Digital heavyweights to advise government
Government announces a new advisory board to shape government digital services.
Matt Hancock today announced that government has brought together some of the world’s biggest names in digital to advise on delivering world beating digital public services.
The new GDS advisory board is made up of UK experts from retail, digital, data and technology sectors, all of which have experience in delivering digital products and services used by millions of people.
The group includes the founder and CEO of LoveFilm Saul Klein; the ASOS Chairman Brian McBride; Hermann Hauser who is known for setting up Acorn Computers and its spin-out ARM Holdings and the co-founder of lastminute.com Baroness Lane Fox.
The group – which will meet on a quarterly basis – will support, advise and challenge the government to deliver better services for users and evaluate how emerging digital and technology trends can be applied to public services.
This announcement was made at the government’s annual digital conference, Sprint. Brian McBride and Saul Klein joined the minister at Sprint, with Klein speaking to an audience of over 450 digital and tech specialists about how the UK’s digital economy is contributing to growth and transforming industry.
Minister for the Cabinet Office Matt Hancock said:
We are recasting the relationship between the citizen and the state – all with the goal of making people’s lives better.
I’m thrilled to have these experts onboard and looking forward to working closely with them to discover and build the new digital infrastructure.
The board will be chaired by Executive Director of GDS Stephen Foreshew-Cain and its membership includes:
- Richard Allan – Director of Policy, Europe at Facebook
- Dr Sue Black OBE – Senior Research Associate at UCL and Founder and CEO at Savvify
- Joanne Hannaford – Global Co-Head of Enterprise Platforms, Goldman Sachs
- Hermann Hauser KBE – Co-Founder of Amadeus Capital Partners
- Brent Hoberman – Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Founders Factory Ltd
- Saul Klein – CEO and Founder of LoveFilm
- Baroness Lane-Fox – Co-Founder of lastminute.com
- Brian McBride – Chairman of ASOS and former UK Managing Director of Amazon.co.uk
- Herman Narula – CEO and Co-Founder at Improbable
- Sir Nigel Shadbolt – Chairman and Founder of The Open Data Institute (ODI)
- Monique Shivanandan – Group CIO at Aviva
- Wendy Tan White – General Partner at Entrepreneur First
- Vanessa Vallely – Managing Director and Founder at WeAreTheCity.com