Paul has deep experience of innovation programmes and policy for low carbon technologies. He has led three major Government innovation reviews and been responsible for transformation of UK Government policy towards low carbon innovation earlier this decade, working across two Government departments and three public agencies.

As a Vice President and Director of Arthur D. Little, Paul was responsible for its Chemicals Practice in Europe and advised some of the world’s largest companies on strategy, technology, sustainable development and operations. He has advised early stage low carbon technology start-ups on business plans, supplier management, technology development and organisational issues.

Through his work Paul has deep experience in offshore renewables, storage, buildings and biomass. He is also an adviser to Green Alliance and the IEA and reviews all energy deals for an early stage venture capitalist. Paul holds a first-class honours degree in Chemical Engineering (B.Eng) from Imperial College, London and an MSc from the London Business School.

Charlie Blair is an entrepreneur and innovator with over two decades’ experience in early-stage CleanTech commercialisation. He has worked for Government, as a strategy consultant, and as a Startup founder-director.

Charlie was a Founder of underground energy storage pioneers Gravitricity and ran the company for 7 years until 2023. He has also designed and managed innovation and research projects related to numerous emerging energy technologies, particularly energy storage and flexibility, marine energy and clean-heat. Before Gravitricity he was head of Marine Energy at the UK Carbon Trust.

Charlie particularly enjoys working with early stage technology innovators – university spinouts and inventor-led teams trying to navigate the commercial, legislative and human aspects of running a company.

Charlie has a BA in Geography and European Studies from Durham University and an MSc in Environmental Technology (Energy Policy) from Imperial College London. He is a fellow of the Energy Institute and a member if the IET.

Richard specialises in working with SMEs particularly early stage or scaling ventures.  With 20-years entrepreneurial experience in five ventures, Richard now focuses on helping SMEs accelerate their development. Richard’s blend of experiences is drawn from venture capital backed start-ups, corporate venturing and international business turnaround.

Richard founded the UK operations for the growing Canadian engineering practice IBI Group (now a multinational PLC). At Detica (acquired by BAE Systems), Richard created a transportation systems unit that became a core offer for the new owners and won a Webby.

As Managing Director for a family office investor, Richard turned around both an international port operator and an MIT-backed logistics optimisation start-up. Latterly, Richard was CEO for a BP originated energy storage start-up backed by leading VC funds that sold its technology to a specialised industrial group.

Richard holds a degree in Civil Engineering and a postgraduate in Transportation both from Newcastle University.

Amanda is an experienced business leader with over 25 years in corporate affairs, communications and marketing, who believes in people-first transformational change and influencing a more sustainable approach to business.

Working in a variety of sectors including retail, consumer and real estate, she has helped drive cultural and strategic transformation; create, communicate, and embed strategies delivering business performance and improving reputation and stakeholder relationships.

Amanda brings a deep understanding of the challenges today’s organisations can face, advising business leaders in all things corporate affairs and sustainability and as an executive coach.

Curious and insightful she is known for helping people and organisations chart a path through complex problems to achieve commercial objectives.As a storyteller she believes in the power of authenticity and language to tell a powerful story to make a difference.

Amanda is a founding Board Trustee of Highly Sprung Performance and is the board EDI Sponsor. She is Board Advisor to Zellebrate, the online marketplace that bridges the “connectivity” gap between local retailers and consumers and an Associate at Sustainability West Midlands.

She has a Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching from Henley Business School, a Masters in Marketing, and is a member of the CIPR, Association of Coaching and International Coaching Federation.

Alison is a senior strategy and innovation advisor, with an international track record of success in technology commercialisation and new venture development in the Cleantech sector. She has spent her career providing strategic and commercial development support to new ventures and growth-phase businesses, as well as public sector clients developing and delivering innovation support and acceleration programmes. She has variously acted as Interim MD, business coach, mentor, Non-Executive Director and consultant to more than 100 start-ups and SMEs, and provided advisory services to more than 30 regional, national and international agencies. Over the past 25 years she has developed an extensive network of contacts and a deep practical knowledge of technology commercialisation and methods for accelerating market translation.

Alison was a founding Director of Orion Innovations in 2004, successfully delivering specialist strategy and innovation consultancy support to early-stage businesses across the Cleantech sector for more than fifteen years. She was previously one of the original founding team of Intelligent Energy Ltd, a start-up fuel cell development company, where she spent four years as Director of Business Development.

She has developed her skills and expertise on a platform of environmental and management consultancy experience with leading international firms including Arup, RPS, Booz and A. T. Kearney.

For most of his career, Jim has built VC-funded companies and most recently Jim served as executive chairman of Zetta Genomics, a spin-out from the University of Cambridge delivering large scale genome data management for precision medicine and life sciences research.

Jim based his work at Zetta Genomics on the year he spent at Genomics England leading the programme to develop a platform to support researchers from academia and industry in their work with the 100,000 genomes datasets.

