Daniel Korski

His mother was among Jewish people expelled from Poland during the 1968 Polish political crisis.

Daniel Korski (born April 1977 ) is a UK-based Danish political adviser and businessperson.

He worked as deputy head of the Number 10 Policy Unit for David Cameron and currently serves as a vice-president of the Jewish Leadership Council.

He founded the business PUBLIC, which aims to support technology companies to secure public sector contracts.

Daniel Korski was born in Denmark in 1977.

Korski moved to the United Kingdom in 1997.

He graduated from the London School of Economics in 2000 and the University of Cambridge in 2001.

Korski reported for The Spectator as a war correspondent in Libya.

In 2008, he was described as a "Balkans expert" working at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a think tank.

Korski is married to Fiona Mcilwham, who served as ambassador to Albania from 2009 to 2012 and was appointed as private secretary to Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in 2019.

Korski served as one of twenty vice presidents of the Jewish Leadership Council.

In 2011, he was working as a senior policy fellow for the ECFR and running the Middle East programme there.

In 2012, he was appointed as a strategic adviser to Catherine Ashton, then working as High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Korski worked as an adviser to the Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell.

He later served as deputy head of the Number 10 Policy Unit for the Conservative prime minister David Cameron from 2013 to 2016.

In 2013, his proposal to charge foreign students to attend state schools in the UK was rejected after criticism by government departments and the Liberal Democrats.

In 2015, he was criticised for putting pressure on the Greater London Authority over proposed restrictions to Uber, with Korski and Cameron opposed to proposed regulations that would limit the company.

He described proposed restrictions as "insane and luddite".

He met with Uber executives on several occasions, at 10 Downing Street, at their headquarters in California and at a private dinner.

His behaviour was described as lobbying for the company, a charge Korski denied.

The Information Commissioner's Office investigated why 10 Downing Street had denied that Korski's correspondence with City Hall existed.

Also in 2015, Korski developed proposals to end the use of cash in the UK by 2020 to "to drive up productivity and disrupt some forms of criminal activity", which the chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne rejected.

He met European diplomats and told them to "think twice" before criticising the 2015–2016 United Kingdom renegotiation of European Union membership.

Korski texted and called John Longworth, the chair of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), and then spoke to the president of the BCC, shortly before Longworth was suspended from his role as chair of the BCC for supporting the UK leaving the EU.

Korski was accused by the anti-EU politician Bernard Jenkin of breaking the code of conduct for special advisers over tweets in support of remaining in the European Union.

During the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, Korski helped run the Stronger in campaign supporting the UK remaining in the European Union.

He "left frontline politics" in 2016.

In 2017, Korski started the business Public.io (later branded PUBLIC), which supported technology companies to work with UK public services.

He said the business would provide support and advice about the public sector but not engage in lobbying.

The model required companies to give a 3% equity share.

He advertised connection to "GovStart speakers" including special advisers to ministers, some of whom were removed from listings after BuzzFeed News made inquiries about Cabinet Office clearance.

Initially, he selected ten companies and projects to "explore which public services to target and build up contacts in the relevant areas" for six months.

He presented the ideas of these companies at 10 Downing Street.

In 2018, he chaired a conference about technology in government, "GovTech", which was attended by world leaders.

In 2019, Korski was appointed to a panel advising the trade secretary Liz Truss about freeport proposals.

He worked on the Tom Tugendhat July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election campaign.

Korski applied to be the Conservative Party's candidate in the 2024 London mayoral election.

He proposed implementing a levy on hotel stays to fund new police programmes and supported road pricing as an alternative to expansion of London's Ultra Low Emission Zone.

He wihdrew from the selection procedure after the television producer Daisy Goodwin accused him of having groped her while working at 10 Downing Street.

He resigned as chief executive of PUBLIC in August 2023 while remaining a director and major shareholder.