Gershon and Pinder take up vendor board positions

Sir Peter Gershon, ex-chief executive of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), and Andrew Pinder, former e-Envoy, have both taken up board positions at software vendors.

Gershon, knighted for his contribution to streamlining UK public sector spending - much of it on large IT projects - is to join Symbian as an independent, non-executive chairman. Symbian is one of the main providers of operating systems for smart phones.

Meanwhile Pinder, formerly a VC, financial services chief and IT director at the Inland Revenue, is to join the board of Dallas-based security and ID company Entrust. He took over as the government's main IT evangelist in October 2000, first as an interim chief, then with a permanent posting.

His replacement, now called the head of e-government, was announced in May this year as former Accenture UK boss Ian Watmore.