Prior to his work at Genomics England he co-founded Arkivum, a spin-out from the University of Southampton delivering digital data preservation solutions that provide safe multi-decade storage for critical data.

Jim’s career stretches back to the mid-1970s with the first decade spent working at the forefront of cognitive systems, particularly machine vision and image processing including the early X-Ray brain scanners, and the world’s first number plate recognition system.

The second decade was spent working in large-scale information management. In the mid-90s Jim co-founded a company working in the pharmaceutical sector that built systems to assemble million-page documents for the US FDA. Growing to over 120 people in the UK, US, Japan and Europe, Jim was CTO and a board-level director throughout, helping to raise a total of £11M of VC funding with a successful exit in 2003.

In between Jim has worked on voice biometrics, AI-based scheduling systems, and mountain climbing robots, and spent a year rescuing a GIS project at a major UK utility company. He is also a trustee of a local charity and has served as vice-chairman of his local council. Jim is a Chartered Engineer and has a BSc(Hons) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Bath. Jim is also a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

George is an innovative and visionary executive with a track record of driving strategic initiatives and overseeing ambitious business development growth, regulatory engagements, and technological advancements within energy and technology sectors. He has a deep knowledge of numerous aspects of climate and energy policy: energy settlements, energy generation, distribution and transmission infrastructure, new adjacent technologies in energy, home heating transitions, Smart Metering technology and EV Charging manufacturing and infrastructure.

George’s career has spanned across three decades of energy transition. Driving commercial and technical deliveries at Centrica, GDF (Engie), National Grid and Npower. In addition, he has energy retailer ‘start up’ experience (Spark Energy).  George’s experience crosses over, uniquely, with both the smaller energy retail models to the larger incumbent energy retailers.

In 2020 he was on the successful executive team that floated Calisen Plc on the London Stock Exchange. From 2010 until 2018 his focus was on scaling the smart metering rollout in the UK at Centrica and Npower; including all aspects of metering infrastructure integration and funding arrangements with MAPS. In the past 5 years, his focus has been on the sustainable energy transport transition. Working inside and advising Charge Point Operators on scaling their manufacturing, infrastructure and energy system challenges.

Andy has 40 yrs experience at technical and strategic levels in automotive test and policy development. He has worked to support major OEMs and the innovative start up and niche vehicle sectors, together with governments and legislators in a variety of countries. He sits on a variety of transport and policy advisory groups and has previously advised Government in the creation of organisations such as the APC and Cenex and has led groups on both energy and infrastructure.

Andy was previously the Chief Executive Office of Zemo Partnership (formerly the LowCVP) working closely with UK governments and industry on research and evidence building together with polices and incentives for low and zero emission transport. With a strong background in developing the measurement and analysis approach for vehicle development Andy was a founding member of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership in 2003 bringing government and industry together to tackle the carbon and air quality imperatives.

Andy holds a BSc in mechanical engineering and is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the IMechE

Howard is a very experienced technical and development professional in the waste management sector.

Howard started his career as a regulator and worked in what is now the Environment Agency from 1986 to 1993.

In 1993 Howard joined the Viridor group and spent 20 years working principally as a project manager developing several types of waste infrastructure. This included managing the financial and technical evaluation of those projects as well as obtaining all necessary regulatory consents and the subsequent construction programme. In addition, he built up a database of competitor facilities as well as waste arisings, especially from local authorities. In 2011 Howard was appointed to the main Board as Business Development Director.

During the 20 years spent at Viridor, the types of waste infrastructure he delivered evolved from principally landfill sites, through composting facilities, several types of materials recovery and recycling facilities and most recently energy-from-waste facilities.

In addition, Howard managed the identification and acquisition process by which Viridor acquired ten independent waste management businesses and then integrated those into the Viridor business.

Howard is educated to Higher degree level, holding a bachelor’s degree in Geography and Geology as well as a master’s degree in Hydrogeology. He holds Charterships in Geology, the Environment and Waste Management.

Andrew helps UK business connect and collaborate, supporting them in growing their capabilities in transport related technologies. He is also currently supporting Warwick Manufacturing Group develop their long-term strategy to support UK businesses as Strategic Development Director, Connected and Autonomous Vehicles. Prior to this he was Chief Strategy Officer of the Transport Systems Catapult where he was responsible for the strategic direction of the Catapult, promoting sustained economic growth and wellbeing through integrated, efficient and sustainable transport systems. Before joining the Catapult, Andrew spent over 6 years at the Technology Strategy Board as Head of Transport and initially Lead Technologist for Low Carbon Vehicles. In his time there he developed the case for the Transport Systems Catapult, delivered over 15 multi-million-pound research and development funding competitions and delivered the Ultra-Low Carbon Vehicle Demonstrator programme which saw more than 340 electric vehicles trialled in the UK in 8 locations.

