William Bartholomew

William Bartholomew is a Director of Public Policy for Responsible AI at Microsoft, where he shapes public policy frameworks to advance trustworthy AI innovation and adoption.

With 25 years of software engineering experience—including Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft and Staff Product Manager at GitHub—William has built systems used by tens of thousands of developers. As author of three technical books and holder of a cloud security patent, he brings engineering credibility to external policy discussions.

William works with governments, multilateral organizations, and standards bodies to develop technically feasible governance approaches—spanning binding regulations, voluntary standards, and international frameworks—while helping engineering teams navigate policies that enable responsible AI adoption.