Baroness Joanna Shields is a British/American technology industry veteran and parliamentarian currently serving as the United Kingdom’s Minister for Internet Safety & Security and Under Secretary of State for both the UK Home Office & The Department for Culture, Media & Sport.

Shields started working in digital technology in 1986 and spent over 25 years between Silicon Valley & London as a senior executive helping build some of the world's best-known technology companies including Electronics for Imaging, RealNetworks, Google, Aol and Facebook. Shields also led start-ups to successful acquisitions, including early social networking pioneer Bebo to Aol, storage encryption company, Decru to NetApp and interactive video developer, Veon to Philips.

In late 2012 while serving as Vice President & Managing Director at Facebook EMEA, Shields was asked by Prime Minister David Cameron to help build the UK’s digital economy as CEO & Chair of TechCityUK. She later became Prime Minister’s Digital Advisor and served in that post until the General Election in May 2015.

During her tenure, Shields led the UK/US technology task force in the fight to combat online abuse and exploitation. To fulfill that mission, she started WeProtect, a global alliance that has now grown to include over 60 countries and law enforcement agencies, NGOs, civil society organisations and technology leaders aimed at developing technology solutions, national response systems and global cooperation to eradicate child abuse and exploitation from the internet and to bring perpetrators to justice.

In May 2015, following the UK General Election, The Prime Minister appointed Baroness Shields, Minister for Internet Safety & Security and in that role serving as Under Secretary of State for both the UK Home Office and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Baroness Shields has served on several boards including the London Stock Exchange Group and Save the Children. For more details please see www.joannashields.com.

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