His early interest in engineering and cars led to a Mechanical Engineering Apprenticeship after which Andrew joined Ford Motor Company where he held various positions in Engineering, Finance and Planning. In 1998 Andrew joined Visteon, a spin out of Ford, to take the role of Manufacturing Planning Manager. He then became Programme Manager for the cooling and air conditioning system to be delivered to Kia for their first European which was manufactured car in Slovakia. Andrew then moved to the Energy Saving Trust as Transport Research and Development Programme Manager managing the Department for Transport’s Vehicle Technology Research and Development Fund.

Andrew holds a BSc in Engineering Management from Anglia Polytechnic University, an MSc in Automotive Engineering Design, Manufacture and Management from the University of Hertfordshire and an MBA from Henley Management College.

Garry is a highly respected figure with extensive experience in the Energy, Energy Efficiency and Low Carbon sectors and has done a lot of work in the area of energy innovation.

He was Chief Executive of the Energy Retail Association, which represented the big six energy supply companies in Britain where he participated in the development work of the supplier obligation for smart meters, the development of the Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation. He was a Non-Exec of the Energy Saving Trust and The Ombudsman Service and Chair of the Supplier Obligation for Smart Meters.

Recently he has been operations manager for the Association for the Conservation of Energy where he re-engineered their business and offering, developed a new offering for the Energy Pension Company that included the use of battery storage and worked on the industry analysis of end-to-end system energy use for the UK looking at generation, transmission, distribution and end use. He supported Deutsche Telkom on their strategy in smart energy and advised start up companies in the renewable and carbon measurement space. He has advised in small-scale energy for the developed world.

Garry was a Director of Delivery at the Carbon Trust building the UK’s most cost effective carbon abatement programme.   He has worked for KPMG, A.T. Kearney, Halliburton and IBM. Garry is a Fellow of the Energy Institute and the RSA.

MA, MEng (Hons) (Cantab) MSc, PhD, CEng, FIET

Anna has 12 years’ of experience in Power Networks and Renewable Energy, and has spent the last 6 years as working at Director level with Atkins, TNEI and most recently WSP, where she led and grew the Power Systems and Energy Strategy Consulting teams.

Anna has a broad range of knowledge and experience in areas including electricity regulation, power system economics, technical advisory/ due diligence, support to generation/ demand/ storage developers and multi-disciplinary project management. Anna also has experience in power systems studies for both network operators and generation developers.

Prior to moving into the field of Power Networks, Anna has worked in other industry sectors including Strategy Consulting and Investment Banking, and applies principles gained working for major global clients to projects within the Energy industry. Anna has a strong academic background, and was a member of the teaching staff at Bath University for the MSc in Electrical Power Systems for five years, as well as achieving Fellowship of the IET.

Andrew is an experienced finance professional bringing over 15 years’ experience helping companies achieve commercial focus and strategic clarity to their plans.

A Big 4 qualified accountant, his blend of experience comes from experience working in a multinational Bank in the definition and execution of the regional strategy, assist start-up businesses to scale and grow internationally as well as help early stage pre-revenue businesses obtain angel investment. Andrew worked at RedCompass Labs, a technology focused payments services company where he led the functional and regional growth across Europe and Asia as well as lead the financial management of the business.

More recently, he has decided to apply his skills with organisations that are more purpose driven across the green economy and wider society. He works with entrepreneurs looking to turn opportunity into reality, integrating both the financial and non-financial elements to enable scale.

He has a degree in Geography with a focus Sustainable Development from the University of Exeter.

Jonathan is an experienced low-carbon energy technologist, engineer, project leader and consultant. Recent projects have involved energy storage, hydrogen, direct air capture of CO₂ and CO₂ transport and storage facilities.

At BP, Jonathan was the leader of a multi-discipline team of chartered engineers responsible for providing expertise in low-carbon technologies Informing company strategy, providing access to important technologies and also advising projects and operating businesses. Technologies included power from shore, renewables integration, biogas, hydrogen, CO₂ utilisation (including CO₂ enhanced oil recovery) and power generation from waste heat. Activities included support to corporate venturing including technical due diligence and adviser to technology start-ups.

Jonathan was leader and Chair of the Board of the CO₂ Capture Project involving international oil and gas companies, government agencies and technology innovators developing CO₂ capture and storage technologies.

With BP Alternative Energy Jonathan was responsible for CO₂ capture R&D and engineering review of hydrogen power projects. Inventing new processes for CO₂ capture and participating in development of new industry standards.

With BP Energy Jonathan directed and managed development and implementation industrial cogeneration projects.

At Babcock Jonathan project engineeried power station FGD projects.

Jonathan holds a degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Manchester University and is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Marie has extensive knowledge and experience in business development, marketing/branding, user experience and product/service design.

After a career in sales, marketing and user experience roles at Blue-chip tech companies such as Microsoft and Orange, Marie decided to put her skills at the service of purpose driven organisations and went freelance in 2016. She could see that better user experience could help bridge the massive intention – action gap in sustainable consumption.

Three years later, to scale up her own impact, she founded the C Collective, a consultancy helping entrepreneurs scale their people and planet-friendly solutions by creating outstanding User Experiences.

