AI at the Frontier

Will joined Arup in 2018 and is Arup's Global Digital Services Leader. In this role, he is responsible for leading Arup’s work to support clients as they take advantage of the major transformation in their world that digital and AI are bringing about, including meeting critical sustainability challenges. While at Arup, Will has worked at the senior level with clients around the world and in various sectors, including property, cities, aviation, rail, highways, energy, the environment and technology.

Previously, Will was the Applied Strategy Lead at DeepMind, responsible for understanding the groundbreaking developments taking place in artificial intelligence and working with key partners to apply them for the public good in areas such as health and energy. Before that, he was a senior civil servant, including roles as Director General for Innovation, Growth and Technology at the Department of Health, Director General, International Energy and Climate Change at DECC, and head of the Prime Minister’s Implementation Unit, working directly for former PM David Cameron.

As a result, Will has a wide range of experience achieving change in areas such as digital, cities, health, education, energy and climate change, cybersecurity, growth, and innovation. When he was in government, he also led the creation of the world's first network of What Works Centres set up to provide proper evidence on effective uses of public money and pioneered the use of transparency and crowdsourcing in policy making. Will has also served as a World Bank economist and lectured at Oxford University and Imperial College. He has a doctorate in economics and was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath by the Queen in 2015.