About
Helen Bentley is a global digital and innovation leader whose work brings together artificial intelligence, experience design, strategic transformation, and human-centred thinking. As Global Partner in Digital Strategy, Innovation, and Experience Design at EY, she works with organisations navigating the rapidly changing relationship between technology, creativity, and business. Her leadership reflects a growing shift in how companies approach design, positioning it not simply as a creative function but as an important part of strategic decision-making and responsible innovation.
With an academic background from the University of Oxford, where she completed both her BA and MA, Helen developed a strong foundation for a career shaped by international perspectives and complex transformation challenges. Over more than fifteen years working across Asia and Europe, she has built extensive experience in digital strategy, communications, experience design, and organisational transformation. Her professional journey has included significant work in Tokyo, where she contributed to major transformation initiatives involving global businesses, leading brands, and public-sector organisations.
These international experiences helped Helen develop an approach to transformation that considers more than technology alone. She has worked across different markets and organisational environments, bringing together business objectives, cultural context, customer experience, and emerging technologies. This ability to connect multiple perspectives has become a defining element of her leadership as organisations increasingly seek practical ways to adapt to AI-driven change.
Now based in London, Helen leads EY’s design capability while advising multinational organisations and private-equity-backed businesses on innovation, technology, and experience. Her role places her at the centre of conversations about how organisations can use emerging technologies while maintaining clarity, creativity, and meaningful human interaction. Her work reflects the growing importance of design leadership as businesses rethink products, services, communications, and customer relationships in an increasingly intelligent digital environment.
Alongside her professional responsibilities, Helen is continuing her academic research at the Institute of Design, where her doctoral work focuses on generative AI and its implications for communications, content, and marketing design. This combination of industry leadership and academic inquiry allows her to examine emerging technologies from both practical and research-driven perspectives. Rather than viewing AI solely through the lens of automation, her work considers how it can reshape creative processes, communication models, and the role of designers.
Helen has also become an active contributor to international conversations surrounding AI, design, innovation, and the future of communication. During 2025, she participated as a speaker at major industry and professional forums, including the World Economic Forum Technology Retreat, Cannes Lions, Ad Asia, Go Tech, and Service Design conferences. These platforms have provided opportunities for her to share perspectives on the opportunities and challenges emerging as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in creative and business environments.
A central theme throughout Helen’s work is the relationship between technological advancement and human needs. She approaches innovation with an emphasis on understanding how new tools affect people, organisations, and experiences rather than focusing on technology in isolation. This human-centred perspective is particularly relevant as generative AI continues to influence marketing, communications, design, and other creative disciplines.
Her leadership also reflects the importance of bringing different areas of expertise together. By connecting strategy, design, technology, research, and organisational transformation, Helen works toward models of innovation that are both commercially relevant and thoughtful in their application. Her experience across international markets further strengthens this perspective, enabling her to approach transformation with an understanding of different cultural and business environments.
Looking ahead, Helen Bentley is focused on the evolving role of AI in design, communication, and organisational transformation. Her work points toward a future in which successful innovation will depend not only on adopting new technologies, but also on understanding how those technologies can be integrated thoughtfully into human experiences and business strategies.
Helen Bentley’s journey represents the changing face of modern leadership, where technology expertise, design thinking, research, and strategic vision increasingly intersect. Through her work at EY, international speaking engagements, and ongoing academic research, she continues to contribute to important conversations about how organisations can navigate the AI era while keeping people, creativity, and meaningful experiences at the centre of transformation.