Marie has supported the growth of organisations and start ups such as Q-Bot, the Ashden Foundation, LightFi, Ethicalfin, Passivhaus Trust, ChangeNow Summit, Neuville Grid Data

Sarah Gordon is a Visiting Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on climate and the environment, where she is leading a research and advocacy project on mobilising private capital for environmental and socioeconomic policy priorities.

Before starting this role in 2023, she was the founding Chief Executive of the Impact Investing Institute, which was launched in 2019, with a mission to make capital markets fairer and work better for people and the planet. Previously, Sarah spent 18 years at the Financial Times, where she ran the paper’s corporate coverage during the 2008-12 financial crisis and was Business Editor. Before journalism, she worked in fund management in the UK and the US, and at the UN Conference for Trade and Development in Geneva.

Sarah is a non-executive director of Social Finance, an advisor to Better (formerly Big) Society Capital and the Big Issue Group, a member of Bankers for Net Zero’s Advisory Council and the Leadership Council at Snowball Investment Management and a speaker for Speakers for Schools.

Sarah has spent the latter part of her career building bridges between different parts of the investment chain, helping institutional and social investors, policy-makers, and regulators work together more effectively in order to deliver positive outcomes for people and the environment.

Andrew is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully exited 4 startups. He understands startup challenges and has worked with founding teams to raise funding, obtain market validation, early customer traction and build teams capable of scaling the business. He has successfully raised Seed to Series A funding to support R&D and early product development.

Andrew has deep knowledge of the offshore wind, marine energy and critical materials markets and understands the challenges facing ClimateTech Industries. He specialises in developing innovation and risk mitigation strategies to find creative new solutions.

In his most recent venture, GreenSpur Wind, he Raised £3.7m of equity, utilising SEIS/EIS tax reliefs, plus £2.5m of grant funding to develop 3 prototypes, conduct 3 test programmes, and develop new manufacturing processes. He secured 8 collaborative partnerships and presented new design concepts to major OEMs in UK, Europe, US, Japan and China. He managed 11 patent filings, which were prosecuted in multiple international markets to protect intellectual property – 9 of these patents are now granted.

Andrew is a Chartered Certified Accountant (FCCA) and holds an MBA from Ashridge Business School, where he focused his studies on the Renewable Energy and Carbon markets. He successfully completed the Royal Academy of Engineering SME Leaders Programme in 2017/18.

Stephen is a Chartered Engineer and a Chartered Environmentalist. He is an experience Project Director and PRINCE2® Practitioner. He has led a >£1.5bn capital development programme of projects delivering key waste management infrastructure, including a new fleet of energy from waste power plants, state of the art materials recycling facilities, along with strategic anaerobic digestion and composting facilities.

He has negotiated the EPC contracts of Europes largest PFI/PPP projects. He has used PDRI (project definition rating index) and similar tools to evaluate the status of projects, measure project scope completeness and likelihood of successful outcomes.

Stephen was previously Engineering Director at Viridor. Stephen is naturally analytical in style, backed up by a sense of drive. He is collaborative in his approach, with a focus on achievement. Stephen holds a degree in Geology from Durham Unviersity.

Chris has over 12 years’ experience in the offshore oil and gas and renewable energy markets including offshore oil and gas, offshore wind, subsea vehicles and trenching and pipe and cable-laying. He currently supports UK supply chain companies within the offshore energy market and enables the growth in offshore renewables.

Previously he was Director of Business Development at Osbit, responsible for the development and delivery of company global strategy and business growth as well as providing input into new technology and service development. At Royal IHC as Product Manager for Subsea Vehicles, Chris was responsible for identifying and defining customer needs, market trends and competitive developments for subsea trenching and direct the Research and Development activity to bring to market next generation trenching technology through a prototype development of a new trenching asset specifically targeted to the European Offshore Wind market.

Prior to this as Project Engineering Manager he was responsible for managing a large multi-disciplined engineering team to deliver a new state of the art multi-million Euro, pipe-lay tower for a leading EPCI/Tier 1 offshore construction client.  He is a panel member for the Global OSW event for Renewable UK and the International Partners Forum for OSW in the US.

Rob is an established business and commercial leader with over 25 years experience across the energy value chain. Most recently he has held a number of senior leadership roles within British Gas, including Commercial Director for energy supply. Rob now provides support for organisations driving forward the energy transition.

Rob has extensive experience of strategy development and commercial delivery with a focus on the retail energy market. He has a track record of delivering growth through innovative products and new routes to market. Rob has also led the deployment of new technologies that have disrupted the energy market, most notably when he launched and scaled a digital challenger business for SME customers.

Retail energy markets are going through a rapid transformation. Rob has an in-depth understanding of market dynamics and the complex regulatory framework, as well as changing customer behaviour. Drawing on this experience, he helps organisations grow successfully as they deliver innovative solutions to decarbonise the sector.

