David Metz has been concerned with the subject of ageing for the past seven years, as director of an initiative to stimulate multi-disciplinary research, as a partner in the consultancy Population Ageing Associates, as a visiting professor in the Centre for Ageing and Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and as a non-executive director of a primary care trust. Earlier in his career he was a civil servant administrator and scientist in a number of Whitehall departments, and a biomedical scientist on the staff of the Medical Research Council. As well as being scientifically qualified, he is an alumnus of the London Business School.
Michael Underwood has a life-long interest in designing products to meet the needs of their users. In the last eight years this interest has been focused towards older and disabled people. His earlier career was in the information and communications industry, where he had a variety of strategic and line-management roles in research, advanced development and design. He has direct experience of formulating and managing national multi-disciplinary research programmes, and spent a period as an expert to the European Commission advising on technology research for the disabled and elderly. He is also a partner in Population Ageing Associates.