Jeff Watkins

Chief Technology Officer - Writer, Podcaster, Public Speaker

Jeff Watkins is a seasoned CTO and CPTO who has spent his career leading technology, product, and AI organisations through rapid growth and reinvention. He’s steered engineering, product, cloud, cybersecurity, and AI strategy teams through major transformations, turning ambitious ideas into secure, human-centred digital experiences for some of the world’s best-known brands.

A lifelong technologist, Jeff brings over 25 years of hands-on experience across financial services, healthcare, the public sector and retail. He’s founded and led multiple cybersecurity teams and is a vocal champion of secure-by-design practices for generative AI. With an MSc in Cybersecurity and a second Master’s in Artificial Intelligence underway, he’s currently researching anthropomorphised LLM agents and deception detection.

On the international circuit, Jeff is a sought-after keynote speaker, headlining events such as Webinale (Berlin), AppDevCon (Amsterdam), the International JavaScript Conference (London), and Edinburgh Napier’s PlusEquals5 summit. His candid, story-driven take on the collision of AI, cybersecurity, culture and human behaviour resonates with audiences from engineers to executives.
He also co-hosts the multi-award-winning Compromising Positions podcast, where he interviews psychologists, anthropologists, UX researchers and security leaders to bring fresh, outsider insight to cyber. His thought leadership has been featured in Wired, Forbes, Raconteur, IT Pro, Business Cloud, and Information Age, and he’s a regular commentator for the wider technology and security press.

Whether mentoring emerging leaders, building prototypes, or demystifying AI on stage, Jeff’s mission is simple: build technology that elevates people, never the other way around.