Michael has worked in the district heating industry for 30 years. As a lobbyist he has secured key pieces of legislation in planning at national and regional level and providing permissive powers for local authorities to develop and operate local energy projects. He has worked with government-back agencies on capital investment and support programmes, including the Community Energy Programme and the Low Carbon Infrastructure Programme, as well as partnering with the University of Edinburgh’s Heat and the City initiative. Michael has also authored guidance materials on project development that have been published in the UK, USA and Canada.

Working as an independent consultant and as an associate of Carbon Limiting Technologies Michael continues to support numerous local authorities, agencies and other organisations working in the heat network sector with strategic guidance, policy development project management and stakeholder engagement. He is a non-executive director of four local heat network companies in England and Scotland.

He holds a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from North East London Polytechnic and a MSc in Organisational Design & Policy from the London School of Economics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

Virginie is an experienced coach, with 26 years’ experience as a B2B innovation commercialisation consultant and more than eight years’ Board level experience. She works as an innovation coach for a range of public and private accelerators supporting start-ups and upscaling SMEs upscaling SMEs with their investment readiness, access to market strategy, partnership and organisational development.

Virginie has expertise in quantifying value propositions for investment readiness, business planning and market entry and specialisms in water, energy and electronics sectors. Her technical expertise includes SaaS/iPaaS, blockchain, IoT and AI.

Virginie is currently a Board Member of the Future Water Association. She was a co-founder of Agily3 in 2105 to act as a Foundry to develop productivity solutions primarily to the water industry.

Virginie has a BA (Hons. Marketing and Law) from E.S.C.E., Paris, a Professional Diploma in Mobile Marketing, a Workboard Objective Key Results (OKR) coaching certificate and is working towards EMCC coach certification.

Robin is a trusted strategy and business consultant with broad experience in business strategy, technology commercialisation, due diligence and M&A. He has strong expertise in developing and implementing strategies for growth, from proposition and business case to the leadership required to build sales teams and generate revenues and has worked in client facing strategy and innovation consultancies, and also in in-house roles within established corporates.

He has provided a broad range of support services to clean technology ventures in areas including micro-CHP, energy storage, smart grid and power line communication and waste heat to power. Focus areas have included general strategy development (value proposition / market entry / commercialisation strategy etc), business development, investor readiness, as well as support in negotiating commercial and shareholder agreements.

He holds a Masters in law with Merit from University College London and an MBA from MBA from Imperial College. He is a qualified solicitor and spent five years at international law firm Allen & Overy before moving into consulting.

Sharon has extensive experience creating compelling visual communications for a wide range of businesses, including corporates, public sector, and small business start-ups. Her expertise includes logos and identity, websites and digital experiences, and online marketing.

Her speciality is in transforming communications to capture the essence and values of the brand, and appeal to the target audience.

At CLT, Sharon works with low carbon innovators to present their business as a commercial enterprise by helping them to effectively communicate complex information in an easily digestible way. For companies supported by the Energy Entrepreneurs’ Fund, Sharon has provided design consultancy and support on branding, websites, pitch deck, and digital marketing projects. For many of these companies, she has worked on multiple projects, creating cohesive brand communications across media platforms.

Sharon holds a HND in Graphic Design. She has previously worked as an Art Director in advertising and as a Graphic Designer for a wide range of clients.

Alan is a cleantech innovation professional with over 30 years’ experience of the international power generation, energy and water sectors. Alan specialises in research, development, innovation, intellectual property commercialisation and strategic asset management. Alan has worked in major corporations such as NEI/Rolls Royce, British Gas, Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, Shell, Mott MacDonald and Jacobs.

In addition, Alan has held board positions within research and technology organisations such Narec (now part of the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult which he helped to establish in 2012) and ITI Energy in Aberdeen, and has operated as CEO for two university spin-out businesses, both in the water sector, as well as holding board positions on others. Alan holds BSc (Hons:1), MSc and PhD degrees in Engineering Mathematics and an MBA from Durham University. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Paul has demonstrable and consistent commercial success in domestic and international B2B live marketing environments. He has grown, cloned, launched, acquired and re energised a broad portfolio of products across B2B exhibitions, awards, conferences and digital media.

Paul’s expertise includes in creating and executing long term strategic growth plans and budgets, while ensuring that organisational structure and skills are fit for growth. He has experience of driving revenue through organic growth, launches and acquisitions, as well as leading, integrating and unifying multiple diverse teams across the globe. Paul provides clear strategic thinking to empowering marketing teams to get closer to their community and develop ‘think big’ solutions.

In his roles as Global Brand Director and then Divisional managing Director at Easyfairs UK & Global, Paul launched an international sales network, Easyfairs’ first event in the USA and China and was responsible for seven countries across three continents.

Paul has a BA (Hons) Marketing from Bournemouth University. Paul has won multiple AEO and Exhibition News Awards and was the winner of The President’s Award, presented personally by Eric Everard (Founder & Owner of Easyfairs), for an unprecedented three years in a row.

