Dixons Carphone has appointed Eileen Burbidge MBE, co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Passion Capital, as an independent non-executive director.
Burbidge, who will also be a member of the audit committee, will take up her new post with effect from 1 January 2019.
Passion Capital is one of Europe’s leading early-stage tech venture capital firms with a significant focus on digital propositions.
Since co-founding the firm in 2011, Burbidge has built a reputation as a technology thought leader and has been named one of the most influential people in IT in the UK. She was a previous member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group and is still the UK Government Special Envoy for Fintech, chair of Tech Nation and Tech Ambassador for the Mayor of London’s office.
“The company [Dixons Carphone] has tremendous brand equity across its breadth of retail offerings and services,” Burbidge said.
“It also holds leading market positions in so many different countries, with fantastic opportunities and some interesting challenges ahead. I look forward to working with Alex and the board as it seeks to enhance its customer relationships and unique market position.”
Ian Livingston, chairman of Dixons Carphone, added: “Eileen has a strong technology background and is a leader in the development of the UK’s increasingly renowned fintech industry.
“Eileen will bring a constructive, challenging and balanced perspective to the board, with a real focus on technology innovation, value creation and an informed perspective on the digital consumer. We look forward to working closely with her.”
As investor director in a number of Passion Capital portfolio companies, Burbidge is also a non-executive director at challenger bank Monzo.
With a university degree in Computer Science and a career start in telecoms at Verizon Wireless, Burbidge had various roles at Apple, Sun Microsystems, Openwave and PalmSource before moving to London as head of products for Skype in 2004 and then eventually Yahoo! where she was responsible for the success of Yahoo! Communications products in the UK.