Delivering the energy transition: pace over perfection - Speakers

Louise is the Chief Economist at the CBI and a member of its Executive Committee. She and her team provide business leaders with advice on the UK economic outlook and global risks. Building on the insights from members, she shapes the CBI’s overall view on economic and fiscal policy and leads the CBI’s discussions with senior politicians and policymakers in these areas. Louise also oversees the CBI’s economic consultancy business CBI Economics.

Before moving into the role Louise was the Director of Economic Policy at the CBI. She led the CBI’s policy work on tax and regulation, as well as developing the CBI’s strategy and evidence base for enhancing the competitiveness of the UK’s business environment. Prior to joining the CBI, Louise spent 13 years at HM Treasury as a member of the Government Economic Service, where she led on a number of different analytical and policy issues, including National Living Wage policy and assessing the economic and distributional impacts of policy measures at fiscal events.

Louise holds an MSc in Economics from the University of Bristol and studied Economics and International Development at Bath University.

Rebecca is passionate about people, decarbonisation, energy and infrastructure.

Rebecca started her energy journey at E.ON working in energy trading, portfolio strategy and subsequently in international roles on strategic business transformation projects.

Joining EDF in 2011, she went on to lead the B2B business, delivering notable growth in emerging market areas, such renewable PPAs and in 2020, stepping up as UK Director of Policy and Strategy, representing Retail, Nuclear and Renewables.

In 2022, Rebecca joined the NGV Interconnectors business as Commercial, Customer and Regulation Director, responsible for strategy, policy, regulation and commercial optimisation of the interconnectors. In 2023, Rebecca became Managing Director of the end-to-end interconnectors business.

Rebecca sits on the UK ESO Markets Council, is a Fellow of the Energy Institute and a Founder of the Women’s Utility Network (WUN), which has over 4400 members. Having three young children, she spends her free time cooking, travelling and endlessly tidying up toys.

Simon Maine is a Managing Director in Brookfield’s Corporate Communications Group. In this role, he is responsible for the development and execution of strategic communications plans in Europe, as well as for the Renewable Power & Transition Group globally.

Prior to joining Brookfield in 2022, Mr. Maine was director of corporate affairs for OVO and a partner at Brunswick Group.

Mr. Maine holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of Oxford.

The Hydrogen and Industrial Carbon Capture Directorate leads on the hydrogen economy programme for the UK government. The directorate is responsible for policies on low carbon hydrogen production and demand as well as transport and storage to deliver on the hydrogen ambitions in the British Energy Security Strategy. The directorate is also jointly responsible for the delivery of the CCUS programme, leading on CCUS enabled Hydrogen and Industrial Carbon Capture.

Paro spent most of her career in the civil service working on Energy Policy. An analyst by background, Paro has worked on electricity and gas markets, leading analytical teams to develop the evidence base for the Electricity Market Reform, Capacity Market, Low Carbon Auctions as well as developing the evidence base for large infrastructure policies such as new nuclear investment in the UK, and received an OBE in recognition for her contribution to energy analysis. More recently was director for Industrial Energy responsible for standing up and delivering the UK Emissions Trading Scheme and the Industrial decarbonisation strategy.

Sander runs the operations and metering business for EDF Business Solutions and is chair of the Company Safety & Wellbeing Council – both roles reflective of his key interests in people and operational transformation.

Sander has been with EDF for 13 years, starting as a process analyst and meandering between projects and operations in various transformational, commercial and regulatory roles across the EDF main brand, white-label and start-up accelerators. He currently is the Director of Core Services & Metering; a role that sees him focussed on creating the right operational foundations to help Britain’s businesses and public sector achieve Net Zero.

Emma Pinchbeck is the Chief Executive of Energy UK, a position that she has held since July 2020. She is an expert in whole-economy decarbonisation and the energy transition. She also holds several board advisory positions. Emma has two children and shares childcare with her husband. She is passionate about efforts to improve diversity in the energy industry.

