Dowshan Humzah

Dowshan Humzah has a plural career with a portfolio of board, advisory and consultancy roles. He is Chair of the UK Advisory Board for Board Apprentice Global.

He has over 20 years executive experience delivering transformative business growth, digital innovation and talent diversity. This includes senior director roles with RSA Insurance (leading a £550m GWP business) and with Virgin Media (building a £330m revenue line). He started his career with P&G in brand management, then moved to Orange in product management. He also held director roles in 4 technology ventures across car retail, TV broadcast, film production and social media.

Dowshan has a belief in, not what technology could do but, how it ought to serve people. He is also a champion of behavioural science and known for a range of innovations. Firstly, these include: applying digital and social media in lessons to aid student attainment; the UK’s first telematics motor insurance product; and Virgin Media’s next generation network featuring highest speed broadband. At Orange, he developed the vision of ‘passport, tickets, money, Orange’ – provisioning IDD and roaming to the full base. At P&G he co-developed and launched their most successful fragrance, Hugo by Hugo Boss using early digital means.

His personal background explains his passion for access to opportunity for those underestimated. He has furthered this through his work with government and across civil society. In addition, he created diversity of POETS (Perspective, Outlook, Experience, Thought, Sector & Social Background) as a business imperative.

His battle for social justice is driven by the fact that in the UK, an individual’s future is mostly defined by the circumstances of their birth, early years and family privilege. He highlighted Board Apprentice as a solution to improve board composition in three separate diversity reviews. This included: the UK Government’s Hampton-Alexander Review for Women on FTSE Boards and Parker Review for Ethnic Minorities; and the Disability Review from KPMG and Purple.

Dowshan Humzah is a graduate of The LSE and has executive education from LBS. He is a Fellow of The Institute of Directors and a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing. Outside of work, he’s a member of the Travelers’ Century Club (visited 100+ countries) and a qualified fitness instructor.