Building Digital UK Agency Promotes Ben Whitestone to Permanent CEO
The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) organisation, which holds responsibility for expanding gigabit broadband and better mobile connectivity across the United Kingdom (e.g. the Project Gigabit and 4G Shared Rural Network schemes), has officially promoted Ben Whitestone to the post of permanent Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Regular readers might recall that Dean Creamer (CBE) previously held the top post between September 2023 and January 2026 (here), before being appointed Director General of Major Rail Projects in the Department for Transport (DfT). A formal recruitment process then began to find a replacement for Dean, during which Ben Whitestone stepped into the role as Interim CEO at BDUK (Ben was previously BDUK’s Chief Operating Officer).
The latest development seen by ISPreview, which hasn’t yet been reflected on the relevant governance page (we expect that to change very soon), is that Ben Whitestone has now officially been promoted to the position of permanent CEO at BDUK.
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Ben’s permanent appointment was formally confirmed on Thursday 22nd August under the new directorate structure in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). In most organisations a change of CEO can often result in a change of strategy, although the situation is a bit different when it comes to Government directorate’s, which take their cue from the country’s political leadership. In that sense we don’t expect any major changes, but you never know.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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