Dr. Richard Benjamins is Chief AI & Data Strategist at Telefonica. He is among the 100 most influential people in data-driven business (DataIQ 100, 2018). He is co-founder and Vice President of the Spanish observatory for ethical and social impacts of AI (OdiseIA), board member of the environmental non-profit CDP, and external AI expert for the AI Observatory of the European Parliament. He was Group Chief Data Officer at AXA (Insurance) and before that held for 10 years executive positions at Telefonica on Big Data and Analytics. He is the founder of Telefonica’s Big Data for Social Good department, a member of the B2G data-sharing Expert Group of the EC, and co-founded iSOCO, an early AI startup. Furthermore, he holds a PhD in Cognitive Science, has published over 150 scientific articles, and is author of the books “The myth of the algorithm: tales and truths of artificial intelligence” (Spanish) and “A Data-Driven Company”, and “The algorithm and I” (Spanish). He is a frequent speaker on Artificial Intelligence events, and a strategic advisor to several start-ups.
