Richard Corbridge is the Director General for Digital at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) joining in April 2023. He has responsibility for technology and data across the entire department including the technical capability in 850 Job Centers and the management of all payment systems, benefits systems and analysis of these on a daily basis. The digital team is over 4,500 talented colleagues supporting the most vulnerable people in the UK through the application of many different digital solutions.

He is a globally recognised expert in digital technology and its application to a diverse set of business. He has over 25 years’ experience in diverse CIO roles across public and private sectors. Richard has a passion for innovation, business change and benefits management. As a leader he insists on a focus on engagement and benefits being brought to all technology implementations.

In 2019 he was appointed as the first Director of Innovation at Boots UK, with a remit to deliver a transformed high street pharmacy and health and beauty experience for customers across the UK. In 2020 he was promoted to the Boots Executive as Chief Information Officer with responsibility for technology throughout the business. In 2022 he took on responsibility for data, science and insight within his CIO role and was asked to lead the IT transformation of the No.7 Beauty Company.

Earlier in his career Richard was the Chief Information Officer for the Health Service Executive in Ireland. In Ireland he achieved many successes, including the implementation of a unique identifier for health and a fully digitized referral process. He put in place Irelands first clinical information officer’s council, whilst driving a team to begin the first epilepsy genomic sequencing programme globally. He went on to implement a national lab system and oversaw the delivery of a national maternity health record. He was instrumental in the reform of the Irish healthcare technology system that has subsequently seen a plethora of awards and recognition for the team across Europe.

In 2017 Richard was named the number one CIO from the UK in the CIO Magazine CIO100, he has remained in the top 10 CIOs ever since. In the same year he was named the eGovernment Visionary of the year by Leo Varadkar. In 2018 he was named as the most disruptive talent in digital by Sir Richard Branson and Steve Wozniak. In 2021 he was listed in the 50 most influential leaders in global digital healthcare by HIMSS and was recognised by Digital Leaders and Marketing Week in the top 50 Customer Experience executives in the UK.

In 2019 in recognition of his work in Ireland he was awarded the O’Moore medal for technology by the Irish Computer Society and Irish government, the highest accolade ever awarded to a digital health leader in Ireland. In 2021 he was awarded the Ambulance Service award in recognition of his work during the pandemic to place pharmacists on the NHS111 response team through digital connectivity.

In 2022 the British Computer Society named Richard the number one CIO in the UK listing his ability to lead teams, develop ownership of strategy and changing the perception of IT across businesses as key to this honor. In 2023 HotTopics listed

Richard in the top 100 CIOs globally and Computer Weekly listed him as one of the UK’s 50 most influential tech leaders.

Richard has worked as a non-Executive director on a series of health technology and communications start-ups assisting each in their year-on-year growth these include Draper and Dash, Forward Healthcare and Silver Buck. He was a founding member of the EU Commission’s Health Cloud and AI Council, the Information Security Forum’s Open Data working group and the global KLAS advisory board.

His passion to share has led him to become a lecturer at Newcastle University Digital Innovation School; The Rotman School of Management, Ontario Canada and University College Dublin Smurfit School.