Karen McClellan As an investment banker and fund manager in the public and private sectors, Ms McClellan spent much of her career developing and financing climate change projects. While working for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Karen started one of the first private equity funds for energy efficiency projects and carbon emission credits. She represented the Bank at UNFCCC conferences and crafted its climate change risk and investment policies.

As Head of Asset Management at Carbon Capital Markets, Ms McClellan raised and invested a hedge fund focused on methane recovery projects, later shortlisted for the FT Sustainability Award for Carbon Finance. She also invested as principal in large-scale renewable energy projects. Over the last five years she turned to the application of clean technologies for the distributed energy sector, working in a senior management position for Windfire, a wind turbine developer, and in energy project development for Intelligent Energy, a UK-based leader in hydrogen fuel cells.

She recently acted as lead investor for Naked Energy, a hybrid solar thermal/PV company. Ms McClellan has been a frequent speaker at conferences on regulatory innovations in the energy and carbon markets and was a past lecturer in emerging markets private equity at Stanford University. She was chosen as a Young Global Leader by the Tällberg Foundation in 2013. She served as co-chair of the Panel of Experts for the International Renewable Energy Agency lending facility in 2016 and continues to serve as an expert in evaluating energy projects in developing economies for IRENA.

Ms McClellan received a BA in Economics with honours from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. She is a dual UK/US citizen and speaks German and French.

Graham Oakes entered the energy sector in 2013 when he founded Upside Energy in response to a challenge prize run by Nesta, a global innovation foundation. Upside has developed a cloud platform that uses advanced algorithms and AI to coordinate large numbers of devices such as home batteries, EVs and heat pumps to provide flexibility to the grid and thus enable greater use of renewable generation.  It has won numerous prizes, most notably the 2017 Shell Springboard Prize for Low Carbon Innovation and a 2018 Ashden Award for Energy Innovation. Octopus Energy acquired Upside in November 2020.

He acted as Chief Scientist and chaired Upside’s board until the end of 2018, by which time it had raised almost £10m of grant and equity finance, grown to 35 staff, and won contracts with global firms such as National Grid, EDF and Vertiv. He then stood down in order to focus on helping players within the energy system develop propositions and services that enable people to engage with and benefit from the energy transition.

Graham helps people think about complex situations.  He helps them frame the problem clearly and so develop solutions and products that can address it.  As a systems engineer, he has 35 years’ experience working with organisations ranging from Cisco, Intel, Sony, Skype and Vodafone to Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Oxfam and the Council of Europe to develop high tech systems, products and services.

Graham holds a first degree in Geophysics from the University of Queensland and a PhD from Imperial College, London.  He is a Chartered Engineer, FBCS and FRSA.  His book Project Reviews, Assurance and Governance, was published by Gower in 2008.

Mark has extensive commercial and managerial experience in both the renewables and buildings sectors. He is particularly experienced in the role of project lead, coordinating consultants and specialists managing processes for equitable selection, financial management, contract management and reporting. Projects of note include the MaRS project (The Crown Estate), Offshore Wind Accelerator and Marine Renewables Proving Fund (Carbon Trust) and the Marine Energy Array Demonstrator (DECC).

In addition, he has carried out strategic technology prioritisation for the ORE Catapult exploiting his marine and offshore renewables experience. He co-authored the report “Maximising Opportunities for UK Financial Investors to support India’s Renewable Energy Ambitions” for DFID.

Mark’s early background is in industrial design and construction . He has implemented numerous construction projects including a programme for the Home Office to refurbish 16 office buildings.

Leveraging many of these skills he has delivered SME business analysis and support for the Energy Entrepreneur Fund to advise SMEs engaged in energy efficiency innovations on the route to market.

David is highly experienced in the commercialisation of innovative clean technology solutions. He has set up and programme managed business incubation services, delivered incubation support directly to over 100 companies and been part of several clean technology startups.

He has worked with SMEs, university spinouts and corporate venturing units for which he has secured project financing, early stage equity investments and innovation grants. David was recently part of a team that designed and built the UK’s first industrial waste heat to power system on a lime kiln.

Previously David was Director of the prestigious SETsquared Business Acceleration initiative at the University of Surrey. He has an MBA from the University of Warwick, an MSc. in Mathematical Modelling and a First Class Honours Degree in Mathematics from the University of Oxford.

Dave is an expert in commercialising new technology, with a specialty in the built environment. He has experience running one of the UK’s largest clean tech business incubators and founded and led a start-up internet security company as a spin-out from a FTSE 250 company. Dave has run engineering teams in factories in Germany and the USA, and headed up research and development activities for five lines of London Underground.

Previously at the Carbon Trust, Dave led the Entrepreneurs Fast Track, which was a new service designed to ‘turbo charge’ and stimulate investment in early-stage clean tech companies. At the time, the scheme had better results than any other Government-funded incubation scheme in the clean tech sector, ever, in terms of the private inward investment and growth of supported businesses.

