Dex Hunter-Torricke
Boards know AI will reshape their operating model. They do not yet know how to make defensible decisions about deployment, workforce displacement and public legitimacy at the same time. The leaders who launched the current AI systems are now the ones warning about where they lead, and the gap between corporate ambition and public trust is widening faster than governance can close it.
Dex Hunter-Torricke is a communications strategist and AI policy voice who helps organisations navigate the competitive pressure, governance exposure and public trust risks created by frontier technology, drawing on senior roles at Google DeepMind, SpaceX, Facebook and the UN.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Dex Hunter-Torricke
- He has been inside the rooms where the current AI systems were built and launched. He led global communications for Google DeepMind and the go-to-market for Gemini, which gives him a working view of what frontier model deployment actually looks like, not a commentator’s view.
- He sits on the board of HM Treasury, appointed by the Chancellor in 2025. This is a working policymaker’s seat, not an honorific, and gives him a sovereign-level read on how governments are now thinking about AI, capital and competition.
- His communications track record is rare in scope: speechwriter to Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and Ban Ki-moon, and head of communications at SpaceX through a hypergrowth period. Few advisors have written the words a board’s CEO now wants to write.
- He has publicly broken from the position he was paid to promote, founding the Center for Tomorrow in 2026 to argue for AI taxation, displacement support and tighter controls. That credibility is hard to manufacture and audiences notice it.
Biography highlights
- Head of Global Communications and Marketing, Google DeepMind, 2023 to 2025; led go-to-market for Gemini.
- Non-Executive Board Member, HM Treasury, appointed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, October 2025.
- Former Head of Communications, Oversight Board for Meta.
- Former Head of Communications, SpaceX; Head of Executive Communications, Facebook, 2012 to 2016, as personal speechwriter to Mark Zuckerberg.
- Google’s first executive speechwriter, supporting Larry Page and Eric Schmidt.
- Speechwriter and spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, from 2008.
- Founder, Center for Tomorrow, a non-profit on AI governance and societal resilience, launched February 2026.
- BA Politics, University College London; MPhil Russian and East European Studies, University of Oxford.
Biography
The people who built the current generation of AI systems are now the ones publicly warning about them. That shift, from inside-the-tent advocacy to public reform argument, is one of the most consequential repositioning moves in the technology industry. Hunter-Torricke is one of its more visible practitioners.
He led global communications and marketing at Google DeepMind from 2023 to 2025, including the go-to-market for Gemini. Before that he ran communications at SpaceX, led executive communications at Facebook through its mid-2010s expansion as Mark Zuckerberg’s speechwriter, and was Google’s first executive speechwriter to Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. His career began at the United Nations, writing for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
In October 2025 he was appointed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves to the board of HM Treasury, giving him an active seat at the centre of British economic and AI policy. In February 2026 he launched the Center for Tomorrow, a non-profit pushing for AI taxation, displacement support and stronger international coordination as compute concentrates in a small number of firms.
For boards, the value is unusual. Most AI commentators have either operated frontier systems or shaped policy. Hunter-Torricke has done both, in named institutions, and is now arguing publicly that the trajectory needs correcting. That gives senior audiences a working view of how the AI race actually looks from the inside, and what the institutional response is starting to demand.
Key speaking topics
- Frontier AI deployment and competitive strategy
- AI governance, regulation and the post-2025 policy environment
- Communications and narrative strategy for senior leaders
- Workforce displacement and the social contract under AI
- Big Tech concentration and the future of digital power
- Reputation and public trust in technology firms
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees setting AI strategy and risk appetite
- CEOs, chief communications officers and chief strategy officers exposed to AI public-trust risk
- Policy leaders, regulators and sovereign investors assessing AI exposure
- Senior leadership offsites where AI competitive pressure and governance need to be discussed in the same conversation
Audience outcomes
- A working read on how frontier AI labs actually make deployment decisions, from someone who was in those decisions.
- A clearer picture of where AI governance is heading in the UK, EU and US, and what that means for corporate exposure.
- A sharper view of the AI workforce question: which displacement effects matter, on what timeline, and which corporate responses are credible.
- A stronger framework for senior communications when public trust in technology is contested.
Talks
A working leader’s view of how immersive technology will reshape product, talent and customer interaction.
Key takeaways:
- Where investment is concentrating and which use cases are commercially serious
- What workforce and culture shifts are required to deploy at scale
- How to communicate experimental products to regulators and public audiences
A speechwriter’s account of how senior leaders earn trust through narrative discipline.
Key takeaways:
- The structural difference between authentic and performative leadership communication
- How to write and deliver under conditions of contested legitimacy
- What CEOs of contested firms now need to do differently in public
A 10 to 20 year forecast of the technologies that will define competitive and geopolitical reality.
Key takeaways:
- Which technology shifts are inevitable and which are still contested
- How AI, energy and biotech interact in the next strategic cycle
- What boards should be planning for that they currently are not