Emma Gawen

Emma is Public Digital's Managing Director. 

Previously she led the Americas practice, a portfolio of teams and clients across North, Central and South America.

She is an expert in digital strategy and transformation, bringing a global perspective to her work through her wide range of experience advising governments around the world. She helps leaders understand how to de-risk and improve the outcomes of digital and technology projects, and  helps organisations build digital and data capability in their teams, in order to deliver better impact and outcomes for citizens. 

Emma oversees Public Digital’s work with the Bloomberg Philanthropies City Data Alliance and serves as an advisory board member for What Works Cities.

At Public Digital, Emma has advised a range of international governments, including the State of California, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Argentina, Peru, Estonia; and organisations including the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 

Before joining Public Digital, Emma was a civil servant in the New Zealand Government CIO office, the UK’s Government Digital Service, and the UK Ministry of Justice. Work included international engagement with national governments, the European Commission and the OECD, project managing digital service delivery, working on G-Cloud (a transformational procurement service for cloud and digital products replicated by governments around the world), and technology strategy.