Annual Conference 2020 Speakers

Esther Black

Director of Corporate Operations, Crown Estate Scotland

Esther has worked in media, public affairs and strategic communications for over 20 years. She started her career as a journalist before working in the Scottish Parliament for a group of MSPs.

During a period in Australia, she worked in crisis communications for fast-moving consumer goods companies then for international environmental groups including Pew, WWF and Nature Conservancy.

Returning to the UK, she continued in consultancy before moving to The Crown Estate in 2013. She now oversees communications, stakeholder engagement, policy, HR and governance for Crown Estate Scotland.

Esther sits on Business in the Community Scotland's Advisory Board and the Board of Children in Scotland.

Jonathan Brearley

Chief Executive, Ofgem

Jonathan Brearley became Ofgem's Chief Executive Officer on 3 February 2020. This follows his previous appointment as our Executive Director for Systems and Networks in April 2018.

He has wide-ranging energy sector experience, having led Electricity Market Reform as the Director for Energy Markets and Networks at DECC. Prior to this, he was Director of the Office of Climate Change, a cross-government strategy unit focussed on climate change and energy issues, where he led the development of the Climate Change Act. Earlier in his career, Jonathan was a senior adviser in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics from Glasgow University and a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge.

Lord Ian Duncan

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Climate Change, UK Government

Lord Ian Duncan was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on July 26 2019 and served as the Lords lead on all BEIS issues.

In 2014 Ian was elected to the European Parliament. During his time in the Parliament, Ian’s primary focus was climate change. He was a Parliamentary delegate to the UN Climate Change Conferences (COP) in Lima (2014), Paris (2015) and Marrakech (2016). He was the Parliament’s rapporteur (lead negotiator) on reform of the EU’s carbon market legislation (the ‘Emission Trading Scheme’).

Phil Henderson

Head of UK Government Affairs, ScottishPower

Phil has been with ScottishPower since January 2004 and is responsible for all UK parliamentary and political contact for both ScottishPower and parent company, Iberdrola. He has led the company’s political engagement programmes at Westminster and Holyrood on major infrastructure and renewables projects and on ScottishPower’s transition from a predominantly coal and gas generator to being 100% green.

He has been involved in Scottish and UK politics since 1992. Before joining ScottishPower, Phil was an adviser to John Swinney MSP during his time as Deputy Leader and then Leader of the SNP. Prior to this he worked for Swinney during his time as a Westminster MP.

Matthieu Hue

Chief Executive Officer, EDF Renewables

Matthieu has more than 15 years’ experience within the EDF Group, in the energy sector and particularly in renewable energy. He joined EDF in 2000 and worked on the formation of EDF Renewables, which he then joined in 2008. Actively involved in the successful expansion of EDF Renewables, he is now leading a team of more than 150 people who are involved in every stage of delivering wind farms from development and construction to asset management. Matthieu has a master in economics from the University of Paris and an MBA from Columbia and London Business School.

Claire Mack

Chief Executive, Scottish Renewables

Claire has been Chief Executive of Scottish Renewables, the representative voice of Scotland’s renewable energy industry, since October 2017. She is responsible for leading the organisation’s work to grow Scotland’s renewables sector and sustain its position at the forefront of the global clean energy industry.

Claire is a member of the First Minister’s Energy Advisory Board and the Renewables Industry Advisory Group, co-chaired by Scotland’s Energy Minister.

Alexandra Malone

Head of Corporate Affairs, SSE Renewables

Alexandra Malone is Head of Corporate Affairs at SSE Renewables, a leading developer of onshore wind, offshore wind and hydro across the UK and Ireland, where she is responsible for policy, communications, brand and stakeholder engagement in both countries. She joined the SSE Group in 2012 and has held various roles there, including within the energy portfolio management business.

Prior to joining SSE, Alexandra worked in the field of energy and natural resource policy in Canada with a focus on climate change and carbon reduction technologies, including carbon capture and storage. Alexandra has a Master’s in Resource Management.

Tim Marshall

Journalist, Author and Broadcaster

The former Diplomatic Editor and foreign correspondent for Sky News, Tim Marshall brings thirty years’ experience in reporting, presenting and writing about current affairs and international news to the corporate circuit as a keynote speaker and conference facilitator. Through his speech, blogs and books, including New York Times bestseller ‘Prisoners of Geography’, Tim translates his political analyses of world affairs into terms that appeal to all audiences.

