William Priest
Biography
William was appointed a Director in the Cabinet Office and Chief Executive Officer of the Geospatial Commission in 2018.
The new Geospatial Commission sits at the centre of government, to direct efforts across public-sector data bodies and coordinate HMG’s approach to geospatial data. The CEO is a new role that has been created to help deliver this vision, and will oversee strategy, implementation and value creation.
From April 2017 to January 2018, William was Interim CEO of Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) and an acting Director in DCMS. He was accountable to the DCMS Secretary of State for the delivery of manifesto commitments, such as providing superfast broadband to 95% of UK premises by the end of 2017. In addition, the programmes to launch full fibre and 5G were also part of his mandate. He was a member of the DCMS executive board, chaired by the Permanent Secretary.
William joined the Cabinet Office and the Government Commercial Function (GCF) as a Crown representative in September 2015. As such, he was a member of the GCF Commercial Relationships Board and responsible for two of government’s major IT suppliers: IBM and DXC. The latter is the UK government’s largest IT services provider.
Prior to taking up his role in the Cabinet Office, William has over 20 years’ executive experience in the IT and telecoms sectors, and he has held senior leadership positions with a number of the leading, global ICT service providers. Before this, William worked for a number of leading management consultancies.
William is a Chartered Civil and Water Engineer and has worked in many overseas countries on development projects for the World Bank and the CDC Group.
William is also a Non-Executive Director of the Royal Armouries International, a DCMS-owned organisation, and an independent Board Member on the DCMS Major Programmes Board.
Previous roles in government
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Interim Director, Geospatial Commission