UK Business Summit 2022 speakers
Meet the speakers
What were the 2022 speakers looking forward to discussing at the event?
Speaker profiles
Who were the 2022 speakers?
Julia Baker
Technical Director of Biodiversity
Wood Environment & Infrastructure
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Michael Bentham
Senior Sustainability Consultant
Jacobs
& Acting Chair
Environment Analyst’s Early Careers Advisory Board
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Max Campbell
Regional Segment Manager - Civil, EMEA
Seequent
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Brendan Cuddihy
Climate and Sustainability Associate Director
Arup
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Marc Davies
Managing Director, Environment
Tetra Tech Europe
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Viral Desai
Associate Director
Atkins
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Linden Edgell
Global Sustainability Director
ERM
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Dr Sally Fraser
Associate Director, Biodiversity
Jacobs
Chris Gerrard
Catchment and Biodiversity Manager
Anglian Water Services
& Vice-President for England
CIEEM
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Torsten Glaeser
Director
CEPROSO - Circular Economy Procurement Solutions
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Ross Glover
Development Director
IGas Energy
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Ross Griffiths
Operations Director
Environment Analyst
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Director of Sustainable Business and Development
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Dr. Thomas D. Krom
Segment Director, Environment
Seequent
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Jo Jeffreys
Principal Social Value Consultant, Office of Global Climate Response and ESG
Jacobs
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Stephen Metcalf
Head of Sustainable Investing, British Isles & Asia
RBC Wealth Management​
Philippa Ross
Director of Planning & Environmental Consenting
Atkins
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Sean Sargent
Chief Executive Officer
Green Lithium
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Justine Saunders
Senior Manager
Capitals Coalition
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Peter Skinner
Chief Operating Officer
SLR Consulting
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Lucy Thomas
Managing Director, Centre for Sustainability Excellence & Group Chief Scientist
RSK
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Dr Adrian Williams
CEO
APEM Group​
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Christine Wissink
Technical Director of Climate Resilience and Adaptation
Wood
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Jeff Woodward
Global Market Sector Leader - Next Generation Energy
AECOM
Julia Baker
Technical Director of Biodiversity, Wood Environment & Infrastructure
Julia is Technical Director of Biodiversity at Wood Environment & Infrastructure. Julia has designed and delivered Biodiversity Net Gain for a variety of infrastructure developments including highways, railways, and the housing and power sectors. Julia is the lead author of the UK's Biodiversity Net Gain Good Practice Principles and runs professional training courses on biodiversity metrics. She is also a Visiting Researcher at Oxford University.
Michael Bentham
Senior Sustainability Consultant, Jacobs and Acting Chair, Environment Analyst’s Sustainability Delivery Group Early Careers Advisory Board
Michael is a Senior Sustainability Consultant in Jacobs’ Sustainable Infrastructure team. He has 5 years’ experience in the sustainability consulting field. His experience to date includes environmental/sustainability strategy development work for major infrastructure projects, and Carbon/Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of rail infrastructure programmes, highways schemes, and specific products across multiple industries and sectors. Michael is currently acting as Chair for the Sustainability Delivery Group’s Early Careers Advisory Board.
Max Campbell
Regional Segment Manager - Civil, EMEA, Seequent
After many experience years as a Civil Engineer, Max made the switch to Seequent to help to drive the digital revolution in Infrastructure projects. As Regional Segment Manager for Civil Max works in partnership with public and private sector Civil Engineering companies and beings together geotechnical and engineering teams to communicate a shared understanding of highways and infrastructure projects.
Marc Davies,
Managing Director, Environment, Tetra Tech Europe
Experienced consultant and leader having worked in the environmental sector for over 25 years. He focussed in his early career on land remediation and regeneration, leading high-profile projects for both government and private sector clients. He is now part of the senior leadership team for Tetra Tech in Europe where he also leads the Environment Business supporting clients and stakeholders across multiple sectors and regions in meeting their environmental goals and regulatory compliance with, pleasingly, an increasing focus on sustainability and ESG. He also maintains a number of key client relationships with blue chip clients.
