KEITH TURKINGTON

Managing Director

Keith has a Masters in Computer Science, a Certified Diploma in Accounting & Finance, is a Chartered Manager, a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, a Chartered IT Professional, a Member of the British Computer Society & a Certified PRINCE2 Practitioner and brings almost 30 years of business experience to his role. His main areas of responsibility are finance, strategy and business development and, like all business owners, never really switches off from work, but when he does he loves to travel, play golf and cook.

DAVID CORDNER

Technical Director

David is one of Fluent’s co-founders. When he’s not designing game changing features for Flexi-Grant®, he’s trekking up the Mourne Mountains, travelling or trying to digest every trend and new idea he can through podcasts & articles.

MARTIN GRAHAM

Operations Director

Martin has a degree in Computer Science & over 9 years’ experience at Director & Senior Manager level (and before that 10 years as an IT Manager including in a grant-giving organisation ). He will focus on competency, performance & quality in all areas of Fluent as we face the challenges of a period of rapid growth. He is a keen footballer & Liverpool fan (a growing sub-set in Fluent as we now have 3 of the poor blighters), is very active in his local church & is learning to play the drums (possibly to punish his teenage twin girls?).

JACKIE TURKINGTON

Office Manager

Jackie has a degree in Social Sciences & manages everything from the accounts, invoicing & credit control to the office refurb & our social media. Some would say her most important function is to buy the monthly supply of coffee without which Flexi-Grant® might never have existed. She tries to do as little as possible when not working but if pushed would say she loves to travel and take photos (as evidenced by her growing collection of photo books!).

GARY MCNALLY

Implementation Manager

Gary has a degree in Management Science & a Masters in Business Administration & is a PRINCE2 project manager. With over 20 years experience as a manager in both the private and public sectors, his serious approach to work belies his great sense of humour & his bottomless well of amusing stories on every topic keeps us all entertained! Indulges his life-long passion for photography in his spare time (a skill we put to good use for our early team photos).

ALAN FINLAY

Product Engineering Team Lead

Alan has a degree in Computing & IT & is a PRINCE2 project manager. He is now responsible for excellence, innovation and general awesomeness in Flexi-Grant® & aims to ensure that our technical team are at the top of their game so that Flexi-Grant® remains a market leader in grant management.  In work he is known as ‘Ask Alan’. Away from work his dedication to having a good time on staff nights out has earned him the nickname ‘Shot Alan’.

CHRIS SHIELDS

UX Designer

Chris has a degree in Interactive Multimedia Design and comes to us from a games design and testing background. He will apply his skills to enhancing the usability and design of Flexi-Grant® so we are all looking forward to an even better looking and easier to use GMS! Outside work he enjoys indulging his passion for Arduino projects and is currently building a miniature magnetic hovercraft. Just to see if he can.

ANDREW GIBSON

Principle Engineer

Andrew has 18 years of industry experience in various parts of the world, including Dallas & London. His experience encompasses diverse roles including UI Architecture, Solutions Architecture, Enterprise Development & Agile Practice/Transformation (apparently if you need your autoexec.bat fixed then Andrew is your man!). He refuses to succumb to Fluent’s largely casual way of dressing but does entertain us with a wacky shirt/tie combo on a Friday! Out of work he is a sci-fi nut (Iain M. Banks), frustrated musician (tenor & violin) & occasional book editor.

DAMIAN HUGHES

Senior Solutions Developer

Damian has a degree in Interactive Multimedia Design & is PRINCE2 qualified. He has been with Fluent from the very early days and so he takes care of many of our valued long-standing clients & also plays a vital role working on quality issues. Out of work is a long-suffering Newcastle United fan and Dad to 2 young children (not in that order of importance obviously!).

DAVID BOYD

Senior Product Engineer

David has a Masters in Computing & brings a focussed engineering talent to the development of Flexi-Grant®. In his spare time he is working on an online game (skills he develops there happily pass over to his Fluent work!), his detailed knowledge of WW2 military equipment and his ever-expanding whiskey collection (possibly all at the same time – after all this is a man who until recently was taking a Physics degree for fun!).

