Tech Policy Expertise: Online safety

  • Gisella Lomax

    Gisella Lomax is the Senior Advisor on Information Integrity at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, leading a ‘Digital Protection’ capacity to address the harmful impact of information risks such as misinformation, disinformation and hate speech on refugees and people forced to flee, and on humanitarian action.

    Following a career in journalism with global media organisations, Gisella joined the UN in 2011: a year of global disruption to the information ecosystem driven by digital platforms. She has worked in partnerships, external engagement, digital and strategic communications roles across various parts of UN, including on climate action, human rights, peace-building, disarmament, and trade and development.

  • Amy Jordan

    Amy is Director of Strategy and Delivery in the Infrastructure and Connectivity Group at Ofcom. She previously set up Ofcom’s first tech policy team and spent a number of years leading the development of Ofcom’s approach to Online Safety policy and supervision. Prior to Ofcom she spent over a decade in the UK Goverment leading a range of national security, cyber and technology issues , and two years at the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity.

  • Beth Horn

    A tech sales & marketing leader, a proven strategist, a retail & ecommerce expert, and a sought-after keynote speaker on technology and digital media, with 20 years’ experience building high performing teams, delivering outstanding performance, developing innovative technologies, and inspiring an industry through growth and change.

    Currently leading Pinterest’s European arm, before that holding senior roles at Spotify & Meta.

  • Leonie Maria Tanczer

    Leonie Maria Tanczer is an Associate Professor in International Security and Emerging Technologies at University College London’s (UCL) Department of Computer Science and a grant holder of the prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF). She is part of UCL’s Information Security Research Group and initiated and heads the “Gender and Tech Research Lab”.

    Tanczer is also a member of the Advisory Council of the Open Rights Group (ORG), a Steering Committee member for the Offensive Cyber Working Group, and a voting member of the IEEE Working Group P2987 “Recommended Practice for Principles for Design and Operation Addressing Technology-Facilitated Inter-personal Control”.

    She was formerly an Association of British Science Writers (ABSW) Media Fellow at The Economist and a Fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) in Berlin. Her research focuses on questions related to Internet security, and she is specifically interested in the intersection points of technology, cybersecurity and gender.

  • Sofia Marchetti

    Sofia is specialised in digital policy research and analysis. She currently works as a public affairs consultant at Inline Policy, providing policy analysis, monitoring and advice to clients in the tech space. She is particularly interested in online safety and digital platforms – studying at the London School of Economics (LSE) and University of Oxford, her research projects tackled online content moderation and democratisation of platform governance. She is familiar with both UK and EU regulation, having spent time in Brussels in the Media Intelligence Unit of the European Parliament.

  • Sharron Gunn

    Group Chief Executive Officer of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT – the professional membership body for the tech sector.

  • Jessica Figueras

    Jessica is the co-founder of CxB (Cyber Governance for Boards), a non-profit network that supports boards and non-executive directors to strengthen oversight of cyber security, and works with government to support developing cyber resilience regulation. She is also a non-executive director (Governor) at the University of Westminster.

    Previously she was Vice Chair and a Founding Trustee at the UK Cyber Security Council, where she worked with government on the development of a new self-regulatory regime for the cyber security profession. She was chief executive of Pionen, a cyber security firm working with government and critical national infrastructure, and Chair of Trustees at NCT, the UK’s largest charity for parents.

    As a technology strategist, she has worked extensively with government and the technology sector over decades, in recent years focusing on cyber security, digital trust and the role of tech in civil society. She has published extensive research on the application of emerging technologies in the public sector and regulated industries, and her technical advisory work directly informed the UK’s ground-breaking online safety legislation and wider regulatory regime.

  • Grace Nelson

    Grace is an Analyst in the team at Assembly. Her portfolio includes emerging issues in digital policymaking, such as online safety, digital competition and AI, as well as work across a range of consumer protection issues in telecoms markets.

    Prior to joining Assembly, Grace served as an aide in the United States Senate, leading outreach and engagement on issues including federal infrastructure investments and rural broadband. She holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh and a MSc in Media and Communication Governance from the London School of Economics.

  • Catherine Colloms

    Catherine has over 25 years’ experience across the public and private sector, specialising in infrastructure, tech and telecoms. She has advised corporates on working in partnership with government to deliver major infrastructure and environmental, social and governance projects and brings stakeholders together to solve economic and social challenges and devise commercial and policy solutions to help address them.

    She spent 8 years on the executive of Openreach (BT) when it hyper scaled its full-fibre network, where she also headed their Gender network and led initiatives on diversity and culture as part of the company’s transformation. She is on the advisory board of Labour Digital and is a NED at Gigaclear, a rural altnet Telco and on DBT’s Industrial Development Advisory Council.

  • Helen Milner

    Helen has 40 years’ experience creating and leading internet-based organisations; driving innovation, delivery and systems change at scale. Working closely with people deep in communities, as well at the highest levels of government and industry. Helen is number 9 in Computer Weekly’s 2025 UKTech50 list, and their number 1 Female Founder. Outside of her work for Good Things Foundation, she is the Chair of environmental charity Subak, and a Non-Executive Director on the Board for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.