Democracy Club board changes
We’re delighted to announce Democracy Club’s two new Non-Executive Directors, who formally joined the team last week. They are Jonathan Flowers and Paul Maltby, who between them bring a vast amount of experience in central and local government, digital services, and rather a lot more besides. See their biographies, below.
Simultaneously, Mevan Babakar has stepped down from the board after seven years, having joined as one of our first NEDs back in 2017. In that time she’s also served as interim CEO and, most recently, Chair. Democracy Club wouldn’t be where it is without Mevan’s stewardship, in particular her work cementing our relationship with the Electoral Commission. Mevan remains very much part of the club as a DC ambassador, advisor, and pal.
For the next year the board will be co-chaired by current NEDs Alice and Susan, with a view to appointing a new chair in 2026.
Jonathan Flowers
A long-time admirer of Democracy Club, Jonathan is an experienced non-executive director, currently independent chair of his local council’s audit committee and a member of his police audit committee. He chairs the charity In2scienceUK and is an NED of Care City CIC. He also advises some other organisations who are using data cleverly in local government.
His previous non-exec experience includes: trustee at mySociety and chair of their trading company - SocietyWorks; independent chair of the improvement and development board for local councils; non-exec chair of dxw. He was an adviser to FutureGov for 6 years. Previous full-time executive roles included commercial development director on the exec board of a large financial services business and deputy chief executive of a county council. He then spent ten years advising on leadership and business improvement in local government before taking on a portfolio of advisory and non-executive roles.
Semi-retired, he enjoys travel, theatre, walking, and the interest and purpose that comes from supporting socially-motivated organisations.
Paul Maltby
Paul is the Director of Public Services at Faculty, the UK’s leading applied AI company.
He was previously Chief Digital Officer at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities where he established the digital function and led reform to the Department’s digital services such in the planning system and across local government.
Prior to that he led the government’s new data agenda as Director of Data in the Cabinet Office’s Government Digital Service, with responsibility for open data, data science in government, data infrastructure and data legislation.
He has a background in public service innovation and reform in government, setting up Policy Lab the design-led team in Cabinet Office, and negotiated the G8 Open Data Charter during the UK Presidency and UK chair of the Open Government Partnership. He has had spells in Leicestershire County Council, the Home Office and the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.
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