John Higgins is Chair of Global Digital Foundation. He is a recent former President of the British Computer Society (BCS), the UK’s Chartered Institute of IT. He became the public face of the digital sector in Europe in November 2011 speaking regularly on platforms and at conferences throughout Europe and beyond as Director General of DIGITALEUROPE, the association for the digital technology industry in Europe. John was President of the European Commission’s Strategic Policy Forum (SPF) on Digital Entrepreneurship. He led DIGITALEUROPE until April 2017, following nine years as head of its UK member, Intellect, now TechUK. In spring of 2017 he became a Senior Advisor to global communications company, Burson, Cohn & Wolfe for Digital and Artificial Intelligence. John is an advisor to the European Commission’s Intelligent Cities Challenge. In 2021 he was appointed Chair of Sardina Systems – a global cloud software company. The Queen appointed him a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2005 for his services to the UK IT industry. John lives in Bath in the UK with his wife Ailsa. They have three adult daughters.