Viral Desai
Associate Director, Atkins
Viral is an Associate Director in Atkins Planning, Environment and Consenting business. He has over 10 years’ experience of major infrastructure, urban planning and residential projects across the UK. Throughout his career Viral has worked on a number of major infrastructure projects including M25 J10, Wylfa Newydd DCO Project, B2022 Commonwealth Games and CNSE. Viral has number of skills including supporting clients to deliver consenting strategies and reacting to changes on projects to help effective delivery. He is a strong advocate of integrating digital solutions and bespoke digital methods to help modernise the planning sector
Linden Edgell
Global Sustainability Director, ERM
Linden is the Global Sustainability Director and a Partner with ERM. She leads ERM’s corporate approach to sustainability and reporting, and the ERM Foundation, and is responsible for key elements of the company’s strategy focusing on ‘the business of sustainability’. She is involved in a number of multi-stakeholder initiatives focused on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), leading ERM’s engagements with key global organisations including the UN Global Compact, GRI, PRI and World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
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Linden is a social scientist and has provided strategic and technical advice to a range of companies, multi-lateral institutions and governments for more than 25 years. Her work has primarily focused in Australia, Asia Pacific and across Africa. Linden is listed in the ‘Who’s who for Australian women’ for her work in professional and voluntary organisations.
Diane Emerson
Climate and Sustainability - UKIMEA Leader, Arup
Diane Emerson leads Arup’s Climate and Sustainability services across the UK, India, Middle East and Africa region. A sustainability professional by background, Diane leads a diverse team delivering climate, environment, sustainability, nature and wider services.
She has a wealth of experience in sustainability and environment across public and private sectors, delivering policy level support to government, developing corporate sustainability strategies, and delivering masterplanning and design advice. She has also led a number of public sector programmes in energy, resource efficiency and carbon management.
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Diane has also been appointed a Climate Commissioner in Belfast, influencing the city’s response to the climate emergency, and is a member of the Northern Ireland Circular Economy Coalition.
Matthew Farrow
Chief Operating Officer, Broadway Initiative
Matthew joined Broadway in January 2022 and is responsible for ensuring the organisation is set up to deliver maximum member value. He has long experience of working with businesses and government on sustainability issues across a range of sectors, and combines an in-depth understanding of environmental policy with representing business interests to policy makers at devolved, UK and EU levels. Matthew moved to Broadway from one of its business group members; the EIC, and before that he spent three years as Director of Policy at the Environmental Services Association, the trade association representing the UK’s waste and resource management industry. Prior to that, he had a number of policy roles at the CBI, including as Head of Environment and Climate Change Policy where he played a key role in cementing business support for binding climate change targets.
Dr Sally Fraser
Associate Director, Biodiversity, Jacobs
Sally is an Associate Director of Biodiversity at Jacobs. Since joining Jacobs Sally has followed a technical career path, developing a deep technical knowledge in ecological assessment. Currently, Sally’s main focus is supporting clients to address their challenges on delivering biodiversity net gain (BNG) both at a project and corporate level. Sally’s current roles include providing direct technical support to the National Highways Biodiversity KPI Team, through a specialist and technical services framework, and leading on the BNG delivery for two Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects. Sally’s role also extends to driving forward Jacobs’ own in-house skills and knowledge base in this emerging and evolving stream of work, including developing deeper integration between technical disciplines.
Chris Gerrard CEnv
Catchment and Biodiversity Manager, Anglian Water Services & Vice-President for England, CIEEM
Chris Gerrard is Anglian Water’s Catchment and Biodiversity Manager. He leads a team that delivers the company’s strategy to help reverse biodiversity loss in the region, as well as a team of catchment management specialists who engage with the agriculture sector to manage water quality risks. Prior to that he was Director of Living Landscapes for the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. He was also the Project Manager of the Great Fen Project, a leading landscape-scale conservation project between Huntingdon and Peterborough.
Chris is a Chartered Environmentalist, has an honours degree in Environmental Science, a Professional Diploma in Management and is the Vice President for England of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management.
Torsten Glaeser
Director, CEPROSO - Circular Economy Procurement Solutions
Environmental Economist with 20 years procurement experience in the energy industry, leading international projects & teams and managing environmental category strategies & key supplier relationships.
Company Director of CEPROSO Ltd., a newly formed consulting company that, based on comprehensive knowledge of environmental services markets and deep procurement expertise, is committed to provide solutions to its clients that are commercially and ecologically value adding.
