Richard Allan has been a non-executive Board member at the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, since November 2024.
He has spent half his career working in the public sector (healthcare and politics), and the other half working in the private sector (internet hardware and social media).
Before technology, Richard studied archaeology and worked as an excavator on ancient sites in the UK, Europe and Latin America.
He has an MSc in Information Technology and spent several years building information systems for the UK’s National Health Service.
Richard began his political career in 1993 as a local councillor in Bath and was elected to the UK Parliament in 1997 as MP for Sheffield Hallam where he was re-elected in 2001.
He stepped down from Parliament in 2005 and moved to the technology sector, working at Cisco Systems (2005-9) and Facebook Inc (2009-2019).
Richard has been a member of the UK Parliament’s unelected second chamber, the House of Lords, since 2010.
He sits as a politically independent member after leaving the Liberal Democrat group at the start of October 2024.
Richard was appointed to a panel to advise the UK Government on their long-term digital strategy in October 2024.
Photos - if you need a picture of Richard for an event etc, you can find various formats of his official portrait on the Parliamentary website.