Paul Coby
CIO and Head of BA Services
British Airways

Paul Coby, CIO of British Airways, is the BA Director responsible for technology and IT-enabled business change across the Airline. Paul’s business principle is simple: “there are no IT projects, only business projects.”

Paul joined the Civil Service in 1978 and held several senior civil service positions, including Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Transport. In 1997 he joined British Airways and masterminded the move of BA’s Reservations, Inventory and Departure Control systems to Amadeus as “Community” functions and in September 2001 became CIO, responsible for all BA Group IT.  

BA’s successful IT investments include the award winning ba.com with on-line check-in; and Employee Self Service, which has made the internet the principal way of doing business for both BA customers and employees.  

Paul is also Chairman of the eSkills UK CIO Board.  eSkills UK works with employees, educators and government to transform IT skills at all levels and ages in the UK economy and society to enable the UK to derive maximum benefit from the power of technology to transform business competitiveness and productivity.

In October 2006, BA’s Im department was awarded Computing Magazine’s top Award for 2006 for Major Contribution to UK IT, and Paul won the UK CIO Innovator of the Year Award in March 2007.  In June 2007, Paul was also named the UK's top CIO on silicon.com's CIO50 list of the 50 most influential and innovative IT leaders in the UK.

In January 2009 Paul’s remit was further extended and he was appointed Head of Financial Shared Services with responsibility for transactional financial services, property and business metrics in addition to IT across the British Airways Group.

Outside work Paul’s primary interest is his family, but he also tries to make time for a little skiing, the development of a database of Roman forts and military units in the first Century AD, and his interest in pre-1914 railways in Britain and Germany.  Since his time teaching at a School in Kenya, Paul has been interested in Opera, but also World music, and is a devotee of the WOMAD Festivals in the UK and around the world.