People

CFPD is non-partisan and non-aligned. We work with a board and group of informal advisors to develop our strategy.

Our team

Anna Powell-Smith

CFPD’s founder and director is Anna Powell-Smith, a data scientist and policy analyst. Anna was previously chief product officer at a successful British data visualisation startup, founding chief technical officer at the University of Oxford’s Evidence-Based Medicine DataLab, and developer on the data science team at the Government Digital Service. Find Anna on Twitter.

Amber Dellar

Amber is CFPD’s Researcher, with a particular interest in social policy. She recently graduated from the University of Oxford where she studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, and has experience researching and reporting on fuel poverty, homelessness, and debt collection. In her previous role as the lead researcher for data company Xantura, she supported the creation of predictive models designed to prevent the incidence of various social problems.

Our board

CFPD is supported by an independent board.

Cass Chideock

Cass is a former Senior Civil Servant and spent that part of her career mainly in the Cabinet Office, specialising in government’s use of ICT and data, including privacy and data sharing matters, and open data. Cass left government and the UK in 2019 and now works for TNO in the Netherlands, a Dutch applied research and technology organisation, where she focuses on the opportunities and challenges presented by emerging technologies. Find Cass on Twitter.

John Fiennes

John is a former senior civil servant, with wide experience across central Government, including the Treasury, Foreign Office, Home Office and Department for Business. In his last role he worked in the Cabinet Office to support the PM and Cabinet across the domestic policy and legislative agenda. He has particular interests in economic policy issues, energy and the environment.

Richard Allan

Richard Allan has spent half his career working in the public sector (healthcare and politics), and the other half working in the private sector (internet hardware and social media). Richard has worked on most of the "hot" technology policy issues including privacy and data use, content regulation, the conduct of politics online, competition, tax and connectivity. Find Richard on Twitter.

Work with us

We’re always keen to hear from researchers, policy experts, and anyone with an interest in our work. Check our any current vacancies or drop us a line at contact@centreforpublicdata.org.