DAVE MCNEELY

Senior Solutions Developer

Dave has almost 20 years experience in software & web development and customer service; he has ILM training in leadership & management and has been a Team Leader for the last 5 years.  In 2000 he spent a year and a half volunteering in Mozambique as an IT Development Instructor. Dave has joined Fluent to take the lead on major client bespoke projects. Outside work he is a keen cycler (‘keen’ is the word if you can cycle across Italy, as he did recently) and is also busy preparing his garden for chickens (anticipating free eggs already!).

GORDON SLOAN

Software Tester & Quality Assurance

Gordon has a degree in Computing Science and is an ISTQB Certified Tester (Foundation Level) He is largely responsible for testing and quality control for Flexi-Grant® & also audits many of our ISO27001 policies. He works so hard that he has to be reminded to take his annual leave. We know he has a life outside of the office but we haven’t really discovered what it is yet (although we’ve heard rumours that he’s partial to a game of golf).

JOE DONAGHY

Solutions Developer

Joe has a degree in Interactive Multimedia Design & develops some of the more complex features for Flexi-Grant®. Unwinds through games development and is a real hands-on DIY man at home (will he ever get his kitchen finished?). Having become a new Dad in 2017 we suspect his time for DIY is even scarcer…

STEVEN MCSTRAVOG

Solutions Developer

Steven has a degree in Computing and works on improving and adding client-led features to Flexi-Grant®. He unwinds designing mobile games and is a big DC/Marvel and comic book fan. We think we might have collected the IT equivalent of the Big Bang Theory cast by now!

MICHAEL TURKINGTON

Flexi-Grant® Consultant

Michael has a degree in Geology, is a PRINCE2 qualified practitioner & an ILM Certified Trainer. His rock solid logical & process driven mind (see what we did there?) is crucial in helping implement, train & support Flexi-Grant® clients & he provides our technical team with a much-needed customer perspective on Flexi-Grant®. Outside work he loves following sport, especially football (he even plays a bit) and cricket, and has an almost encyclopaedic recall of stats from both.

LAUREN WILLIAMS

Flexi-Grant® Consultant

Lauren has a degree in Computing (Artificial Intelligence) and a Masters in Cyber Security. Instead of fighting off hackers she will be making sure Flexi-Grant® implementations are smooth and trouble-free. In her spare time she loves to bake and the Fluent Team has already been the very willing recipients of her excellent salted caramel brownies. Needs both a blanket & hot water bottle to operate at peak efficiency in the office in cold weather.

GARETH HILLEN

Junior Solutions Developer

Gareth did his first degree in Economics but decided to leave the world of sums behind to pursue a career in IT. He joined us fresh from his Masters in Software Development. As well as being eager to develop his skills at Fluent he brings a once rare degree of sportiness to the team as he plays for his local rugby team. The technical team morning scrums suit him very well, we just have to stop him grabbing people’s shirts!

NIALL HANNA

Flexi-Grant® Consultant

Niall has a Masters degree in Physics, with experience working as a Data Analyst. He is one of our new graduate trainees who will get to know Flexi-Grant® inside out before helping clients with their implementations & training. He plays guitar in a couple of bands so we hope he’s not just biding his time here while he waits for a record company to come knocking on his door? And just to thoroughly end any geek/nerd stereotypes he also loves to play Gaelic football in his spare time.  We’re becoming quite the athletic bunch around here …

NICOLE WILSON

Flexi-Grant® Consultant

Nicole has a degree in ICT but after working full-time as a supervisor in retail after graduation decided that her ideal job would combine IT with a customer-facing/support role. Happily we have been able to provide her with that in our graduate trainee role. Her passions out of work are baking, her miniature Schnauzer Harvey & TV crime dramas!

LYNDSEY MCBRIDE

Account Executive

Lyndsey has worked in customer-facing roles in her family businesses from a very young age. She came to us after 2 1/2 years working for the first Google Agency in NI & Ireland, specialising in 360 virtual tours. Quite the adrenaline junky she is an expert skier, surfer & former quad bike racer but also likes to practise yoga & is a trained dog groomer & lover of unicorns (we’re not sure she realises they’re purely mythical beasts)!

ALONA SAVKOVA

Research & Development Executive

Alona has a degree in Physiotherapy and is fluent (no pun intended) in English, Latvian & Russian. Her research role will focus on trying to understand how the grant giving market is changing over time & helping us determine what we need to do to ensure Flexi-Grant® continues to add value. Outside work she likes to indulge her passions for hiking, cooking, human health & nutrition and has a particular interest in researching crypto currencies (we might need to google that!).