Key Speakers Tue 22 Sep 2020

George Simms is a Senior Project Manager at the Energy Systems Catapult, seeking to build projects with industry, government and third sector partners to help move closer to net zero. Since joining ESC, George has focused on building partnerships with local authorities and other partners to develop and secure funding for projects centred on decentralised energy and domestic retrofit.

Matthew Turner has been working in the field of energy and sustainability for over 15 years and is primarily focussed on delivering energy efficiency and low and zero carbon energy solutions for both new developments and existing communities. He has worked with numerous local authorities to support the development of low carbon energy projects, strategies and policies and also works with developers on the design of low carbon buildings for a wide range of new domestic and mixed use schemes.

Angela is Director of strategy at Cadent Gas where she is responsible for creating the transformational strategies for the company. Prior to that she held a range of positions at Centrica, including heading up their contracting strategy that supports 10,000 British Gas engineers. She also created and ran the business energy-services strategy, and took responsibility for all energy supply and services customer propositions. Before Centrica, lots of fun was had at Anglian Water, including managing sewer networks, heading up an R&D programme and being responsible for all thing’s energy, carbon and climate change. Angie is a big advocate of both environmental and diversity issues and a Founder of the Women’s Utilities Network.

Helen Boyle is Strategic Decarbonisation Manager at Electricity North West. As the region’s network operator, it’s Electricity North West’s responsibility to lead the way in the decarbonisation of the North West through investment and innovation in energy infrastructure.

Helen is responsible for delivering the company’s Leading the North West to zero carbon plan – its commitment to spend an additional £63.5m to lead and enable the region’s transition to a low carbon economy, including the adoption of low carbon technologies as the world moves away from its reliance on fossil fuels.

Helen has more than 20 years’ experience in communications and engagement roles gained in a variety of companies and sectors in and around the Manchester area.

Sarah Holland is a senior energy professional and Chartered Engineer with over 15 years' experience in supporting organisations to operate in a more environmentally responsible and sustainable way. She has a background in business strategy and growth and in transforming conceptual projects into compelling investment opportunities. She is currently leading on the support provided by the Local Energy North West Hub to Greater Manchester in delivering against the five-year environment plan.

Bruno Lapeyrie is Director of the Centre of Excellence Energy Transition-Bus and part of Keolis since September 2019. He is in charge of managing the energy transition for the worldwide bus and coach fleets of the Group.
Bruno has a 20-year track record of executive missions in engineering Companies, mainly Egis and more specifically Egis Rail and Urban transportation, completed with an experience in business and corporate development both in France and internationally.
He has also been Public Transport Authority (for rail and coaches) within the Regional Council of Occitanie in France, as Director of Infrastructures and Transport.
He graduated from HEC, a Parisian business school, with an executive MBA.

Fiona Howarth is a leading force in the electric vehicle (EV) revolution in the UK, heading up Octopus Electric Vehicles (part of the Octopus Energy Group) and championing the transition to EVs. Bringing an enthusiastic energy to the industry with a passion for teaching others about EVs, Fiona not only focuses on delivering an high-quality service but also ensuring that everyone has access to honest and reliable information. As a mother of two young girls, she looks to their future as motivation to continue work in the EV field - in hopes of positively impacting their world by combating climate change.

Greg is Professor of Transport Governance at the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds. He has researched issues surrounding the design and implementation of new policies for over 20 years covering a range of issues. He is an expert in climate and energy policy in the transport sector and is the Transport Decarbonisation Champion for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
He is the Principal Investigator on the DecarboN8 network, which brings together researchers, government, industry and communities to design solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Here he is responsible for integrating a new place-based approach to decarbonising transport.
Greg co-chairs the Commission on Travel Demand which has published influential studies on travel demand and shared mobility. He is the Secretary General of the World Conference on Transport Research Society and the Chair of the Special Interest Group on Governance. He has served as an advisor to the House of Commons Transport Select Committee and regularly advises local, national and international governments.

Darryl is a consultant in public health working across Public Health England and the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership. He is the Integrated care system sustainability co-lead and is working to promote awareness of the impact of the climate and ecological crisis on population health and inequalities, and implement national sustainability targets. He also supports partnership working on air quality, spatial planning and population health.

Claire Stocks is an environmental campaigner and media specialist working in the fields of climate action and active travel. She co-founded Walk Ride Greater Manchester which campaigns to make walking and cycling the natural choice in GM. A journalist by trade, she spent nearly 20 years at the BBC creating content & platforms to engage audiences across News, Sport and Children’s genres.

Chris Boardman was appointed as Greater Manchester’s first ever Cycling and Walking Commissioner in July 2017 by Mayor Andy Burnham. His report, Made to Move, published in December 2017, set out a 15 step plan to transform how people get around in the city region.
He is one of the UK’s most prominent cycling and walking advocates and has been policy adviser to British Cycling since 2012.
A former professional cyclist, Chris won a gold medal in the individual pursuit at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. He also broke the world hour record three times and has worn the yellow jersey on three separate occasions at the Tour de France.
Chris launched his own range of bikes, BOARDMAN Bikes, in 2007 and is company chairman. He also worked as Head of Research and Development for the Great Britain Cycling Team from 2004 to 2012, including at the 2008 Beijing Games where the Olympic team won eight gold medals.

Paul drives our commercial thinking and the development of new customer propositions and services. With over 20 years experience of driving change and developing innovative new business models within the energy, utilities and infrastructure industries, Paul is uniquely placed to offer insights on how energy companies will need to adapt to solve the challenges of a socially conscious and lower carbon economy. Paul’s current portfolio of responsibilities includes regulatory liaison, government affairs and stakeholder engagement, commercial strategy and innovation, investment planning, procurement, communications and corporate services.