New senior leadership role will drive AI-native transformation across EMEA and the Americas
MANCHESTER, England, July 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- ProofID, the Manchester-headquartered identity security specialist, today announced the appointment of Neil Evans as its first Chief AI Officer. The newly created role will lead the company's transformation into an AI-native business, serving customers across EMEA and the Americas.
The appointment underlines Manchester's growing role as a base for globally operating technology firms. ProofID delivers advisory, implementation and managed services to enterprise and mid-market organisations across EMEA and the Americas, operating from its Manchester headquarters and an additional site in Colorado Springs, US. The newly created Chief AI Officer role will be based in Manchester.
Evans brings more than 30 years of technology leadership spanning software engineering, product innovation and C-suite roles across enterprise software and professional audio. He most recently served as Cloud & Mobile Engineering Leader at Music Tribe's Midas Division and previously spent five years as CTO (EMEA) at UNICOM Global, directing emerging technology strategy across natural language processing, AI, machine learning and blockchain. He holds a Master of Engineering in Microelectronics Systems Engineering from the University of Manchester.
"This is a people-first transformation as much as a technical one," said Tom Eggleston, CEO of ProofID. "Technology is the enabler, but it's the mindset, behaviours and capability of our people that will determine whether we succeed in becoming AI-native, while staying true to who we are - the identity security specialist our customers already trust. Neil has spent his career leading exactly that kind of change, and he's the right person to drive it end-to-end."
The Chief AI Officer role is a commercial, technical and people leadership position in equal measure. Evans joins ProofID's senior leadership team and will lead the cultural and behavioural change needed to embed an AI-native mindset across the business, alongside building the new capabilities and offerings that will define ProofID's proposition in the market. The role builds on ProofID's existing Agentic AI Enablement advisory practice, which helps organisations secure autonomous AI agents using their existing identity investments.
"This is a rare opportunity to lead a transformation from the inside - not just advising clients on how to become AI-native, but building that capability into ProofID itself," said Neil Evans, Chief AI Officer at ProofID. "It means a lot to take on this role at a company that's headquartered here in Manchester. The technology is the easy part. The real work is bringing our people with us, so we can deliver AI-powered identity services at the level our customers expect."
About ProofID
ProofID is a pure-play identity security specialist delivering advisory, implementation and managed services. Headquartered in Manchester, UK, with an additional site in Colorado Springs, US, the company has been 100% focused on identity since it was founded in 2014 serving enterprise and mid-market organisations across EMEA and the Americas. ProofID protects more than 260 million identities and supports over 100 million transactions daily, has delivered more than 2,000 identity projects, and supports over 60 managed service clients globally, with strategic partnerships including Ping Identity, SailPoint and Palo Alto Networks. For more information, visit proofid.com.
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