Shashi Verma
CTO, Transport for London

Shashi Verma is a member of Transport for London’s Executive Committee. As Director of Strategy he is responsible for TfL’s overall corporate direction. Shashi established the Technology and Data team in 2017 and has been Chief Technology Officer since then.

He led on the development of Crossrail which led to new theory of agglomeration economics that is now central in the analysis of urbanisation.

Since 2006 Shashi has been responsible for the operation of TfL’s revenue collection system including the Oyster card, the largest smartcard based ticketing system in the world. Shashi has led the development of contactless payments since 2007 and implemented this successfully on TfL’s systems starting in 2012. Contactless payments remain the most successful FinTech innovation anywhere in the world. In the process he has developed capability for technology development and globally leading innovation in a public sector organisation.