Emma Gawen (she/her)

Emma is a Partner at Public Digital – a disruptive global consultancy that helps institutions that matter to thrive in the internet era. Emma leads the firm’s public sector work in the Americas. Recent work includes creating and recruiting a digital team for California which launched a public “alpha” website alpha.ca.gov focused on Californians’ top needs. This team then launched covid19.ca.gov to track Covid-19, providing clear and transparent information to 40 million citizens.

Emma has also led research projects for Public Digital on topics including: best practices from leading economies in government digital transformation, how to build digital government teams, operating models for smart cities, and adoption of open source for governments.

Prior to Public Digital, Emma worked as a senior civil servant in the UK and New Zealand governments, advising ministers and senior officials on digital delivery. During her time in the UK Government Digital Service, Emma founded the Digital 5 (now Digital Nations) government network of leading digital governments. She was also a founding member of the UK’s G-Cloud team, delivering a new platform for governments to procure technology services as commodities, and establishing the UK’s cloud first policy.