Nick Sharpe

Director of communications & Strategy, Scottish Renewables

Nick Sharpe is Scottish Renewables’ Director of Communications & Strategy. His work involves overseeing Scottish Renewables’ media and public affairs work and liaising between the organisation’s member companies, the media and other stakeholders to promote positive news about the sector to diverse audiences.
A former journalist, Nick trained on the South Wales Echo then spent seven years at the Sun, latterly as Chief Reporter.
He then spent a year at Weber Shandwick, one of the world’s largest public relations consultancies.

Chris Stark

Chief Executive, Committee on Climate Change

Chris has been Chief Executive of the Committee on Climate Change since April 2018. His previous role was Director of Energy and Climate Change in the Scottish Government, leading the development of Scotland’s approach to emissions-reduction and the accompanying energy system transition. His team provided advice to Scottish Ministers on all aspects of energy and climate policy – and on licensing and consent decisions for new onshore energy infrastructure.

Terry A’Hearn

Chief Executive Officer, Scottish Environment Protection Agency

Terry has over twenty years’ experience in the environment profession, having held senior roles in Melbourne with the Environment Protection Authority in the Australian state of Victoria, in London with the global consulting firm WSP and, most recently, in Belfast as Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency before he joined SEPA. In all this work, Terry has strongly focussed on bringing environmental and economic aims together, supporting business and social innovation and getting tougher with the worst environmental performers.

Tracy Black

Director, CBI Scotland

Tracy Black was appointed Scotland Director on 1 January 2018, having first joined the CBI as Deputy Regional Director for Scotland in April 2017. A recognised thought-leader within the Scottish business community, Tracy regularly appears on platforms alongside Scotland’s foremost political and business leaders and has a growing reputation as an essential economic commentator.
Alongside a varied and distinguished career in the financial services sector, Tracy has experience of working with a range of SMEs and entrepreneurial start-ups, particularly spin-outs from the higher education sector.

Colin Calder

Chief Executive and Founder, PassivSystems

Colin founded PassivSystems in 2008 following extensive research into zero-carbon homes and the roll-out of smart meters to domestic homes in Italy. He is a Fellow of the Energy Institute and an Advisory Board Member to UCL’s International Energy Institute. He is a founding member of Energy UK’s New Energy Services & Heat Committee and his company is a member of the Smart Power Industries Alliance.
He is a regular speaker at local and international conferences including World Energy Congress, United Nations sustainable Energy for All and World Economic Forum (WEF).

Katrine Feldinger

Head of International Capital Investment, Scottish Government

Kat has worked in economic development for the best part of a decade, including European policy and long-range policy forecasting and planning for regional development. She started in post as Head of International Capital Investment 2 years ago, and is responsible for creating the conditions for large-scale private investment, and telling the right people in rest of the world how brilliant those conditions are in Scotland to make investment happen and projects rise.

Jim Smith

Managing Director, SSE Renewables

Since November 2018, Jim Smith has been leading SSE Renewables, which brings the together the development and operation of all SSE’s renewables assets under a dedicated management team. Jim joined SSE in 1988 and has held a wealth of development, production and management roles within large scale power generation and transmission as well as renewables. Jim has also held roles in Energy Portfolio Management and was responsible for SSE’s generation, gas storage and E&P assets too. He was previously the Managing Director of Renewable Development, responsible for the development and construction of onshore and offshore wind power projects.

Phil Steele

Future Technologies Evangelist, Octopus Energy

As the Future Technologies Evangelist at Octopus Energy, I'm instrumental in driving innovation in areas such as time-of-use tariffs, export tariffs, Smart Energy connected products & services and grant funded R&D projects. Previously, I ran my own Smart Home company which has now also been acquired by Octopus. I'm a married father of three children who are frequently used as my (willing!) test subjects.

Morag Watson

Director of Policy, Scottish Renewables

Morag is Scottish Renewables’ Director of Policy. Her work involves overseeing Scottish Renewables’ policy function and key projects within Scotland’s leading renewables trade body, working on behalf of 250+ organisations to grow Scotland’s renewable energy sector and sustain its position at the forefront of the global clean energy industry.