Ross Glover
Development Director, IGas Energy
Ross is Development Director at IGas Energy plc, a UK based energy company. He has over 20 years of experience in energy and natural resources. He joined IGas in 2017 and since 2019 has led to company’s diversification into areas such as geothermal energy and hydrogen production.
Tony Grayling
Director of Sustainable Business and Development, Environment Agency
Tony is Director of Sustainable Business and Development for the Environment Agency. He leads the Environment Agency’s work on strategic policy issues, including climate change and sustainable development, and led the Environment Agency’s work on the National Flood Resilience Review. Tony was previously a special adviser to David Miliband and Hilary Benn, successive Secretaries of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, helping to design the UK’s Climate Change Act 2008. From 2002 to 2006 he was an associate director and head of the sustainability team at the Institute for Public Policy Research, a UK think tank, which he joined in 1999 as a research fellow. He was a special adviser to the Minister for Transport, Gavin Strang, from 1997-98 during the development of the UK governments 1998 transport white paper and before that a researcher successively to Labour MPs Ron Davies and Anne Campbell. Educated at Thorpe St Andrew School, Norwich and Fitzwilliam College, he has a first class degree in natural sciences and a PhD in plant sciences both from Cambridge University.
Philippa Ross
Director of Planning and Environmental Consenting, Atkins
Philippa is the Practice Director for the Planning and Environmental Consulting team at Atkins, where she has worked for over 17 years in the UK and internationally. She has a doctorate in urban sustainability and resilience and in 2020 she was recognised as one of the top 50 women in sustainability but the Women in Engineering Society. She currently manages a team of 140+ professionals covering environmental, sustainability, planning, heritage, waste services.
Jo Jeffreys
Principal Social Value Consultant, Office of Global Climate Response and ESG, Jacobs
Jo is Principal Social Value Consultant at Jacobs, benefitting from a portfolio career throughout ten years’ at Jacobs – creating solutions for a more connected, sustainable world – with experience across corporate sustainability, ESG, social value, stakeholder and employee engagement, community giving and volunteering, global communications, and geo-environmental disciplines. She recently transitioned out of the corporate sustainability world where she co-led the creation, delivery and subsequent revisions of Jacobs’ global sustainability strategy, PlanBeyond, as well as program managing Jacobs’ global philanthropic program engaging 50,000+ employees. Her wide internal and external visibility over all things sustainability, community and ESG related, has driven a unique insight into how inclusion, diversity and positive behaviours have the power to collectively overcome big problems, ultimately striving toward a better future for us all.
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In 2020, Jo was recognised as a finalist for the Women's Engineering Society's Top 50 Women in Sustainability; whilst in the same year accepting Proud Scotland's Inclusive Group Club Award for volunteering as President of the country's largest LGBT+ sports club (Glasgow FrontRunners) throughout the first wave of the Pandemic.
Dr. Thomas D. Krom
Segment Director, Environment, Seequent
Since 2007, Dr. Krom has been involved in the development and use of Leapfrog software; initially this was as Product Founder for Leapfrog Hydro. Starting in 2018, he has focused on guiding the strategic direction of Seequent in the environmental and sustainability areas. Dr. Krom also heads up new initiatives inside Seequent. Prior to Seequent, his research and subsequent consulting included significant research into methods to describe and optimize geology statistically for environmental problem solving. Dr. Krom has over 30 years’ experience in the geological sciences collected
around the world.
Stephen Metcalf
Head of Sustainable Investing, British Isles & Asia, RBC Wealth Management
Stephen Metcalf is head, Sustainable Investing for RBC Wealth Management in the British Isles and Asia.
He oversees the integration of sustainability issues into decision making across discretionary and advisory investment offerings. Additionally, Stephen produces thought leadership pieces on environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics and is responsible for the research and selection of asset managers in the ESG space. Stephen joined RBC Wealth Management in 2018 as an analyst focusing on our discretionary offering and moved to the Global Manager Research team in early 2021. Prior to joining RBC Wealth Management, Stephen graduated with a degree in Economics from the London School of Economics. He's a Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA) Charterholder.
Sean Sargent
Chief Executive Officer, Green Lithium
Sean is the Chief Executive of Green Lithium. He trained as a Maritime Civil Engineer and is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Sean has worked in process and infrastructure programmes, predominantly in the nuclear industry, for the last 30 years. During this time, he was the Site Director at Berkeley Nuclear Power Station and Programme Director for a programme to retrieve, process and store intermediate level radioactive waste. Sean has worked for Jacobs Engineering during much of his career where, at different times, he led the nuclear new build business, the defence business and post-acquisition integration teams.
