About Andrew Besford

Andrew is an experienced digital leader who specialises in business change, data, and cyber-security, in public and private sector organisations.

Prior to returning to north east England to create his own consultancy business, Andrew spent 5 years as a senior civil servant. His first public sector role was at the Department for Work and Pensions, where he was responsible for developing and delivering the vision for the digital future of the organisation, the UK’s largest public service delivery department. Andrew later moved to the Cabinet Office as Deputy Director of the Government Digital Service, where he led the creation of the Government Transformation Strategy, which was published in February 2017.

Andrew built his early career in software and technology, in both in-house and consultancy roles in a number of countries. The common theme of each of these was around technology-enabled business transformation. Andrew was one of the founders of a tech startup, which was sold to Vodafone in 2006 to form its mobile applications business.

Andrew is a non-executive director at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, one of the UK’s top performing NHS trusts. He is also a director of Dynamo North East, a community interest company with the mission to grow the North East tech economy through collaboration, innovation, skills and ‘noise’.

Andrew holds a degree in Computer Science from Cambridge.