Morag has worked in policy for over 15 year and was previously a Senior Policy Officer with WWF Scotland, specialising in climate change, sustainable development and behaviour change.

Jan Webb

Professor of Sociology of Organisations, The University of Edinburgh

Janette Webb is Co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre and member of UKRI Energy Scientific Advisory Committee. Her research concerns comparative European policy and practice for sustainable heat and low energy buildings, and is funded by UKRI Energy Programme, Energy Technologies Institute, Energy Systems Catapult and Scottish Government. She has a working knowledge of UK local and regional energy system initiatives, and collaborates in capacity building with leading edge local authorities, central and devolved governments, ESCos and expert practitioners.

Neil Collar

Partner/ Head of Planning Law, Brodies LLP

Experienced adviser, inquiry advocate, blogger, author and conference speaker - Neil Collar is one of Scotland's best known planning lawyers. His team at Brodies LLP were shortlisted for Planning magazine’s Planning Law Firm of the Year 2018. Neil has over 20 years’ experience of renewables projects and is a long standing member of Scottish Renewables planning group.

Barry Carruthers

Head of Innovation & Sustainability, ScottishPower

Barry leads the Corporate Innovation and Sustainability function at ScottishPower. This ranges from strategic activities in the decarbonisation of transport and heat and other emerging technologies, to initiatives focused upon the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Following several years in ScottishPower Renewables where Barry led activities in marine energy and wind innovations, he now works across all ScottishPower divisions in order to foster innovations and sustainability across the sector.

Mary Fisher

Associate Director – Landscape & EIA, Stephenson Halliday

Mary has over 19 years’ experience including key leadership roles. She has co-authored IEMA guidance relating to the integration of design and EIA, and Landscape Institute guidance on the use of visualisations and contributed to guidance regarding residential visual amenity assessment.
Mary specialises in providing landscape and visual impact assessments and is an experienced expert witness, having provided support to Inquiry witnesses for more than 17 years and acted as an expert witness herself in relation to wind projects, residential development and solar farms.

Her LVIA work includes work across the UK on housing developments; solar farms; industrial and distribution sites; infrastructure projects; approximately 200 wind projects; and the Arcelor Mittal Orbit in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Highlights in the last year have included the Kype Muir Extension wind farm with turbines of up to 220m consented in September 2019; successfully supporting Northumberland County Council at a Land Tribunal; and supporting a number of wind and solar developers in bringing new sites forward for development. Her wind farm work has included consents for major wind farms at both application and appeal.

Dave Hawkey

Heat Planning & Delivery, Scottish Government

Dave Hawkey is a Senior Policy Advisor at Scottish Government. He works on Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies, and on Net Zero Carbon Building Standards for Public Bodies. Prior to joining the Scottish Government, Dave worked at Ofgem on gas distribution network regulation. Before joining the civil service, he was an academic with the Heat and the City team at Edinburgh University.

Ragne Low

Head of Heat Planning and Delivery, Scottish Government

Ragne works on heat planning as part of the Heat Strategy team in the Scottish Government, where she covers Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies, decarbonising heat in public sector buildings and aspects of wider heat policy. Before joining the Scottish Government, Ragne worked on energy policy issues in academia and consultancy.

Audrey Ramsay

Head of GB Network Access Planning, National Grid ESO

Audrey leads the National Grid ESO Network Access Planning team, focusing on delivering an operable and cost effective transmission system every minute of every day whilst allowing network owners the access they need to transform the electricity system.
Prior to her current role, she has lead several high-performing teams across NGESO in regulatory incentive development, assessment and procurements of balancing services and development of the future operability strategy, including the publication of the System Needs and Product Strategy document and the Operability Strategy Reports.

Mark Wilson

Chief Executive Officer, Intelligent Land Investments Group Plc

Mark has been focused on the renewable energy sector since 2008. From an original target of 100 consents, Mark led the Intelligent Land team in achieving 96 successful planning applications for onshore wind turbine projects.

On this journey he could see the growing necessity for a solution to help balance the many gigawatts of intermittent generation that has been coming on stream in the UK and therefore the transition into energy storage.

For Mark, this has allowed him to build on his renewable generation experience to help create a long-lasting sustainable solution for a greener, stable electricity grid. We are working on 3 Pumped Storage Hydro projects in Scotland with approx 2GW of capacity and over 450MW of commercial scale battery.