Role
Chris Townsend CBE is a member of NTU's Board of Governors.
Career overview
Chris specialises in leading the successful development, delivery and management of major and high-profile projects, including digital and business transformation in telecoms, broadcast, sports and Government entities. He has 25 years of expertise at Board Director level, bringing together multi-disciplinary teams across the public and private sectors. He is Chair and Director of Smartology, a leading platform delivering Generative AI-powered contextual content services to media.
Chris formerly served as Senior Partner at KPMG and Head of KPMG’s Infrastructure, Government, Defence and Healthcare practice. In this role he developed and delivered the 5-year IGH Business Plan including approval for significant investment in digital transformation for a wide range of Government and public sector projects and contracts.
Chris currently serves as a member of the Creative Steering Committee Osaka Expo 2025 with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and as an Honorary Member of the NHSBT Plasma Board for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). He is also a member of the University of Nottingham Trent Board of Governors.
Chris undertook a voluntary role as CEO and SRO for the COVID-19 Shielding Programme in 2020, designed to protect 2.25M Clinically Extremely Vulnerable NHS patients in England, with a budget of £300M and coordinating the combined activities of several Government departments. Chris was awarded a CBE in recognition of his services in her Majesty the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in June 2021.
Previously, he was responsible for all commercial activities and revenues at Chelsea Football Club as Commercial Director. As CEO of Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) and Executive board member of the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), he oversaw a £1BN government investment, resulting in 95% coverage of superfast broadband across the United Kingdom.
Chris was the Commercial Director for the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), responsible for all Commercial activities including fund-raising, procurement and marketing. The following year, he received an OBE from her Majesty the Queen for raising £2.45BN to fund the London 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics.
As Group Marketing Director at Transport for London, Chris led the launch and marketing of the Oyster card and played a key role in securing £10BN investment from Government. Prior to TFL Chris worked as Marketing Director for BSkyB, where he led the marketing launch of Sky’s subscription channels including Sky Sports in 1992, growing the subscriber base from 250k to 5M. Chris was jointly responsible for the development and successful launch of BSkyB Digital in 1998 with an investment of £2BN.
Chris is formerly Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and of the Royal Opera House and is currently a Member of the Development Board of Tusk. He is currently a patron of the National Portrait Gallery, Royal Opera House and Tusk.