BIEE Research Conference 2025 - Speakers

Emma is the Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee, the UK’s national climate advisor. The body advises on the country’s Carbon Budgets and Climate Change Risk Assessments and does annual assessments of the Government’s progress.

From 2020-2024 Emma was the Chief Executive of Energy UK. Emma is an expert in whole-economy decarbonisation and the energy transition and is a Fellow of the Energy Institute.

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 and worked with Renewable UK Cymru and Northern Ireland.

Prior to this, Emma was Head of Climate Change and Energy at WWF-UK, in which role she worked on the international Paris Agreement, UK coal phase out, international aviation and shipping, and the design of UK renewables policy.

Before joining the WWF, she worked in finance and in commercial consulting for start-ups in the energy sector. She has a degree from the University of Oxford.

Outside of her main roles she has also undertaken several advisory or Board roles, including for the academic consortia the Energy Research Council, the Energy and Physics Research Council, UK100, and UK Research and Innovation’s “Women in Innovation” grant awards.  Emma lives in Gloucestershire with her family, sharing childcare responsibilities for their two young children with her husband.

Jon Saltmarsh is Chief Technology Officer at the Energy Systems Catapult. The Catapult was established to accelerate the transition to a net zero energy system and to help UK businesses innovate and capture the opportunities for growth that Net Zero presents. He is responsible for identifying the key innovation needs and technical strategy for the Catapult to have most impact, including in decarbonisation of homes, sites and local areas; future energy networks; and digitalisation of the energy system.

Prior to joining the Catapult in January 2023, Jon had over 30 years’ experience in the public and private energy and defence sectors, identifying and exploiting opportunities for new technologies to deliver transformative change. This included initiating the government’s innovation programme on hydrogen for heating. More recently, as a Senior Civil Servant he was responsible for the team providing technical, engineering and research based evidence and advice to all the teams delivering Net Zero energy policy.

George Anstey specializes in the economics of utility markets and regulation. His work spans public policy, litigation, valuation, due diligence, and competition policy. His recent work has covered competition in gas and electricity supply markets, arbitration and contract reviews, damages estimation, the design of market rules for gas and electricity, and the design of energy efficiency policies. In addition to his work in energy, Mr. Anstey works across other regulated industries, including the water industry, communications, and the gambling sector.

Mr. Anstey’s expertise in competition policy covers restrictive agreements, abuse of a dominant position, and state aid. His work across utility markets and regulation spans a wide range of geographies, including the UK and Ireland, much of Western, Central and Eastern Europe, the Far East, and the Middle East and Africa.

Mr. Anstey has been widely published in economic and trade journals, including the Electricity Journal, New Power, Water Utility Management International, and Competition Policy International’s Antitrust Chronicle. He is recommended as a leading energy expert by Who’s Who Legal (2019, 2022 and 2023) and described as an “esteemed economist with vast experience advising on complex competition matters in the energy sector.” Mr. Anstey is commended for “his deep understanding of utility and energy regulation.” Mr. Anstey is also recognized in Who’s Who Legal (2022–2024) as the top of his generation in the arbitration future leader series.

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.

Zoisa is the dynamic CEO of three arms of Octopus Energy Group – Octopus Energy Generation, Octopus Energy for Business and Octopus Electroverse.

Octopus Energy Generation is on a mission to create an abundance of cheap, green energy for people around the world, and already manages hundreds of renewables projects in 20 countries worth £7bn.

Zoisa’s team comes up with innovative tech-enabled products to transform ingrained thinking about energy and positively influence the net zero economy. This includes the ‘Fan Club’ with 38,000+ communities requesting local wind turbines with cheaper bills and Winder (Tinder for Wind) – all engaging people around clean energy.

Before joining Octopus as one of its early employees of a now 10,000-person business, she was the UK CEO of Dutch Utility Eneco B.V. growing their UK renewable assets. Zoisa also serves as a Trustee of the Octopus Energy Equality Foundation and Younity, Octopus Energy’s community energy joint venture with Midcounties Coop.