Ian Sotheran has over 30 years of UK and international experience. He is a management and technical director of a marine environmental consultancy. He is also Principle Scientist on many of the projects undertaken and is responsible for all at technical operations, the management of staff and consultants as well as ensuring all deliverables are produced to a high standard and any operations are performed safely, effectively. He undertakes consultancy work on behalf of clients and provides advice and direction on marine ecosystems along with project implementation and management to ensure client, regulator and stakeholder requirements are met.Ian has extensive experience and knowledge of marine and coastal ecosystems, survey techniques and applications, remote sensing and GIS, spatial data analysis and along with mapping techniques. These skills have been developed through involvement with research and commercial projects since 1993, including for oil/gas, renewable energies industries, shipping insurance companies (P&I), government and NGOs. Ian holds excellent information technology skills and his main area of research interest is to develop novel ways to apply these skills to marine resource assessment and management. Ian has considerable experience in business and financial administration, project management and oversight at a director level and delivering written reports for clients.Ian has developed and implemented new HSE policies and safe system of work within his current role and has overall responsibility for company health and safety. He has extensive experience and knowledge of marine offshore and coastal operations and survey techniques, methodologies and applications. These skills have been developed through offshore and coastal projects undertaken since 1994.