Tony Harper is head of Research and Advanced Systems Engineering for Jaguar and Land Rover. Tony joined Jaguar as a Graduate Engineer in 1986 after completing an honours degree in Aeronautical Engineering at Imperial College London. Tony spent his early career at Jaguar developing airbags and active chassis systems at a time when these technologies were in their infancy. In the early 1990’s, Tony was selected as part of a small team to pioneer the development and use of Knowledge Based Engineering systems, using rule-based code to automate and highly accelerate the engineering process. During this time Jaguar became one of the world leaders in this field and Tony went on to head up the team and gained a PgD in Mathematical Modelling & Computer Simulation.

He later took responsibility for all of Jaguar’s Computer Aided Design activities. In 1999, Tony was appointed as head of the Jaguar Vehicle Engineering team responsible for Concept Design, Packaging, Aerodynamics and Vehicle Computer Aided Engineering. Tony held this post during the development of the current XK and previous XJ product ranges. After a period of secondment to Ford’s European Operations to develop synergies between Ford, Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover, Tony returned to the now combined Jaguar Land Rover Product Development Operations to head up the Research and Advanced group in 2006. He is a Chartered Engineer, fellow of the IMechE, an honorary fellow of the University Of Warwick, an elected member of the UK Automotive Council Technology group and sits on numerous advisory councils.