David Viney:
the poacher and gamekeeper of AI

David Viney sits where two worlds that rarely meet overlap: boardrooms placing large bets on AI, and civil society counting the cost when they fail. In 25 years he has led technology at WPP, Heathrow, the BBC, Arup and BSI. At WPP he led WPP Open, an agentic AI platform used by 70,000 practitioners in 110 countries, credited with $40m of documented commercial value in its first year. At Arup, his pioneering IoT installation on the Forth Road Bridge set the pattern for a $200m global industry. Chartered in technology (CITP) and accountancy (ACA), he tests advice against a CFO's scrutiny as well as an engineer's.

He also writes. A book he published in 2005 on delivering enterprise technology gave rise to the J-Curve of Change, now applied from construction and healthcare to agile delivery, and lately picked up by the Pender Fund and the Tony Blair Institute for AI adoption work. His monthly Catalyst newsletter reaches 1K+ subscribers, including CIOs, policymakers and board members, and his commentary has appeared in Moneywise, Yahoo Finance, Computer Weekly and TechTarget.

A source, not a vendor voice. David has served as a civil-society trustee for over a decade: Treasurer of Article 19, the freedom-of-expression organisation, and formerly at Privacy International in the years after the Snowden disclosures. He serves on the board of AI Governance Standards (AIGAS), making the EU AI Act and ISO/IEC 42001 workable for ordinary organisations. He is not selling AI, and has no stake in the hype cycle holding up.

For journalists, he can speak on how AI should be governed, what responsible transformation looks like, and where organisations go wrong adopting it. To reach him, use the contact button below.

David created the AI J-Curve. Beyond the press, he works with organisations through Alchemy Consulting as a part-time CIO and board advisor, with a focus on CISO, CAIO and transformation director mandates.