From 2016-2020, she served as Deputy CEO of the trade body Renewable UK, in which role she also sat on the Board of Scottish Renewables. Prior to this, Emma was Head of Climate Change at WWFU-K. She has an MA from the University of Oxford.

Giles provides advice on UK political and policy matters related to industrial strategy, competition and regulatory concerns.

In the two and a half years before joining Flint, Giles was a Special Adviser to Prime Minister Theresa May covering industrial strategy, consumer and competition policy, energy and transport and general economic issues. He had played a similar role as Special Adviser to Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills for four years in the coalition government. In between these posts he spent two years writing editorial and the Lex column for the Financial Times, covering politics, economics and business policy.

Before moving into policy roles, Giles spent ten years in a variety of roles at IG Group, the spreadbetting and financial derivatives specialist and completed Masters courses in Economic History and Business Administration.

Leen Dickx specializes in the economics of utility markets and regulation, advising clients in energy, transport, and telecommunications sectors across Europe. Her works spans regulatory, advisory, and competition policy, as well as arbitration and litigation, due diligence, and valuation.

Most of her work focuses on supporting regulated utilities and infrastructure companies during price control reviews, especially in the areas of regulatory design, cost assessment and benchmarking, valuation and willingness-to-pay studies, incentive design, and regulatory finance issues. She also advises investors on regulatory due diligence assignments in the energy, water, and transport sectors across a wide variety of geographies, including the UK, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France.

Her work also involves economic assessment of issues arising in the context of international arbitrations and commercial disputes in the energy sector, including matters before the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), and private enforcement procedures before the administrative courts in Italy and the UK.

Prior to joining NERA, Ms. Dickx worked at Eni in Rome and carried out research at the Centre for Research on Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (IEFE) of Bocconi University. Ms. Dickx holds a double degree MSc in economics and social sciences from Bocconi University and MGIMO University and a BSc in business administration and management from Bocconi University.

Rachel joined Octopus Energy in 2021, bringing with her a wealth of knowledge following more than two decades of experience in energy regulation.

Rachel’s remit is to create the regulations and markets needed to achieve net zero quickly and affordably. Day-to-day, she works closely with regulators, industry bodies and policy makers to shape the energy system of the future. Rachel also works hand-in-hand with consumer bodies to ensure all customers are well served and benefit from the transition to net zero.

Before joining Octopus, Rachel served as the Chief Executive of Ofwat, the UK’s water regulator, and as a Senior Partner and Board member of Ofgem, the UK energy regulator. Her work focused on making essential services sustainable, high quality and affordable. Rachel started her career in utilities as a consultant where she worked on a number of international energy industry privatisation and restructuring projects. Rachel holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Sussex, as well as a Masters in Economic and Politics from the University of Cambridge.

Gavin Knott is the Chief Economic Adviser at Ofgem, and works on both price control regulation and on using economic analysis to understand how the competitive energy markets act in the consumer interest. Gavin has over 15 years experience working in competition and regulation across the UK’s infrastructure sectors, working as a regulator and in the private sector. Gavin also has a PhD in real option theory.

Mallika is Shell’s Chief Economist. She advises on economic, energy and climate policies to shape Shell’s long-term scenarios. She leads strategic engagements on energy transitions with national and city governments across the world, notably a multi-year collaboration with the Chinese government. Mallika also helps shape Shell’s policy and advocacy on the energy transition to support the company’s decarbonisation strategy. She sits on a range of external advisory boards.

Before joining Shell, she was Deputy Director at the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, responsible for evidence and analysis across the environment, food and green economy portfolio. She has held senior positions in the UK government, including at the Cabinet Office as Head of Policy Analysis for the 2009 G20 London Summit. Before that, Mallika worked in senior economics and policy roles in the USA.

Mallika holds PhD and MS degrees in Economics from Carnegie Mellon University, USA, and a BA from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, India.