Marking our second of five sector lists in the CX50 2025, Marketing Week looks at how public-sector organisations use technology such as AI to connect valuable information sources and offer user-centred experiences.
Implementing technology as a government body comes with a whole different set of responsibilities from those of a B2B or consumer brand. This is the core challenge that defines customer experience in the public sector, where CX professionals must consider all possible users, not just the most valuable ones.
Meeting this challenge is what sets apart the second out of five groups of individuals making up this year’s Marketing Week CX50 – our list of the UK’s top customer experience professionals, compiled in partnership with Cognizant, Google Cloud and Salesforce.
You can find the names of our 10 chosen CX professionals from the public sector below, followed by an interview with Anaïs Reding, chief digital officer at the Department for Business and Trade, who shares how she navigates technology to add genuine value.
‘Service ecosystems’: A vision of the future for customer experience
The Marketing Week CX50, in partnership with Cognizant, Google Cloud and Salesforce, is the pre-eminent annual list of the UK’s top 50 customer experience professionals. In 2025, we are repeating the sector-focused approach to choosing the list’s members first adopted in 2024, representing the variety of customer experiences provided by B2C, B2B and public sector organisations.
The CX50 2025 is divided into the following five sectors, each featuring 10 professionals:
Theo
Chris
David
Megan
Sonia
Anaïs
Daljit
Joanna
Gill
Helen
Chief Digital Officer
Chief Digital and Information Officer
Government Chief Technology Officer
Director General, Service Transformation
Chief Technology Officer
Chief Digital Officer
Chief Digital and Information Officer
Director General, Customer Services Group
Chief Digital Officer
Chief Digital and Information Officer
The CX50 2025
Blackwell
Howes
Knott
Lee-Devlin
Patel
Reding
Rehal
Rowland
Stewart
Wylie
Greater London Authority
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Ministry of Justice
NHS England
Department for Business and Trade
HM Revenue and Customs
Home Office
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Department for Work and Pensions
public sector
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
CX for all
Whenever Anaïs Reding, chief digital officer at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), is considering the impact of a new technology in elevating customer experience, she has to take into account every single one of the 5.5 million UK businesses that might turn to the government department for support.
“We always have to worry about 100% of users,” she explains. “That massively impacts, for example, the design style we have on GOV.UK, because we have to take into account that not everybody’s got good access to the internet and so pages relating to core services need to be easily downloadable, even in an area with poor internet.”
Each rollout of a new technology also needs to be supported by a comprehensive communication strategy, to ensure every single business owner, as far as is possible, is aware, understands the change and – perhaps even more crucially – sees the value.
This need to consider every single user rather than, say, the most profitable segment, is just one of the ways that CX professionals working in the public sector need to approach the adoption of technologies like AI through a slightly different lens from a private-sector brand or service provider.
“We need to make sure everyone understands who or what they're interacting with and what that means for the way that they can make decisions on the back of it,” says Reding. “There needs to be a sound understanding from our users about how their data is going to be processed and the risks that come with that too.”
What’s more, she adds: “We have that real responsibility in making sure that what is shared back with them is something that we can really stand behind. For example, I've been working with the Government Digital Service and HMRC around the use of AI chat. And of course, for HMRC, there are huge liabilities if they provide advice on tax that is wrong.”
It’s why, at least to external onlookers, it might appear that public bodies are slightly behind the curve on adoption. But that needs to be seen in the context of this wholly different set of priorities, ethics and even ambitions. “In a different context you might just be able to just get started because you don't really have that responsibility for the population,” Reding points out, but adds “we do embrace it.”
Our criteria and methodology for determining the CX50’s members remain the same as in previous years. In order to create a pool of candidates, we combine nominations from Marketing Week and Cognizant’s professional networks with research into independent measures of organisations that perform highly on CX. To select the final list, we then assess individuals’ achievements in the past year and over the course of their careers against the three criteria of impact, innovation and influence.
The CX50 members possess an eclectic set of skills and responsibilities, all crucial in the effort to deliver exceptional customer experience.
“We need to make sure everyone understands who or what they're interacting with.”
— Anaïs Reding, Department for Business and Trade
AI expanding access
There are various touchpoints in citizens’ journeys where services such as AI-enabled chat functions are already playing a role; helping overcome some of the resource limitations of government departments in providing advice in common scenarios, for example.
“Businesses will always prefer a human interaction, but we cannot provide it at scale because it costs too much money,” explains Reding. By deploying automated alternatives, the team is freed up to focus on business or trade areas where there’s the most opportunity, or where “the UK is really trying to make a dent. It means we can be a bit more targeted.”
Given the non-commercial role of government bodies, technology can also be deployed as a connective tool that amplifies the value government can provide and can link businesses or citizens with third-party services. “The wider ecosystem out there of services, of content, is not our competition, it's more like an asset,” says Reding.
“AI can be really helpful in enabling a user, who comes to a government website and trusts a government brand, to gain access to content and services from a wide range of organisations that are out there in the market but that they might not know or know if they can trust. But if we know we can trust them, we can use AI to provide answers directly from their sites without having to produce it ourselves. In that way it can really amplify the voice of some of those organisations, but also mean that the value that government can provide is much bigger.”
