INFORMATION COMMISSIONER'S OFFICE - Key Persons
Ailsa Beaton OBE was a Management Board member at the Metropolitan Police Service, Chief Information Officer at ICL plc and a Senior Partner at PA Consulting Group. She started her career as an accountant before moving into information technology with General Electric (USA).
She now has a portfolio of non-executive roles as well as undertaking interim management and consultancy work. These include being a non-executive director of ACL-UK Ltd, being a governor of the Legal Education Foundation and sitting on the Advisory Board for Information Management and Information Systems of Leeds University Business School.
Claudia Berg, General Counsel, is responsible for ensuring the ICO is discharging its legal duties and operating consistently in line with agreed legal risk appetite and informing the way the laws we oversee are developing. Claudia is the head of profession for the lawyers at the ICO, wherever they are positioned in the organisation.
David Cooke was, until March 2016, the Director (CEO) of the independent British Board of Film Classification, a post he held for nearly 12 years. Before that, David was a Civil Service Director working on such diverse topics as asylum, the Northern Ireland peace process, criminal justice and constitutional reform. David is also currently a Visiting Professor in the English Faculty at University College, London.
Job Titles:
- Acting Deputy Commissioner
Emily Keaney, Acting Deputy Commissioner - Executive Director Policy, is responsible for overseeing the ICO's programme of strategic policy work and the development of the ICO's Policy Profession. She was previously Director of Legislative Reform at the ICO, leading the team providing expert advice and input to Government as it reforms data protection legislation to ensure it is fit for the future. Prior to this Emily was Director of Regulatory Futures at the ICO, responsible for identifying, understanding and planning for emerging social, political and business trends to ensure the ICO continues to be an effective, future-facing regulator.
Before coming to the ICO Emily was Director of the UK Regulators' Network, a vehicle for collaboration between thirteen regulators across the financial, utilities, transport, communications, data, legal and financial sectors. She has an extensive career in consumer policy and research, including in previous roles as Head of Media Literacy and Children's Research at Ofcom, the communications regulator, where she managed a large programme of qualitative and quantitative research into the ways in which adults and children use, create and understand media, and at the Communications Consumer Panel, The Arts Council and the Institute for Public Policy Research.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Commissioner and Chief Regulatory Officer
James Dipple-Johnstone, Deputy Commissioner and Chief Regulatory Officer, joined the ICO's office in 2017 from the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA), where he had been Director of Investigation and Supervision leading their teams assessing and investigating reports of professional misconduct, money laundering, cybercrime and fraud involving solicitors and law firms. James's background is in regulatory investigation, appeals and complaints handling.
He has held posts as Commissioner for the Independent Police Complaints Commission, Director of Investigation for the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and in NHS regulators.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation
Jane McCall is Chair of the Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust. In May 2020, she became the Chair of Peaks and Plains Housing Trust, a social housing provider based in Macclesfield. Jane has significant experience as a Non-Executive Director in the NHS, including at Stockport Foundation Trust and University Hospitals of South Manchester Foundation Trust; the latter as Deputy Chair.
Previously Jane was (until April 2021) an External Commissioner on the House of Commons Commission and (until May 2016) Deputy Chief Executive at Trafford Housing Trust, a housing business with a social purpose based in Greater Manchester.
She has worked in the social housing sector for over 25 years and has been in senior management for the last 15 years. Her previous posts include Managing Director of two business subsidiaries within the Regenda Group, and Divisional Technical Director for the Places for People Group.
Jen Green, Executive Director - Strategic Change and Transformation, is responsible for the delivery of the ICO's ambitious change and transformation programme, ensuring we continuously develop our capacity, capability and culture as a regulator and employer to keep pace with the rapidly changing world we regulate.
John Edwards began his term as UK Information Commissioner on 3 January 2022.
Ken Macdonald, Head of ICO Regions, leads our Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland offices. A graduate of Edinburgh (MA) and Aberdeen (PhD) universities, Ken joined the ICO in 2005 after a career in the higher education, private consultancy and local authority sectors.
Job Titles:
- Senior Independent Director at the ICO
Nicola Wood is the Senior Independent Director at the ICO. She has a decade's experience at board level and is a former solicitor and ombudsman. She has worked with different groups of vulnerable consumers and takes a particular interest in issues affecting children.
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Deputy Chief Executive
Paul Arnold, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer (Corporate Strategy and Planning Service), is responsible for the administrative leadership and performance of the ICO. He deputises for the Commissioner in their role as CEO and Accounting Officer.
As a visually impaired person Paul is passionate about equality of access to opportunity and the importance of people like him, doing jobs like his, making it easy to assume that others will do the same.
Peter Hustinx was the first European Data Protection Supervisor from January 2004 until December 2014. From 1991 until 2004, he was president of the Dutch Data Protection Authority, and from 1996 until 2000, he was also chairman of the EU's Article 29 Working Party. He has been closely involved in the development of data protection law from the start, both at national and various international levels. He received law degrees in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. In July 2015 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh for his work in the field of information privacy and data protection. Early 2015 he was appointed Member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Since December 2017 he has also been a Member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) in Washington DC.
Stephen Bonner, Executive Director (Regulatory Futures and Innovation), joined the ICO to lead our work developing our capacity and capability to regulate new and emerging technologies and innovations. He leads programmes of work to develop strategic ICO positions, based on horizon scanning and research, on technology issues such as data, supervision of the large technology platforms now in our remit, online harms, the Digital Markets Unit and delivery of the DRCF (Digital Regulatory Cooperation Forum) workplan. He is also leading on the implementation of the Children's code.