Dave is also CEO of LoftZone, a company introducing new energy efficiency technologies to the built environment. He joined as CEO when its first product, StoreFloor, was a good idea on a piece of paper, and commercialised it to the point where (by 2017) it had been fitted into 20,000 properties around the world. LoftZone is profitable and growing, without having had any external investment.

Dave holds a Postgraduate degree in Design, Manufacture and Management from the University of Cambridge, and an MEng, Engineering, Economics and Management from the University of Oxford.

Pieter Sayer is an economist with over 5 years of experience in economics consulting and research. His work is focused on applying econometrics and economic appraisal methodologies to projects in the fields of climate change, sustainability, and development.

Pieter has worked with both public and private sector partners around the world to help develop climate policy and to expand the evidence base which underlies it.

Pieter has a BSc in Economics and Business Economics from Maastricht University in the Netherlands and an MSc in Economics for Development from the University of Oxford.

Richard is an economist with a long career in emerging markets, working for commercial and investment banks such as Bank of America and Santander Investment Securities, asset management companies and specialised debt broking and consulting firms. Beyond traditional analysis of securities markets and macroeconomies, he has developed unique term structure and sovereign risk models. Integral to emerging markets research is an awareness of corporate governance, and he has broadened this more recently with a focus on green and sustainable finance. He has published capital markets guidebooks on Russia and sub-Saharan Africa, and has participated in private sector efforts to cooperate with the Paris Club, notably in the area of sovereign debt restructuring.

Separately, he is an avid writer of fiction in the action and adventure genre, along with travel writing, and his latest work is The Guest House. He takes a keen interest in public policy with regard to financial regulation and fiscal optimisation, and has had articles published in the Society of Professional Economists quarterly bulletin.

He has a degree in economics from MIT, where he specialised in international and labour studies, along with the economics of environmental control.

John has over 30 year’s professional practical experience in global quality, manufacturing and supply chain from start-up companies to global corporations. He has successfully delivered scalability and optimisation through strategic direction and cultural change both internally and throughout multiple supply chains.

He has worked with several global household names in the telecoms, consumer electronics, aerospace, home energy and e-mobility industries as well as key suppliers from printed circuit boards and injection moulding to military aircraft and heavy industrial components and products.

Working from concept to delivery has always been John’s key focus, driven by business case and customer requirements and expectations.

He works closely with cross functional leadership and stakeholder teams to agree, create and implement bespoke step change strategies for supply chain, manufacturing, resource and quality enabling growth plan and investment confidence.

John leverages his skills and experience to support investors and SME’s on their journey to bring innovative new product and customer solutions to market.

Martin is an accomplished technology innovation manager with considerable expertise in product development, science and engineering from concept to production. He has worked in R&D for international materials and consumer electronics companies, initially in photonics and optics, and latterly in renewable energy. Most recently Martin has provided support for the commercialisation of new renewables through technical services, due diligence, project monitoring and programme management.

Within the energy sector, Martin has founded research in renewable heating and cooling, heat pumps, photovoltaics, new battery materials, energy systems, demand response and water purification. He was part of start-up team that established the Faraday Institution, ‘the UK’s go-to place for energy storage research’, and as interim Head of Programme Management initiated projects with £70M in grant funding and actively managing the portfolio of research.

Martin is a fellow of the Institute of Physics and holds a degree in Physics and a PhD in photonics, both from the University of Exeter.

Paul is an experienced CEO/ COO and brings international leadership experience across a broad spectrum of industrial sectors, including automotive, industrial, marine aviation and textiles and multiple functional expertise areas, including strategy, sales, marketing and supply chain.

As an executive director of BP/Castrol for eight years, he held several leadership roles, including CEO of Castrol in China and North Asia, CEO of the Global Marine and Energy business, VP of the global supply chain and VP of South America and Central Asia.

As COO of Coats Group PLC, he had accountability for EBIT and the end-to-end supply chain, helping to develop the group’s global sustainability strategy and then executing it through the reduction of the critical parameters of water, energy and waste as well as supporting the broader ESG agenda.

As a member of the BP Castrol Venturing board, he helped to identify and invest in businesses across the new mobility, IoT and advanced materials sectors, including being a non-executive director of Greensteam, an AI/machine learning start-up and Chairman of a JV with the Dongfeng group in China.

Paul helps businesses through the stages of market identification, segment participation choices, competitive differentiation and organisational delivery at both start-up, market entry and mature market transformation.

He holds an honours degree in Economics from Manchester University.

As the co-founder of an award-winning digital marketing agency, James has carved a niche in blending cutting-edge marketing strategies with insightful educational methodologies. His background spans lecturing and training, where he is an associate lecturer at numerous prestigious universities across the UK. James’s commitment to fostering innovation and sharing knowledge propelled him to the stage of a TEDx event in 2024, where he shared insights drawn from his rich professional journey. James merges theoretical insights with practical excellence, enriching both the academic sphere and the dynamic world of digital marketing.

