Ian Ritchie is the non-executive Chairman of Iomart plc, Scapa, Computer Applications Service, Caspian Learning and the Interactive Design Institute. He founded OWL in 1984 which pioneered hypertext application development (a forerunner to the world wide web) and sold the company to Panasonic in 1989. Since then he has been involved in over 20 start-up high-tech businesses, including Digital Bridges, Voxar, VIS Interactive, Sonaptic and Orbital.

Ritchie is a past President of the British Computer Society. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE). He serves on the boards of the National Museums of Scotland, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Bletchley Park Trust, and Our Dynamic Earth. He was awarded a CBE in the 2003 New Years Honours list.