It's this thinking which will shape the launch of a new offer for domestic businesses in the summer, which will provide access to an ecosystem of support for any company looking to start up, grow, export or invest in the UK. It will combine DBT services with technologies like AI to “personalise that support and proactively serve it up to businesses, but also draw on that whole ecosystem rather than it be limited to what we do in our department, or even across government.”
In each application, Reding is focused on using technology to add genuine value rather than a comparable alternative to what’s already out there. Though users expect AI-enabled chat functions on websites, for example, they’ve also fed back that it hasn’t helped them achieve anything new or different versus what was available before, and so the new service is designed to create a genuinely different user journey rather than “simply an alternative to a well-designed website”.
It's about focusing on user-centred design – which starts with the service or the customer and then positions tech as an enabler to achieve their goal, rather than starting with what flashy new function tech can deliver. “Always at the back of my mind the question is, does this technology take away from the investment that we need to put into user-centred design?” says Reding. “At the moment, all of the AI [hype] is distracting from that. I really hope that, going forward, we focus less on technology and more on the service itself, with a really strong understanding of all the various technologies that can help you deliver that service.”
Read the CX50 members' profiles
More sector lists and analysis
Manufacturing, logistics, energy and utilities
Public
sector
Financial
services
Retail, consumer goods, travel and hospitality
Life
sciences
METHODOLOGY
Trust is the cornerstone of public sector service delivery and must remain central to technological implementation. Government organisations are exploring AI not as a cost-cutting measure, but as a means to create more responsive, personalised experiences for citizens. The focus on transparent, explainable AI aligns perfectly with the public sector's accountability requirements and helps maintain citizen confidence in increasingly automated processes.
Salesforce
The public sector's approach to technology adoption reflects its unique accountability to citizens. Government bodies are increasingly taking a thoughtful approach to AI implementation, focusing first on augmenting human capabilities. Some of the most successful deployments start with well-defined service outcomes rather than the technology itself, ensuring digital innovations genuinely enhance citizen experience.
Google Cloud
Rohit Gupta, Managing Director, UK and Ireland, Cognizant
Our 'New Minds, New Markets' research shows that consumer trust in AI varies dramatically across different touchpoints. This trust dimension is vital for public bodies, where decisions can have profound implications on citizens' lives. It's not merely about convenience but maintaining public confidence in essential services.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
How top CX brands balance tech with the human touch
MANUFACTURING, LOGISTICS, ENERGY AND UTILITIES
The CX50 2025
Jude Burditt
Director of Customer Solutions and Technology
Severn Trent
Colette Healy
Marketing Director, UK
BMW Group
Lee Nelson
Vice-President, Global Marketing and Communications
DHL eCommerce
Kelly Ralph
Group Marketing and Communications Director
Peel Ports Group
Nick Ratcliffe
Customer Experience Director, UK
Volkswagen Group
Mark Rose
Sales and Marketing Director
TotalEnergies Gas & Power
Hayley Thompson
Vice-President, Global Marketing
SmartestEnergy
Gillian Tomlinson
Group Chief Data and Digital Officer
Weir Group
Amy Turnbull
Vice-President, Digital Operations and Systems Integration
Wood
Nigel Watson
Chief Information Officer
Northumbrian Water Group
Read the CX50 members' profiles
More sector lists and analysis
“We need to make sure everyone understands who or what they're interacting with.”
— Anaïs Reding, Department for
Business and Trade
Trust is the cornerstone of public sector service delivery and must remain central to technological implementation. Government organisations are exploring AI not as a cost-cutting measure, but as a means to create more responsive, personalised experiences for citizens. The focus on transparent, explainable AI aligns perfectly with the public sector's accountability requirements and helps maintain citizen confidence in increasingly automated processes.
Salesforce
The public sector's approach to technology adoption reflects its unique accountability to citizens. Government bodies are increasingly taking a thoughtful approach to AI implementation, focusing first on augmenting human capabilities. Some of the most successful deployments start with well-defined service outcomes rather than the technology itself, ensuring digital innovations genuinely enhance citizen experience.
Google Cloud
Rohit Gupta, Managing Director, UK and Ireland, Cognizant
The human element remains essential, particularly in corporate relationships where trust is built through personal engagement. The most innovative MLEU organisations aren't replacing human interaction, but augmenting it, enabling teams to have more meaningful conversations by handling routine tasks in the background. The ideal is using technology to elevate human capabilities, combining efficiency with genuine connection.
The Marketing Week CX50, in partnership with Cognizant, Google Cloud and Salesforce, is the pre-eminent annual list of the UK’s top 50 customer experience professionals. In 2025, we are repeating the sector-focused approach to choosing the list’s members first adopted in 2024, representing the variety of customer experiences provided by B2C, B2B and public sector organisations.
The CX50 2025 is divided into the following five sectors, each featuring 10 professionals:
Our criteria and methodology for determining the CX50’s members remain the same as in previous years. In order to create a pool of candidates, we combine nominations from Marketing Week and Cognizant’s professional networks with research into independent measures of organisations that perform highly on CX. To select the final list, we then assess individuals’ achievements in the past year and over the course of their careers against the three criteria of impact, innovation and influence.
The CX50 members possess an eclectic set of skills and responsibilities, all crucial in the effort to deliver exceptional customer experience.
Manufacturing, logistics, energy and utilities
Public sector
Financial services
Retail, consumer goods, travel and hospitality
Life sciences
METHODOLOGY