2026 Speakers & Co-Hosts

Government Transformation Summit brings together senior executives from across central and local government in a unique, award-winning discussion table format.
Samantha Jones

Samantha Jones

Permanent Secretary
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Rizwana Parveen

Programme Director Skills Machinery of  Government Change 

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Former UK Government Chief Digital Officer

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Chief AI Officer 

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Helen MacNamara

Former Deputy Cabinet Secretary

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Richard Patterson

Chief Data and AI Officer, Bureau Of The Comptroller And Global Financial Services, US State Department

US Department of State

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Cleo Watson

Former Deputy Chief of Staff to Boris Johnson

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Katherine Williamson

Chief Data Officer

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Jade Ackers

Director of Digital Transformation 

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Dr James Cook OBE

Director of People Transformation 

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Tina Churcher

Chief Digital and Information Officer

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Simon Short

Director Data and Analytics

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Head of S&T and ACE (Accelerated Capability Environment)

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Chief AI Officer

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Jeremy Gould

 Deputy Director, Public Sector AI Delivery 

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Simon Price

Director of Insight, AI & Innovation

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Nayyab Naqvi

Principal Technologist for AI Enablement in the UK Public Sector

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Richard Baines

Deputy Director for Digital Delivery

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Shelina Hargrove

Deputy Director, GOV.UK AI and Chat

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Head of Data Management

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Chief Information and Digital Officer

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Digital Delivery Director

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Andy Wilson

Future Government Services Lead Ordnance Survey

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Deputy Director - Governance, Assurance & Partnerships at Department for Education

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Chief Analyst, UK National Audit Office

National Audit Office

 

Chief Technology Officer

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Sumitra Varma

Deputy Director, Probations Data 

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Arron Egan

Commercial Deputy Director - Government Digital Services

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Data & Analytics, Head of Data Platforms (Deputy Director) 

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Deputy Director, Head of User-centred Design at HM Revenue & Customs 

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Chief Data Architect, Government Digital Service 

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AI Research Engineer 

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Nico Celaj

Head of Strategic Customer Engagement, ACE

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Innovation Programme Delivery Manager

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Chief Data Officer 

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Sam Olsen

Executive Director Change and Innovation 

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Dr Ravinder Singh

Head of Digital and Systems 

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AI Product and Delivery Manager

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Head of Youth Justice, AI, and Data Sharing Hub

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Head of Profession for Digital and Data; Head of the Scottish Digital Academy, Scottish Government

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Deputy Director, Special project lead: Digital and AI training for civil servants, Cabinet Office 

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Head of ITAM at Department for Work and Pensions 

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Principal Data Architect | National Data Library Government Digital Service

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Making a Difference

We are grateful to the members of our Leaders' Network - a group of exceptional public sector practitioners and thought leaders from the UK public sector and around the world - for their active counsel and support of our mission to enable transformational government outcomes.