Professor Keith Mayes – Managing Director

Keith Mayes (B.Sc. (Bath) Ph.D. (Bath) CEng FIET A.Inst.ISP) received his BSc (Hons) in Electronic Engineering in 1983 from the University of Bath (www.bath.ac.uk), and his PhD degree in Digital Image Processing in 1987. During his first degree he was employed by Pye TVT (Philips) which designed and produced TV broadcast and studio equipment. His PhD was sponsored by Honeywell Aerospace and Defence and on completion he accepted their offer of a job. In 1988 he started work for Racal Research where he worked on a wide range of research and advanced development products and was accepted as a Chartered Engineer. In 1995 he joined Racal Messenger to continue work on a Vehicle Licence plate recognition system (Talon) and an early packet radio system (Widanet/Paknet). In 1996 Keith joined Vodafone as a Senior Manager working within the Communication Security and Advanced Development group, under Professor Michael Walker. Early work concerned advanced radio relaying systems and involved participation in international standardisation (ETSI SMG2). Later he led the Maths & Modelling team and eventually took charge of the Fraud & Security group. During this time he was training in intellectual property and licensing, culminating in membership of the Licensing Executives Society and the added responsibility for patent issues in Vodafone UK. In 2000, following some work on m-commerce and an increasing interest in Smart Cards he joined the Vodafone International organisation as the Vodafone Global SIM Card Manager, responsible for SIM card harmonisation and strategy for the Vodafone Group (www.vodafone.com). In 2002, Keith left Vodafone to set up Crisp Telecom and in November 2002 he was also appointed as the Director of the Smart Card Centre (www.scc.rhul.ac.uk) at Royal Holloway University of London (www.rhul.ac.uk), reporting to Professor Fred Piper in the world renowned Information Security Group (www.isg.rhul.ac.uk).  Keith is a Founder Associate Member of the Institute of Information Security Professionals and a member of the Advisory Board for the Sensing and Security Group SIG within the London Technology Network (LTN). He has also had director experience within a London stock market listed company and a subsidiary of an American communications company. Recent high profile activity included leading the expert team that carried out counter-expertise work on the Ov-Chipkaart for the Dutch transport ministry, following published attacks on the MIFARE Classic chip card.

Gerhard Hancke (BEng, MEng, PhD) received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Pretoria (South Africa) in 2002, a Masters of Engineering degree from the same institution in 2003. At the end of 2003 he started reading towards a PhD in Computer Science with the Security group at the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory; and qualified in 2009. In August 2007 he joined the ISG Smart Card Centre at Royal Holloway University of London to carry out strategic research on contactless smart cards and RFID systems. He is very familiar with the practical aspects of contactless/RFID plus associated equipment and attacks, as well as the underlying theory. His main interest is proximity identification, exploitation of relay attacks and the general security of RFID/contactless systems. Other interests include pervasive computing and sensor networks. He has published papers on contactless/RFID attacks and is the author of the corresponding chapter in the ISG Smart Card centre textbook "Smart Cards, Tokens, Security and Applications" (Springer). Recently he has been consulting on smart card based transport systems; and is an expert consultant on the OV-Chipkaart projects for the Dutch government. Gerhard is employed by Crisp in the role of “Consultant”.

Graham Hili BSc I.T. Hons (Malta), MSc (Royal Holloway) began his career with the Vodafone Group (Malta) where he was in charge of the security and the availability of the mobile value added systems (SMS, MMS, WAP). After this he moved to a consultancy position with LogicaCMG and Orange Group in the Netherlands. His current fields of specialisation include smart card security and the development of digital identity and digital security in IT systems and virtual worlds. Graham is employed by Crisp in the role of “Consultant”.

George Mayes is a veterinary student at Magdalene College Cambridge and began his work with Crisp Telecom following an environmental research study in Hungerford. The work inspired the expansion of Crisp research and product development on on tagging, to include not only objects, but also living fauna and flora. George is employed as a part-time researcher with special emphasis on tags, tracking and associated systems.

Lishoy Francis B.E (Visvesvaraya Technological University., India) M.Sc (Royal Holloway), CISSP (Associate). He has worked as a Software Engineer developing Intranet and Quality Audit Systems for Wipro Fluid Power Ltd. India. He is currently in his final stages of a Ph.D. degree in Information Security at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has worked as an expert consultant to Crisp Telecom since 2007. He has extensive practical experience in security testing and product prototyping of mobile, smart card, location, contactless, RFID and proximity technologies. He is an acknowledged and published expert on NFC security.

Calvin Chen MEng (King's College London) completed his MEng in Computer System & Electronic Engineering in 2005. He is currently a PhD student in the Smart Card Centre at Royal Holloway, University of London. His current research area includes the interaction of mobile/SIM/USIM/NFC as Universal Secure Portal with token devices and research on the mobile hardware interface with the wireless/contactless of interaction. He supports Crisp with business development and client communication for opportunities in China and Taiwan.

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