Mervyn Levin

Honorary Research Fellow

Mervyn Levin, Founding Director of Levering Ltd, provides the HRI with funding, policy and business expertise in the use of virtual worlds, serious games and new digital media within the context of the arts, humanities and heritage sectors and the creative industries.

Levering is a consultancy for the digital and creative industries, established in 2003 and co-located in Asia and the UK, working closely with leading organisations across industry, the financial sector, governments and the research community.

Mervyn Levin brings a unique perspective to Levering’s clients through his extensive experience, international network and solid understanding of cross-sectoral and cross-disciplinary approaches. This has given him deep insight into strategy and innovation across converging industries, knowledge of the associated current and emerging technologies, and experience in developing trade, investment and partnerships.

The golden thread running through Levering’s successes for our clients is innovation, leading to achievement of the following outcomes:

• Triggering partnerships and making them work.
• Pinpointing and providing access to key decision makers across Asia and Europe.
• Horizon scanning of critical emerging technologies on a global basis.
• Sharing best practices.
• Identifying and accessing funding streams.
• Influencing government, corporate and university strategy and policy leading to high-quality decisions being made and subsequently being implemented successfully.
• Raising skills levels through intensive knowledge transfer.
• Gathering and capitalising on market intelligence.
• Developing and implementing market entry and outsourcing strategies.

Levering is a frequent presenter at major government events, business conferences and universities in the UK and Asia on Information Communications Technologies (ICT) focusing mainly on the digital content/media sectors.

Mervyn's personal roles which add weight to Levering's mission include:

• Board Member of six Collaborative Research and Development (R&D) consortia which are part of the UK Government's Technology Programme.
• Assessor and Review Board Panellist evaluating on behalf of the UK Government’s Technology Strategy Board and the European Commission’s Framework Programme (FP7) project bids for Collaborative R&D Competitions and on-going funded projects.
• Corporate Industrial Advisor to Sheffield University which contributes to the University’s Knowledge Transfer activity and brokering relationships with industry.
• Asia Representative of a number of leading UK based digital media organizations, such as the Serious Games Institute and the South East Media Network.
• Senior Expert for the European Commission Information Society Project in China co-funded by the Chinese Government. Includes coordinating research projects and delivering presentations to Chinese government departments, research community/think tanks and industry on key aspects of ICT policy, innovation and practices.
• Consultancy on the TMT (Technology Media and Telecom) sectors across Asia and Europe for investment management companies.
• Board Member of Shaspa, an Internet start up, which brings together Virtual Worlds, Web 2.0 Applications and environmental technologies for smart energy management.
• Global Star Certified (GSC) Advisor for the International Institute for Outsource Management (IIOM).
• Council Member of the Beijing-based China Software and Services Outsourcing Network.
• Member of China-Britain Business Council ICT Sector Group.
• Advisory Board Member of SEACOOP, a European Framework Programme (FP7) project to develop ICT cooperation between the EU and ASEAN countries.
• Authoring Publications in Peer-Reviewed Journals, e.g. 'Development and Learning in Organizations' on ‘3D Internet and Enterprise: Emergence of Virtual Worlds and Serious Games in the Workplace’, February 2010.

From 2002 to 2007, Mervyn was Head of Digital Content Policy at the UK government Department of Business, Innovation and Science (BIS). This involved leading UK Government policy for digital content industries, shaping the national agenda for the Creative Industries in close conjunction with industry at a time of massive growth and exciting change in the broadband and media landscape. He has also represented the UK Government in a number of national and international fora on the ICT and content industries, including at EU summits, the OECD and in China.

Mervyn spent 22 years at Reuters (now Thomson Reuters) between 1980 and 2002 where his last role was e Service Director, based in Geneva, managing the creation of a global customer service organisation for e-business. His previous positions spanned a variety of senior international management roles, based in the UK, Latin America and Switzerland.

Mervyn has a First Class B.A. Honours from the University of Cape Town and has attended executive education courses at INSEAD and University of Michigan Business Schools. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Contact email: mervyn.levin@gmail.com