Adrian Joseph Obe

Independent Non-Executive Director at Direct Line Group

Adrian Joseph was appointed to the Board on 1 January 2021. He joined BT Group in February 2020 as Managing Director, Group Data and Artificial Intelligence. Prior to this he was a senior Partner at EY for three years and the Head of the UK Data and Analytics practice for Financial Services. He joined EY with over ten year’s cloud, digital, platform, data science and analytics experience gained in senior leadership roles at Google, and a further 15 years in industry and consultancy. This included two years as the main Board member responsible for Sales and Marketing at Trafficmaster Plc.

Adrian was also a Non-Executive Director at the Home Office from 2016 to 2020, where he sat on the Home Office Data Board and advised on data science, digital transformation, and diversity and inclusion. From January 2012-2017, Adrian was Chair of the Race Equality Board, the race campaign of Business in the Community charity. In 2014 he was appointed to the main Board of Business in the Community and he continues to serve as an Advisor. He was awarded an OBE for services to equality and diversity in business in the 2019 New Year’s honours list and was announced as the most influential black, Asian and minority ethnic technology leader in the UK by the Financial Times and Inclusive Boards in 2018.

Adrian’s expertise in data, AI and automation, as well as his passionate advocacy for diversity and inclusion, benefit the Board as it oversees the execution of a strategy of which these issues are a fundamental part.