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Dr Chris Mackmurdo

Founder


Chris is a former British Diplomat and a strategic intelligence specialist.

Chris was recruited by the UK Foreign Office during his university studies. He established the National Security Research Group to bridge the gap between intelligence, research and policy communities working on international counter-terrorism and cyber issues, and to improve the prioritisation of national security risk overseas. He also served as the Foreign Office’s specialist lead on COBR and Joint Intelligence Committee business, covering terrorism-linked hostage cases and strategic intelligence assessments of global terrorism threats.

During his time in government service, Chris worked with Duncan to develop a full-spectrum approach to counter-terrorism that strengthened co-ordination between overt and covert capabilities to achieve national security effects in both the “real world” and the information space.

Chris left the Foreign Office in 2014 and spent several years working with a diverse set of organisations in the financial services, energy, and HNW sectors across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Over the course of six years, Chris witnessed the emergence of malign influence and disinformation operations, using new digital assets, infrastructure and tradecraft powered by social media, exposing governments, companies and individuals to risks that were unfamiliar and unconstrained.

Chris founded Elninio in 2020 to build the analytical methodologies and practical capabilities to understand and respond to the changing nature of risk in the social media age.

Duncan Fulton

Managing Director

 
Duncan is a former British Diplomat and an expert in complex risk management.

After a few years in advertising with Ogilvy and Mather, Duncan joined Her Majesty’s Government as a Strategic Communications Adviser before becoming Principal Speechwriter to four Secretaries of State, and a stint as the Prime Minister’s speechwriter for security policy.

He then moved to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as Head of Counter Terrorism Strategy, where he and Chris worked closely together to overhaul the UK’s overseas CT efforts and develop ‘hybrid' responses that better orchestrated the covert and overt capabilities at HMG’s disposal. During this period Duncan spent time deployed in the Middle East, South Asia and North and East Africa. Duncan’s final posting was to the British Embassy in Washington DC, where he helped establish the first US-UK forum on countering extremism online and led the diplomatic response to the Edward Snowden leaks.

On leaving the FCO in 2014 he applied the hybrid response principle to the financial services sector as Head of Government Liaison for the MENA region at HSBC. Duncan broadened his commercial experience as Global Head of Government Relations at De La Rue, the world’s largest bank-note manufacturer, and as a Partner at DRD, a boutique strategic communications consultancy dealing with complex rep risk challenges on behalf of High-Net-Worth Individuals, Governments, and businesses. 

Over a career in communications and risk, Duncan has seen how the explosion of social media has profoundly changed the risk environment. In the digital realm truth is contested, and rapidly evolving networks and narratives influence both opinion on-line and behaviours in the real world. But few businesses are geared up to recognise the signals – let alone have the tools to act on them. That is where Elnin.io comes in.

Duncan holds degrees from Oxford University.

Toby Burnham

Head of Campaigns

 
Toby is a recognised global communications expert.

With specialist expertise in news and stakeholder management gained operating at the highest level over 30 years, Toby’s roster includes C-suite, HNW, governmental, and multilateral clients on every continent.

His communications career began at Freud Communications in the pre-digital age, specialising in planning and running news events. Managing international news became Toby’s particular work focus, running campaigns for two Mayors of London (including Boris Johnson’s 'London House' at the Beijing Olympics), Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaoboa, and several governmental, multilateral and non-governmental organisations operating across Africa and the Middle East.

In 2015, Toby’s global news expertise led him to work with Libya’s National Oil Corporation, where he first met Chris. He built a communications capacity that served as the Chairman’s first line of defence as civil war raged across the country, in which the NOC was targeted by local and foreign forces hellbent on controlling Libya's oil. Proxy electronic armies, a polarized news space, and violent militia and criminal activity provided live lessons in the destructive power of disinformation and the reporting of fake new by mainstream media, which had to be corrected both domestically and globally.

Toby also has extensive experience working in the litigation field, building and running campaigns representing victims of war and terrorism, such as the Iraq War Families Campaign and Hyde Park Victims Justice Campaign, amongst others.

Toby's intimate knowledge of the social media/traditional media nexus gives him a unique insight into how PR and strategic communications capabilities need to evolve to meet changing demands. Through Elnin.io, he aims to create a new industry standard that skilfully blends leading-edge machine learning with expert campaigning tradecraft.

Toby holds a degree from the University of Edinburgh.

Carl Miller

Head of Research


Carl is a pioneer of Social Media Intelligence and an expert investigator of information warfare.

Carl is the Founder of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos, the UK’s first think tank institution dedicated to studying the digital world. He coined the term "Social Media Intelligence" (SOCMINT) in 2012 and, since then, has developed the professional framework for its study and practice in civic society and the research community. In 2015, he co-founded CASM Technology.

Working with a team of technologists and researchers, Carl has written over twenty major studies examining issues around disinformation, deception, and illicit influence operations, ranging from online electoral interference, radicalization and digital politics to conspiracy theories, online research ethics, cyber-crime, and Internet governance. He presents programmes on these topics for the BBC’s flagship technology show Click. His debut book, The Death of the Gods: The New Global Power Grab was published in 2018 by Penguin RandomHouse and won the 2019 Transmission Prize. Carl has written for Wired, New Scientist, the Sunday Times, The Economist, The Telegraph, and the Guardian.

Carl is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London, a member of the Society Board of the British Computing Society, an Associate of the Imperial War Museum, a member of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, a member of the advisory board of the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, and a Commissioner of Newham’s Democracy and Civic Participation Commission.

Carl has worked with a wide range of organisations to unpack the challenges posed by social media, disinformation, information warfare, and other facets of the online world. Through Elnin.io, he is looking forward to working on responses to these challenges that are practical, effective, and sustainable.

Carl holds degrees from the University of Cambridge and King's College London.

OUR STORY

2009

FULL-SPECTRUM NATIONAL SECURITY

Chris and Duncan lead respective sections of the UK Foreign Office responsible for prioritising and responding to global terrorism risks. They develop a hybrid approach targeting the wider drivers of complex national security problems, including online influence networks. 

2012

SOCMINT ESTABLISHED

Carl co-founds the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos. He coins the term “Social Media Intelligence” (SOCMINT) and pioneers the professional framework for its study and practice in the intelligence community, law enforcement, and academia.  

2015

AI AND DATA ANALYTICS

Carl and his team develop machine learning and analytics tools that identify sources and pathways of influence online, improving the way we evaluate the impact of social media on opinion-formation and behaviour, and enabling more accurate detection of illicit manipulation and disinformation campaigns.   

2016

HYBRID RISK MANAGEMENT

Chris tackles malign influence and disinformation campaigns for corporate and individual clients, whilst Duncan develops his risk management framework in the corporate sector before becoming a partner at a specialist reputation management firm.

2021

ELNIIO FOUNDED

Chris, Duncan and Carl come together to form Elninio, fusing cutting-edge SOCMINT with specialists in communications, behaviour change, and risk management to match the urgency, scale, and complexity of risk in the social media age.

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