Justine Saunders
Senior Manager, Capitals Coalition
Justine Saunders is an environmental scientist with twenty-plus years of experience in policy analysis working with governments, organisations and academic research institutions across New Zealand, Europe and Southeast Asia. Her work has involved the application of ecosystem service frameworks to policy development to facilitate embedding the principles of ecosystem-based management and sustainable development in decision-making.
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She was most recently the project coordinator for the first natural capital assessment for Singapore. She has a BSc in Botany and an MSc in Environmental and Marine Sciences from Auckland University.
Peter Skinner
Chief Operating Officer, SLR Consulting
Peter is the Chief Operating Officer for SLR which consists of 1,500 consultants that undertake a diverse range of projects. Peter has worked in a wide range of market sectors mainly in geotechnical and geo-environmental engineering and in the assessment and remediation of contaminated land, as well as managing multidisciplinary environmental projects such as environmental and social impact assessments and their associated disciplines.
SLR is one of the largest pure play environment businesses and has an exceptional track record in delivering projects in a wide range of market sectors.
Lucy Thomas
Managing Director, Centre for Sustainability Excellence & Group Chief Scientist, RSK
Lucy Thomas is RSK Group’s Chief Scientist, Managing Director of the RSK Centre for Sustainability Excellence in Singapore and RSK’s operations in Africa. She has over 20 years’ experience in sustainable risk-based remediation, including site assessment design, human health and groundwater risk assessments, land contamination management frameworks, sustainability assessments of remediation options and managing remediation projects globally.
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Lucy is a Council member of the Geological Society, former chair of the Society of Brownfield Risk Assessment (SoBRA) and the National Brownfield Forum. She is also a Chartered Geologist and a Specialist in Land Condition.
Dr Adrian Williams
CEO, APEM Group
As the CEO of APEM, Adrian leads the strategic direction of it’s multiple companies around the globe. With 20+ years of Environmental Consultancy experience and a deep knowledge of the environmental sector he understands the contours and focuses on the horizon.
Seeing the potential that was ‘out there’ and having been appointed Managing Director of APEM Ltd in 2018, he led the MBO that saw WestBridge invest in 2019. Alongside Stuart, together with his executive team, he has overseen a transformation in the growth rate and strategic positioning of the business; with the APEM having more than doubled in size in terms of revenue, profit and people during the first 2 years post deal. The expansion is set to continue as Adrian drives APEM’S organic growth, whilst combining that with a planned 3rd M&A in 2022.
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Having gained his Masters at Kings College, London and his Doctorate at Liverpool University, where he later Lectured in Aquatic Ecology, Adrian left academia 20 years ago to join a fledgling APEM ltd. as its 9th employee. Whilst APEM has completely transformed since those early days, what remains constant is Adrian’s drive to maintain the high quality culture and global reputation for quality that has made APEM so successful.
Christine Wissink
Technical Director of Climate Resilience and Adaptation, Wood
Christine Wissink has 15+ years of experience in academia, government and consultancy. She is Technical Director of Climate Resilience and Adaptation at Wood. Her areas of expertise include climate risk and financial impact assessment, adaptation pathways and planning; and strategy and policy development. Prior to joining Wood, she spent 10 years at Kent County Council developing their adaptation programme and leading their strategic sustainability team to deliver programmes across key themes: climate risk & resilience, Net Zero, renewable energy projects, ESG and the green economy. She works across sectors and directly with businesses, communities, agencies, and governments throughout the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Central America to increase resilience to climate change.
Jeff Woodward
Global Market Sector Leader - Next Generation Energy, AECOM
As Global Market Sector Lead for AECOM’s Energy, Jeff leads an international team of industry experts in establishing AECOM’s growth strategy in the Energy sector. The establishment of a Global Hydrogen Market presents AECOM’s technical team’s with opportunities to provide a full suite of services to the industry including Strategic Advisory as well as technical delivery. From our leading position in supporting major clients in CCUS solutions and hydrogen mobility solutions, our teams are fast building a reputation as a leader in this developing sector.