Steven Fry is Director of Digital and Customer Services at Salford City Council and one of the UK’s Top 5 most influential AI leaders. He leads a 140-strong DDaT and Customer Experience function spanning AI and data, digital and data, programmes and PMO, and cyber and technology — and is a four-time CIO100 honouree (2021–2024). Over a decade in local government, Steven has built a reputation for reimagining public services from the ground up, combining a sociologist’s lens with deep technical fluency to deliver agentic AI, cloud transformation, and customer experience programmes that put residents first.

Based in Greater Manchester, Steven describes himself as “the dark horse” of the DDaT industry — a system leader who pairs public sector reform with a willingness to tear up the playbook when it no longer serves the people on the other end of the service. He speaks regularly on AI in the public sector, human-centred service design, and the idea that local government can — and should — make people say, “Wait, local government did that?”