PA Consulting strengthens public sector practice with Simon King appointment
Simon King has joined PA Consulting as a partner. His arrival boosts the firm’s public sector AI offering, at a time when government departments are looking to deploy the technology across their services.
“I’m excited to share that I have joined PA Consulting to work on scaling AI in the public sector,” King said in a comment on LinkedIn.
He added in the post that he was “proud to join a team that not only understands the opportunities and risks of AI, but has the credibility, talent and ambition to turn its potential into lasting impact for clients and citizens.”
An experienced digital strategist, service designer and researcher, King has built a reputation for coupling design thinking approaches and innovative insight techniques in his previous roles. Most recently, that saw him spend a year as director of public sector AI adoption for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
Prior to that, King spent five years with DWP Digital – helping to digitalise the Department for Work and Pensions’ services. Latterly, that was again as director of AI and innovation, with responsibility across the DWP for
development of digital strategy,
innovation, running the DWP Innovation Lab, and business architecture.
At PA Consulting, the former Civil Service expert will use his insight to help harness and scale AI across the public sector. This is something the firm says will be “instrumental as we continue supporting clients to deliver meaningful transformation and impact.”
Speaking on the new arrival, PA Consulting Partner Becky Noble said in a LinkedIn post, “I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Simon King to the team. Simon brings a wealth of experience in technology and transformation and will play a key role as we help clients adopt AI safely, responsibly and at scale. Looking forward to working together on some of the biggest opportunities and challenges in public sector AI.”
The news follows an announcement that PA Consulting has been inducted into a new coalition to boost Britain’s sovereign AI capacity. As the UK looks to apply AI to key national infrastructure, questions of technological sovereignty are coming to the fore – and the firm will now work as part of an alliance of businesses to help ensure security and reliability when utilising large language models in the nuclear energy space – among other sectors.
