Dowshan Humzah
Dowshan Humzah has a plural career with a portfolio of board, advisory and consultancy roles. He is currently Chair of the UK Advisory Board for Board Apprentice Global.
He has over 20 years experience as a business transformation and digital change specialist delivering business growth and innovation. This includes senior director roles with RSA Insurance (leading a £550m GWP business) and with Virgin Media (building a £330m revenue line). Having started his career with P&G in brand management, he moved to Orange in product management. He has also held director roles in 4 digital and technology start-up ventures. These were across online car retail, TV broadcast, film production and social media. Now, he shows organisations how to enhance customer and commercial deliverables by applying a digital lens across their objectives.
Dowshan has a belief in, not what technology could do but, how it ought to serve people – and he is a champion of behavioural science. Hence, the innovations he is known for 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. Earlier in his career, at Orange, he developed the vision of ‘passport, tickets, money, Orange’ – provisioning IDD and roaming to the full base – an industry first; and 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 under-estimated, which he has furthered through his work with government and across civil society, as well as his development of 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 has ensured that Board Apprentice is unique in being highlighted in three separate reviews as a practical solution to improve board diversity and quality: 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.
He 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 is a member of the Travelers’ Century Club (visited 100+ countries) and a qualified fitness instructor.
