Richard Benjamins, Ph.D.

Board member

Dr. Richard Benjamins is Chief AI & Data Strategist at Telefonica. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in data-driven business (DataIQ 100, 2018).

Benjamins is also co-founder and Vice President of the Spanish observatory for ethical and social impacts of AI (OdiseIA). Prior to that, he was Group Chief Data Officer at AXA (Insurance) and held various executive positions at Telefonica on Big Data and Analytics for a decade. He is the founder of the company’s Big Data for Social Good department. Before joining Telefonica, he was director and board member at iSOCO, which he co-founded in 1999. Based on his work, iSOCO was granted the National Award for Computer Science.

Benjamins holds a PhD in Cognitive Science, has published over 100 scientific articles and is author of renowned books including “The myth of the algorithm: tales and truths of artificial intelligence” (in Spanish) and “A Data-Driven Company”. He is a strategic advisor of several start-ups, including BigML, Focus360 and Nexus Clips as well as an external expert to the EP’s AI Observatory (EPAIO), member of the B2G data-sharing Expert Group of the European Commission, and a frequent speaker at Artificial Intelligence events.

Benjamins has held positions at the Technical University of Madrid, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, the University of Paris-South, France, and the Spanish Artificial Intelligence Research Institute in Barcelona.