DfT fills top Strategy and Roads leadership roles

Two high level Director General appointments have been made at the DfT for leadership of Strategy and the Roads programmes.

Ross Gribbin joins from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in the newly created position of Director General for Transport Strategy, and Antonia Williams from the Treasury as Director General for Road Transport Group.

Gribbin is currently Director General Policy, Prisons, Offenders and Analysis at the MoJ, having previously served as that ministry’s Director of Strategy.

The new post is intended “to provide strategic leadership across a multi-modal and cross-cutting portfolio”, says the Department. The role will have responsibility for cross-cutting themes, including transport strategy, science, AI, data and decarbonisation agendas. He was previously DD Strategy and Principal Private Secretary (PPS) at the Department for Energy and Climate Change.

The DfT strategy role role was created after Jo Shanmugalingam’s appointment as Permanent Secretary at the DfT, and reflects her thinking about how the DfT should function (LTT922).

Williams will be joining the DfT at the start of January from the Treasury as Director General for Road Transport Group, in succession to Emma Ward who has moved to a new role at DCMS

Williams is is currently Director of Public Services at HM Treasury and has led high profile programmes and public service reforms.

Her experience includes serving as Covid Vaccines Director and Mental Health Director at the Department of Health and Social Care. She has also worked in the Infrastructure Advisory practice at Ernst & Young and PwC in Australia, and covered transport and infrastructure policy in the No10 Policy Unit.