Mayank Prakash

Mayank Prakash holds an MBA from Manchester Business School,[2] is a Wharton Fellow and an alumnus of Singularity University.

Mayank Prakash started his career as a Graduate Engineer Trainee at the Hewlett-Packard. He worked in the HCL JV starting with the entrepreneurial Frontline Solutions start-up venture and was soon after selected to join the Senior Management Trainee Programme and deputed to incubate ERP implementation capabilities working with the Big 4 Consulting firms.

Prakash was the International CIO of Avaya, then the Group CIO of iSoft and later the CIO of Sage Group in UK.[3] Prakash was hired by Morgan Stanley as a Managing Director, Tech and Data, as part of the executive team of Morgan Stanley Wealth and Asset Management.[4]

In 2014, Prakash left Morgan Stanley to join the Department for Work and Pensions as the Director General in charge of technology, replacing Andy Nelson.[2] In this role, Prakash combines his predecessor's job as CIO with business transformation, security and data responsibilities, and worked directly for Sir Robert Devereux.[5] The British Computer Society welcomed the appointment, and Morgan Stanley was sorry to see him leave. GDS Chief Mike Bracken described the hiring of Prakash as the turning point for Whitehall's ability to hire the best digital leaders across industry.

Credited with quietly turning around one of the largest IT estates into a lean digital delivery machine on a massive scale, TechUK and DigiLeaders recently recognised the strength of industry partnerships and the scale of digital transformation being delivered at DWP resulting in DWP becoming #8 on Twitter attracting a million digital techies and leaders from all sectors.[6]

Subsequently, Mayank joined FTSE100 Centrica as the Chief Consumer Digital and Information Officer where he teamed up with Gene Kim, the author of The Phoenix Project, to incubate agile mindsets and Devon’s. [7]

Mr Prakash joined the board of Uber as a Non Exec Director and is credited with coaching Uber executives to focus on sustainability and safety. Uber launched the Clean Air Plan in London with the aim of getting every Uber driver in the city into an electric vehicle by 2025. Uber’s Clean Air Plan has raised over £145 million which can be put towards the cost of switching to an EV at discounted rates. Uber also announced a £5 million investment in EV charging points across London. Over 700 on-street electric vehicle chargers are to be installed across Brent, Newham, and Redbridge – boosting London’s stock of EV chargers by over 7% - which was recognised by UK Government Transport Minister Trudy Harrison. [8]

As Centrica sold it’s North American business, Mr Prakash was head hunted to join UK’s largest wealth and professional services business managing £57bn assets as the Group CTO and then promoted to become the Group Chief Operations Officer. Mr Prakash is also the Director on the board of UK’s fastest growing £10 bn fund services business Smith and Williamson Fund Administration Limited. [9]

Passionate about growing diversity in the IT industry, he was selected as the Deputy President of the British Computing Society in 2021 and the President in 2022. The British Computing Society is the chartered institute for technology and represents tens of thousands of leading technologists across the world. Mr Prakash is the chair of the board and also serves on the nominations and remuneration committee of the Trustee Board. [10]

Mayank is one of 6 authors of open source heuristic computer vision library.

• 2015: Computer Weekly UKTech50, 5th most influential person in UK IT
• 2016: CIO of the Year
• 2016: Computer Weekly UKTech50, 6th most influential person in UK IT
• 2017: Computer Weekly UKTech50, most influential person in UK IT
• 2017: Digital Leader of the Year
• 2021: Deputy President, BCS
• 2022: President, BCS