Stephanie Ifayemi

Stephanie Ifayemi is the Head of Policy at Partnership on AI. Prior to joining PAI, she was the Head of Digital Standards Policy in the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) where she led the government’s work on global digital technical standards including for AI and quantum technologies.

Stephanie was responsible for setting the UK’s AI standards objectives and determining the role of technical standards for the UK’s AI governance model. In 2021, she published the UK’s first AI standards objectives in the National AI strategy and in January 2022, she launched the UK’s AI Standards Hub, alongside the Alan Turing Institute. Her work on AI and quantum standards has been reflected across several UK strategies, including the National Cyber Strategy and UK’s Digital Strategy. Alongside setting policy on standards for AI governance/regulation, assurance, and interoperability, her work has focused on strengthening multi-stakeholder representation in global standardization and delivering the G7 framework for collaboration.

Internationally, she is a member of the OECD Network of Experts on AI, a representative in bodies such as ISO/IEC, CEN/CENELEC, ETSI and the UK’s ICT/1/1/2 quantum technology panel, a Schmidt Futures European International Strategy Fellow and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Defining and Building the Metaverse initiative. Prior to digital standards policy, Stephanie worked in international roles including Germany’s GIZ Delegation to the African Union in Addis Ababa.

Stephanie holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Oxford where she was a Duke of Cambridge Scholar. She has a BA from The University of Warwick where she received a RARE Rising Stars Award for the UK’s top 10 Black students.