Technical Lead , GovTech Catalyst fund

Breandán is currently the technical lead for the GovTech Catalyst fund, a crossdepartmental industrial investment programme designed to challenge the technology sector to develop innovative solutions to pressing public policy challenges. He joined the Government Digital Service (GDS) as the Technical Architect for Data Infrastructure, evolving the open data portal DATA.GOV.UK, improving GOV.UK Registers and developing models for Personal Data Exchange in government. After six months of supervising technical platform development, Breandán became a Consulting Technical Architect, engaging with more than 40 departments and agencies to help them understand and apply government standards such as the Technology Code of Practice, the Digital Service Standard, the Commercial Operating Standard and the Data Ethics Framework. He is a frequent Service Assessor for government digital services and participates in the Cabinet Office Spend Controls process to evaluate the strategy and execution of large projects.

Immediately prior to joining the civil service, he was the Executive Director of a charity providing innovative intergenerational mapping and storytelling tools to reduce social isolation. Prior to this he was the Chief Product Officer at Europeana, a €250M European Commission project in The Hague harmonising museum, library and archive digitisation and creating common platforms for scholarship and creative reuse across Europe. He also used to manage the technical architecture consultancy team at BearingPoint Ireland.
He has worked at executive or board level in the financial, consultancy, public and third sectors, and has had responsibility for strategy development and implementation, business planning, programme and project management, financial performance and operational efficiency, along with technical architecture. He has particular skills in user-centred design, technical architecture, data modelling and migration, systems analysis, cybersecurity, privacy, programme governance, agile working practices, digital strategy and emerging technologies.