Policy Conference 2024

Adam Bell

Director of Policy, Stonehaven

Adam is Director of Policy at Stonehaven. He joined from BEIS, where as Head of Energy Strategy he worked on the 2020 Energy White Paper, and in earlier roles on heat decarbonisation strategy and on CFD auction design.

He is one of Britain’s leading experts on energy and decarbonisation policy and is regularly featured in print and broadcast media.

Shaun Bennett

Director of Property, Derby Homes

Shaun has worked within the public housing sector for over 35 years. Responsible for maintaining council housing in Derby, he focused on the successful delivery of decent homes, modernising the way responsive repairs are delivered and investment planning into the future.

More recently Shaun has focused on regulatory compliance and the delivery of new energy efficient homes.

Shaun is also a board member of Efficiency East Midlands and has supported collaborative working across the region for many years. 

Thomas Isaac CEng FIGEM MIChemE

Associate Director - Energy and Natural Resources, KPMG

Tommy is a chartered engineer with nearly a decade of experience in the hydrogen market, spanning operational, project management, commercial and financial roles.

Tommy began his career with ExxonMobil as an operations engineer, before moving onto Progressive Energy for 6 years where he was the Head of Hydrogen Research, since April 2023 Tommy has been with KPMG leading on strategy and transaction advisory projects within the UK and European hydrogen markets.

Julian Leslie

Director of Strategic Energy Planning and Chief Engineer, National Grid ESO

Julian is a chartered engineer with three decades of transmission system operation, planning and investment experience. Julian’s role is to prepare Great Britain’s electricity network for net zero operation, defining future network needs so that market and network owners can invest in the right technology solutions at the right time. Julian is also developing whole energy system plans on a national and regional basis.

Adam Madgett EngTech TMIET FIGEM

Principal Hydrogen Consultant, DNV

Adam is a Principal Hydrogen Consultant with over 20 years of experience as an engineer working across a variety of different industries. For the last 9 years, Adam has worked in the gas industry where he has held several positions ranging from integrity management, project management and consultancy.

Adam has been dedicated for the last four years to working on projects that are exploring the use of hydrogen in the gas distribution and transmission network.

Gerald Mason

Senior Vice President, Tate & Lyle Sugars

Gerald joined Tate & Lyle Sugars in 2004 after spending time working in the grain and oilseeds industry and training as an agricultural economist in the early 1990s.  He’s tackled many roles over the years, including being responsible for purchasing the raw cane sugar used at their European refineries, capital projects, and business strategy and relationships with various Governments over the years in both the EU and the UK. 

An important part of his current role is looking at how their refineries can be de-carbonised.  Gerald is also currently President of the Food & Drink Federation in the UK, the organisation representing food and drink manufacturers in the UK.

Louise McDonnell

Project Development Manager, RWE Generation UK

Louise started her career 18 years ago with RWE as a Mechanical Engineer within conventional and gas fired power stations.  The majority of which was spent at Pembroke Power Station as a Rotating Equipment Engineer, until she joined the Hydrogen Development Team 2 years ago.

Louise is still based in beautiful Pembrokeshire and is proud to be working in the space of Green Hydrogen.

Lorna Millington CEng MIGEM MBE

Future Networks Manager, Cadent

Lorna has worked for Gas Distribution for over 25 years. During her career she has been involved in planning above and below 7 bar networks, focusing on the network analysis to support the decisions.

Her current role involves building the evidence to assess the safety and viability of hydrogen’s utilisation within the gas network to decarbonise heat and industry. Responsible for drawing together the various strands of information and analysing their impact on the potential use of the Gas Distribution network.

Fenella Nance

Director, Beyond2050

Fenella Nance is a Director at Beyond2050, a hydrogen-specialist political consultancy. She has been working exclusively with leading UK hydrogen businesses since 2021, advising clients on the politics of hydrogen. Fenella has just returned from a secondment with the Labour Party during the election campaign. Prior to her work in hydrogen, she was Public Affairs Lead at the London Assembly.

Dr Danielle Stewart MBA CEng MIET

Project Director, Project Union, Hydrogen, National Gas Transmission

Danielle is responsible for the development and delivery of National Gas Transmission’s hydrogen transition strategy and hydrogen infrastructure development program. Danielle has over 13 years’ energy sector experience across a broad range of technical and commercial roles. She contributes to multiple collaborative UK and European innovation programs for a clean energy transition.

Nancy Thomson

Project Director, LTS Futures, SGN

Nancy is the LTS Futures Project Director, with over 16 years experience in high pressure pipeline, onshore and offshore all around the world. She also has an MSc in Pipeline Integrity.

For the last 4 years Nancy has been leading on repurposing the high pressure networks to hydrogen to meet Net Zero and completing a world first project to supporting decarbonization around the UK.