Professor

Alan W. Brown is Professor in Digital Economy at the University of Exeter Business School where he co-leads the Initiative in Digital Economy at Exeter (INDEX). Alan’s research is focused on agile approaches to business transformation, and the relationship between technology innovation and business innovation in today’s rapidly-evolving digital economy. After receiving a PhD in Computational Science at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Alan spent almost 2 decades in the USA in commercial high-tech companies leading R&D teams, building leading-edge solutions, and driving innovation in software product delivery. He then spent 5 years in Madrid leading enterprise strategy as European CTO for IBM’s Software group. Most recently Alan co-founded the Surrey Centre for the Digital Economy (CoDE) at the University of Surrey where he led research initiatives in 4 EPSRC-funded research projects.

The impact of Alan’s research is seen in his consulting activities where he advises several startups, and works with clients in the public and private sector including the UK National Audit Office, Centrica, SAP, Resonate, McLaren, and several UK Government agencies. He has published 5 books and numerous papers on software engineering, systems design, and digital business transformation. He was also named in the apolitical.co 2018 list of the world’s 100 most influential people in digital government. In March 2019 Alan received a Fellowship from the Alan Turing Institute, the UK national institute for AI and data science.