Phillip Davies

Phillip Davies is an FCA-approved technology and security executive, currently serving as International CISO and Executive Director at Equifax — a £35bn global data and analytics business — where he leads cloud resilience, AI governance, and security strategy across international markets. He holds SMF03, personal statutory accountability to the FCA for operational governance — a function held directly by fewer than 30 technology and security executives across UK financial services — and sits as a full voting member of the Equifax UK Audit Committee and Board Risk Committee.

He approaches security as an enabler of business delivery rather than a constraint on it. At Equifax, a Generative AI programme his team built and deployed has reduced manual change management overhead by 97%, with a measurable 80% improvement in secure delivery velocity.

His regulatory remit spans NIS2, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, SOC 2, SOX, DORA, AI legislation, and Quantum readiness across Europe, the Middle East, and APAC — alongside compliance with Indian RBI regulations.

His broader background includes:

— Led security due diligence and post-merger integration for eight global acquisitions at Planet Payments (£2.4bn), serving concurrently as a board-level Audit Committee member

— Directed the multi-region migration of legacy infrastructure to Google Cloud across multiple regulatory jurisdictions

— Contributing member of Equifax’s global Quantum Computing readiness leadership team, engaged with international regulators on post-quantum cryptography strategy

— At Sky, led the response to one of the UK’s largest data breaches through to litigation in the Royal Courts of Justice; directed countermeasures against nation-state cyberattacks as Chairman of an International Intelligence Committee working alongside Interpol and Europol

FBCS · FSYI · CISM · CDPSE · SMF03 · MSc International Criminal Justice (Cyber Security), University of Portsmouth

Always glad to connect with peers, executive search professionals, and boards working on senior technology and security leadership in financial services, infrastructure, and technology transformation.