Board of Directors

Murray is a Chartered Accountant with over 35 years of audit and advisory experience gained with PricewaterhouseCoopers in the UK, where he held a variety of senior management, governance and client roles across a broad range of industry sectors. Murray joined the Board in February 2016 and became Non-Executive Chairman in April 2021. Previously, Murray was also a Non-Executive Director of Sutton and East Surrey Water Plc.

Mike Danson founded Datamonitor Plc, an online information company, in 1990. In 2000, Datamonitor completed its flotation on the London Stock Exchange and was sold to Informa Plc for £502m in 2007. GlobalData acquired the Datamonitor Financial, Datamonitor Consumer, MarketLine and Verdict businesses from Informa Plc in 2015.

Peter Harkness has more than 35 years’ experience as a Director or Chair of several successful businesses, predominantly in the media sector.  In addition to leading a number of private equity deals, Peter has also spent more than 20 years as a Non-Executive Director of five quoted companies, including Walker Greenbank Plc and Chrysalis VCT Plc, and has twice been a Plc Chair. Peter was a Non-Executive Director of Datamonitor until its sale to Informa Plc and was Chair of the Butler Group until its sale to Datamonitor. Peter has also undertaken Board roles in the Third Sector. Peter’s experience and understanding of the media and information subscription sector is an excellent asset for the GlobalData Board, particularly how we sell and the selling process.

Graham joined the Group in 2011 and held senior finance positions before becoming Chief Financial Officer in January 2018. Since joining, the Group has grown significantly in scale and Graham has been involved in a number of corporate transactions, including; M&A, debt raising and corporate re-organisation. Graham started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant and subsequently joined Datamonitor when it was part of Informa Plc.

Julien is a veteran technology executive with more than 20 years’ experience in Silicon Valley and Europe across multiple senior roles in major technology companies including Amazon.com, eBay, Skype, Facebook and Intuit. He joined Skype in 2007, where he built the team in charge of Strategy, Business Development and Corporate Development. Prior to joining Facebook, he founded a mobile messaging company called TextMe, which reached 40m users and is now a profitable and successful business. He joined Facebook in 2016 to lead Platform Partnerships for EMEA. Since 2022, he has been leading International Business Development and Strategy for Intuit. Julien holds a BA in Finance from ESCP Europe in Paris, as well as an MBA from UC Berkeley.

Catherine Birkett is Chief Financial Officer of GoCardless, a leading global account to account payments business. Joining in 2018 she has overseen a period when revenue has increased five times, lead three funding rounds, the last of which saw Gocardless reach unicorn status. Alongside finance, Catherine also leads legal, regulatory & compliance and business systems. Before joining GoCardless, Catherine was Chief Financial Officer for one of Europe’s fastest-growing telecoms providers, Interoute, where she took the business from $20m to $800m in turnover over 16 years, leading equity and debt raises, including an inaugural high yield debt issue. While there, she also completed 10 acquisitions, including one for a business half the size of Interoute, before overseeing a successful exit of the business in May 2018.

Rachel joined the Board in January 2026. She is also a Non Executive Director of Macmillan Cancer Support and serves on the Advisory Councils of PwC, Xiid and Aldemore Bank. In addition, she undertakes strategic advisory to Boards and Executive Leadership on business resiliency, digital transformation, and technology, data, AI and product strategy.

Prior to moving into a portfolio career, Rachel spent 30 years in senior technology leadership roles across retail and investment banking, insurance, telecoms, advertising/media and consumer retail. Her last three executive roles were as Global Chief Information Officer or Chief Digital & Technology Officer for BT, WPP and Marks & Spencer. Rachel’s experience allows her to guide organisations as they build enterprise-grade technology platforms, product roadmaps, digital experiences and high-performing teams, and as they enhance business resilience, govern strategic investments and minimise risk.

Toby joined the Board in February 2026 and chairs the Remuneration Committee. He has been a Non-Executive Director of Charity Bank for 9 years and also conducts consulting/advisory work. Toby has over 30 years executive experience across Financial Services leading businesses, large transformations and restructurings. Most recently he was Group Chief Technology and Transformation Officer at Lowell Group. Prior to this he held several senior roles at HSBC, including being a member of the HSBC Bank plc Executive Committee as Chief of Staff and Head of Strategy for Europe. He was also Chief of Staff and Head of Strategy for HSBC Global Private Banking. Before HSBC he was at Lloyds Banking Group (‘LBG’) holding a variety of roles including; Home Insurance Director, Chief of Staff to the Group CEO, Managing Director, Leveraged Finance and Head of Portfolio. Toby is also a Fellow Chartered Accountant.