Summary
Richard Sargeant is a Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global management consulting firm. He supports clients in the UK and around the world to transform their organisations to benefit from Artificial Intelligence. He is passionate about the fruitful intersection between strategy, technology, and society.
Backstory
Richard joined BCG to support firms and institutions to transform themselves with the support of AI. BCG has an unusual combination of skilled tech builders, insightful analysts and trusted advisors who can diagnose and deliver the particular and fundamental changes to the design of our organisations that enable a step-change in performance.
Between 2016-21 Richard was COO of Faculty, the UK’s leading independent AI firm that develops and deploys AI systems in many different industries. Their work included using AI to detect Terrorist propaganda, and supporting the UK’s National Health Service through Covid. Before Faculty he was Director of Digital & Data Transformation at the Home Office and also a founding director of the UK’s Government Digital Service. The Economist, Guardian, and Wall Street Journal, among others covered GDS’s world leading work to put users at the heart of public service design, and transform the capability of the UK government to focus on digital delivery rather than technology procurement.
Previously, he was Head of Energy Market Design at the Department of Energy & Climate Change, where he led several stages of the Electricity Market Reform programme to secure an additional £200bn of capital investment into the UK Power Generation market. Their aim was to keep the lights on, bills down, and meet our climate change targets. As a consequence of these reforms, the UK was able to decarbonise at the fastest rate of any G20 country between 2010 and 2020, while sustaining economic growth and energy security.
Before that Richard was at Google as their UK Head of Public Policy. He also spent a year in Freetown, working for the Government of Sierra Leone to support officials and ministers through Tony Blair’s Africa Governance Initiative. Before Google, he was a senior policy advisor in HM Treasury, running the Gowers’ Review of Intellectual Property among other projects. His first role in Government was in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, writing papers on innovation in the public sector and happiness, as well as unpublished work on education and healthcare. He co-founded Engineers Without Borders UK in 2001 while studying Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge University.
His non-executive board roles have included Exeter University, The Challenge Network, which was the largest partner for the National Citizen Service programme, and the Government’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation. He produces an irregular podcast.
Photos – small round b&w, hi-res colour.
Selected Media
AI startup Faculty wins contract to predict future requirements for the UK’s NHS – TechCrunch
Here’s why pubs reopened in July – and why it’s different now – Wired
Message to ministers: AI can transform the way we live right now – Guardian
Artificial intelligence can make us smarter and faster – Telegraph
Efficiency by Transparency – The Economist