He then moved on to selecting and implementing library and information systems for the Royal Institute of Public Administration and then KPMG Management Consulting. From 1992 he was a co-founding director of Sirsi Limited in the UK and continued as Sales Director at SirsiDynix until 2006. Together with Jonathan Field and Ian Bays he left SirsiDynix to found PTFS Europe in 2007 where he was Managing Director until recently stepping back from day-to-day involvement in the company but continuing as company chair.
Pedro started his career as a web developer after having finished his Computer Science degree. Not long after, he was introduced to multiple open-source communities and took part in the implementation and customisation of several projects in collaboration with libraries, museums and archival institutions. He became part of the PTFS Europe team in late 2022 as he was driven to learn from others and also put to use his passion for problem-solving. Outside of work hours, whenever Pedro is not busy role-playing as a horse for his kid, he can often be found leading armies into battle and slaying dragons.
Rachel graduated from Aberystwyth University in librarianship after having completed a first degree in Mathematics and then found that a career in library systems seemed to bring these two worlds together. Since then, she has worked most of her career in library systems either working for suppliers, in a variety of different roles, or as a library systems manager in an academic library. She combines part-time working with looking after the family and spends a lot of time being a taxi service for her children's social lives or standing on the side of a football pitch. When she has the opportunity though she does like to write and has recently written a children's story about an aardvark named Zed (as yet unpublished!).
Job Titles:
- Customer Support Consultant
After graduating from Vilnius University (Lithuania) with a degree in Information and Communication (Librarianship) Rasa continued her career in libraries for over fifteen years until she joined PTFS Europe Support Team in 2023. Favourite activity for Rasa is a walk along the Baltic seaside picking up tiny pieces of amber washed up on a white sand.
Ryan's career started within a similar industry working as a support technician for a web hosting company that was in 2018. Over the next number of years he moved throughout the company and became a part of the infrastructure team as a System Administrator and was part of a project to start building a small data center for the hosting company working with the hardware and software side of things.He began working with PTFS Europe in 2022, an opportunity which combined his love for books and his passion for technology.
Outside of working, Ryan enjoys reading and gaming.
Job Titles:
- Business Development Manager
Sam has worked in and managed library services for 30 years in FE colleges, health and school libraries. She is the former Chair of the Yorkshire and Humberside CILIP members group and more recently, she has acted as the Chair of Colric. Sam lived and worked on the Shetland Islands for three years, and was once on a BBC2 programme called "The Bare Necessities": a survival show where librarians were pitted against car sales people in the Arizona desert! A geeky gamer at heart with a love of all things sci-fi and fantasy. Sam is currently owned by two mini dachshunds Petey Log and Pepperoni sausage and lives very close to her birthplace of Dewsbury in West Yorkshire in a small town called Heckmondwike.
Job Titles:
- Linux Systems Administrator
"Steven began his career providing dial up ISP support in the early 2000s, and subsequently moved onto working in local and national government infrastructure support in Central London. After 8 years, he relocated to North Yorkshire and began providing managed service support for local businesses before moving into Linux support. After a foray in ISP/hosting followed by six years of providing international level carrier grade telecoms infrastructure support and management, he began working for PTFS Europe in 2022.
Steven has interests that involve driving and maintaining classic cars, photography, music and classic gaming."
Having started her career in public libraries, Val moved into a number of ‘library-adjacent' roles, including library science publishing, information sector research and consultancy, and commissioning and managing training courses and conferences for the library market.
Outside of work, she enjoys walking, working on her allotment, book club, film club and yoga.