Frank Land

Frank Land, born Frank Landsberger (24 October 1928 to 16 May 2026), was a German born information systems researcher who became the first Professor of Information Systems in the United Kingdom. He joined J. Lyons and Co. in 1951, the year the company's LEO computer was launched as the world's first machine built for business purposes, and worked as a programmer and systems analyst before taking charge of projects for outside companies buying time on Lyons's computers or acquiring their own LEOs. After LEO Computers merged with English Electric's computer interests in 1963, Land pioneered research and teaching in the new discipline of systems analysis at the London School of Economics from the late 1960s onward, and was awarded an OBE in 2019 for services to the information systems industry.