Bjorn Gisbertz joins us at ePass as Director of Public Sector Strategy, bringing his experience at the intersection of government, technology, and institutional change.
His background spans elected office in Sweden, strategic roles in public administration, and leading digital transformation programmes across Northern Europe, most recently as part of Netcompany’s public sector practice, including deep experience working across the Scottish Government digital ecosystem. Not many people have sat on all three sides of that table.
Now with his feet under the desk, below Bjorn explains why he joined the ePass mission, and why now.
Why I joined ePass by Bjorn Gisbertz
I joined ePass because it sits at the point where public purpose, institutional reform and practical delivery meet.
Throughout my career, I have worked across different layers of public-sector change. I have served in elected office in Sweden at both local authority and regional level. I have worked strategically as a civil servant within the public sector. I have also spent substantial time in the private sector working on public digital transformation and the implementation of digital solutions designed to make life simpler for citizens, businesses and public authorities.
That experience matters because meaningful public-sector transformation cannot be understood from a single perspective. It must be understood politically, administratively and operationally.
My experience has given me a practical understanding of what matters to decision-makers: legitimacy, priorities, trade-offs, public value and long-term accountability. It has also shown me what matters in implementation: governance, delivery, institutional constraints and the challenge of translating policy into operational reality. From the private-sector side, I have seen what is required to build effective solutions, and why successful public-sector delivery depends on patience, context and a clear understanding of institutional complexity.
That is one of the reasons ePass stood out to me.
I first came to know Zudu and ePass through James Buchan during CivTech 9, where we worked within the wider CivTech environment: an innovative and collaborative model that brings public institutions and delivery partners together to address real public-sector challenges in a practical, outcome-focused way. Through that experience, I came to see the quality of the organisation, the strength of its people and the seriousness of its approach. What impressed me was not simply that ePass had a strong product. It was that the company was thinking carefully about the wider nature of the problem it was addressing.
Public-sector transformation does not succeed through technology alone. It succeeds when policy, delivery, service design, operational reality and institutional trust are brought into alignment. ePass has shown that understanding in the way it has developed its approach. It is rooted in Scotland, shaped by real public-service needs, and built by people who understand how cross-functional capability must come together if public services are to improve in ways that are credible and sustainable.
That matters particularly in licensing, permitting and registration.
Every citizen and every business operates within a framework of rights and obligations. A permit or licence is not simply an application and an approval. It is an extension of rights accompanied by a corresponding extension of obligations, granted through public authority.
Too often, these services are seen only as administrative transactions: forms, approvals and documents evidencing permission. In reality, they are part of the wider infrastructure through which rights, responsibilities, regulatory trust and public value are managed.
That is where the long-term value of ePass lies.
Its significance is not limited to digitising individual processes. Its deeper value lies in helping create a more coherent capability for how permissions, regulatory decisions, rights and obligations are managed across the public sector. Done well, that can reduce duplication, improve service quality, strengthen consistency and support a more mature operating model for public administration.
This is highly relevant in Scotland.
Public bodies are under increasing pressure to improve services, manage financial constraint, work across organisational boundaries and deliver in line with common standards. In that environment, the need is not for more isolated systems or one-off solutions. The need is for shared capability, institutional coherence and delivery models that support reuse, consistency and long-term public value. As pressures grow, it becomes increasingly important that public bodies are not left to solve the same licensing and regulatory problems separately.
That is why I believe ePass matters.
At its best, ePass is not simply a product. It is a platform through which public authorities can deliver permits, licences and regulatory services more coherently, efficiently and transparently for the people and businesses who rely on them. It has the potential to help government, local authorities and public agencies move away from repeated reinvention and towards a more joined-up and sustainable approach to service delivery.
That is also why working in Scotland matters to me. Scotland combines strong public institutions with a serious commitment to service reform, shared capability and standards-led improvement. It is an environment where there is both the ambition and the institutional basis to think beyond individual systems and towards durable public infrastructure.
For me, joining ePass was a decision to focus my experience on a Scotland-based organisation I had come to respect, working with colleagues who combine technical capability with a serious understanding of public-service delivery, on a platform with clear public purpose and substantial long-term value.
The domain may appear administrative on the surface, but it sits close to the heart of how rights, obligations, regulation and service delivery are organised in practice.
That combination is what made joining ePass the right decision for me.