John is an economic and strategy expert focused on climate change. He has almost 20 years’ experience in economic strategy and analysis, the last 15 of which have focused in this core area of interest.

He has a particular focus on the intersection between climate change policy and strategy. His work involves supporting companies, governments, international financial institutions, philanthropies, and donors in developing their strategic approaches to climate action and understanding their economic impacts. To support this, John frequently leads quantitative assessments of the economic costs and benefits, and wider impacts, of policy or strategic options.

 John has led projects for clients around the world, including an array of UK government departments, a wide range of private sector clients, as well as organisations such as the World Bank, EBRD, EIB, OECD, the United Nations. He has also supported clients in relation to several high-profile multilateral initiatives, including the UN High Level Panel on climate finance and the CDM Policy Dialogue.

David has over 30 years post qualification experience as a commercial finance professional with wide exposure to the energy, power generation and renewable energy industries.

He has held a CIMA practising certificate for over 10 years and has held C Suite positions including CFO (Chief Financial Officer) for a renewable energy developer where he partnered the CEO’s from start up to £40 M Turnover over a period of 4 years.

David has extensive development and M&A experience in the energy and infrastructure sector globally. He has wide experience covering deal structuring, risk management, financial / business modelling, planning & analysis and business case preparation. He also has experience in fund raising, general finance reporting, control, and compliance areas.

He has spent 7 years in two big four practices. He is a prolific Euromoney Books author who has successfully published 5 best-selling titles including the Strategic Corporate Investments Handbook.

Seasoned business transformation consultant with twenty-six years of consulting experience in the global Energy sector, helping organisations improve operational and business performance, through a combination of technology, business processes and people. He has previously worked with international oil and gas companies such as BP, Shell, Total, Exxon and Marathon, state owned national oil and gas companies such as Kuwait Petroleum, Bharat Petroleum and Benzina, and related companies in the chemicals, retail, technology and finance sectors.

David is focused on renewable energy and sustainability, and recently completed an MSc in Renewable Energy Systems Engineering at the University of Surrey. He has recently helped the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) on learning the lessons from its past five years and structured intervention approaches, an Eastern European oil company on an assessment of options for meeting RE and GHG emissions reduction targets in transport, the EU Commission’s Joint Research Centre on the potential supply of advanced biofuels to 2030, the Carbon Trust Leadership Team on developing strategy for the Portfolio Management Group, and Origin Oil on developing governance models and processes for its global renewable energy joint ventures.

David started his career with Texaco and Mobil, then worked in the management consulting sector, initially with PwC and Arthur D. Little, before forming Creating Our Future management consulting in 2002. He has worked in Europe, US, South America, Middle East, India, Australia and Africa, and has lived in England, Scotland, Sweden, Belgium, Australia, Uganda and Tanzania.

Roy brings creativity, leading edge thinking and agility together with a structured approach to solutions, and commercial acumen in cleantech and innovation. He is a trusted senior advisor with a track record of working with startups, multi-national corporations and national government, to accelerate new technology development and market introduction.

With a focus on clean energy, sustainability and climate solutions, Roy has been assessing market trends and opportunities for cleantech innovation for over 27 years, and has built strong relationships with leading advisors, experts and CEOs in startups, corporates, investors and policy makers in the UK and internationally. He has helped 100s of startups to reshape their how they engage international venture capital investors, and trained 1000s of consultants in the art of evaluation, as well as developed nation-wide innovation initiatives and advised corporates on strategic assets.

He applies skills developed at innovation and technology advisory consultancies Alta Innovation, The Technology Partnership and PA Consulting, plus low carbon sector focussed organisations ZEMO and EnviroBusiness. Roy has been involved with national startup and innovation initiatives at Government Departments, DBT and DSIT – Roy was previously Head of the Venture Capital Unit at DIT – and future concept development in power generation at international corporate Alstom. He has a degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Loughborough University.

For over 30 years, Nigel has worked directly with circa 400 start-ups and SMEs across a range of business development activities, not least in market research, new product/service development and planning, open innovation, raising finance, planning RD&I activities, securing grants, marketing and sales planning. Nigel has worked on a range of projects where he has on-boarded and assisted businesses seeking incubation and business planning for a range of clients, including the Welsh Government, LEPs and Growth Hubs, and specialist centres such as the Nuclear AMRC.

Within the energy sector, Nigel has supported companies in PV, PVT, wind turbines, tidal flow, transpired solar, energy storage (heat, battery, flywheel) and building energy management systems that integrate renewables, solar heating and cooling, internal/external insulation, heating booster devices, AD, energy from waste, micro hydro and heat pumps.

Nigel’s qualifications include a BSc in Management, MSc in Marketing and a Diploma in Innovation and he is a Fellow of the International Institute of Licensing Practitioners. Nigel provides due diligence for a range of early-stage, debt and equity investors in the Clean Tech space and works closely with the wider incubation stakeholder community, including the universities, local/national government, trade associations, employer federations and institutes.