Vanessa Lawrence CB

Dr Vanessa Lawrence CB knew Cure Parkinson’s late co-founder and President Tom Isaacs from when they were just 10 years old! As Director General and CEO of Ordnance Survey, Britain’s national mapping authority, Vanessa helped Tom to plan ‘Coastin’’, his legendary walk around the entire coastline of Britain in 2002-03. In fact, the walk was supported by one of the world’s first published web-mapping applications which was created especially for the ‘Coastin’’ walk, allowing him to update his progress each day – several years before the existence of Google Maps! Vanessa now works globally as a senior advisor to governments and large private sector organisations.