NATURAL ENGLAND - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director of Public and Security Services
Alison Baptiste is the Director of Public and Security Services at the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.
Alison has extensive strategic and operational project and programme leadership experience gained both in private and public sectors. As Director of Strategy and Investment at the Environment Agency, she led both infrastructure and transformation projects and held senior operational delivery and emergency response roles reporting to COBR. Alison is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Alison was appointed as Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to the environment in the 2019 New Years Honours.
Alison leads a team providing deep project delivery and technical expertise to departments on the Government's Major Projects Portfolio to ensure projects are set up for success and to drive improved project delivery.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Non - Executive Roles Including Chairman
Andrew holds several non-executive roles including Chairman of AW Hainsworth, creating woollen cloth under Royal Warrant. He recently completed a 9-year stint on the West Yorkshire LEP leading on manufacturing and innovation. Prior to this, he spent 10 years managing a high-tech engineering business in Yorkshire making motors for Space and instruments for life sciences; and 9 years on Teeside leading Johnson Matthey's chemical catalyst business, formerly ICI's Agricultural division.
He spent 18 years working for BP Chemicals in several roles, from industrial relations in Grangemouth refinery, to leading a large textile monomer business.
Angenika Kunne has over 15 years of experience in corporate advisory and investing across infrastructure, renewable energy and energy transition. Angenika will join Aviva Investors in January 2024 as Head of Infrastructure Equity. She will be responsible for the continued growth of Aviva Investors' Infrastructure Equity platform across the UK and Europe, including portfolio management and asset origination activities for its Climate Transition Real Assets Fund.
Angenika previously co-headed the investment team at White Summit Capital, a private equity real assets investor specialising in the energy transition, decarbonisation and sustainability. Prior to this, she was an Investment Director at John Laing, with a focus on the mid-market, renewables, and energy infrastructure. She also spent more than 11 years at Macquarie Capital, latterly as Senior Vice President, focusing on a range of sectors including digital infrastructure and PPPs.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Angus Knowles-Cutler served as London office Managing Partner of Deloitte for 7 years until 2020. He has worked in professional services for over 30 years and has advised 170 organisations on major investment decisions, operational execution and progress reporting.
He serves as business chair of the London Local Enterprise Partnership and is a member of the national LEP board. He co-chairs the London Royal Docks Enterprise Zone Development board.
Angus graduated from Cambridge with a history degree and has been a visiting professor at the University of Surrey's Centre for the Digital Economy.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Ben Alexander has over 25 years' experience in the financial services sector. He was a director at Deutsche Bank in London where he was co-head of derivatives trading and subsequently a partner of Close Brothers Private Equity where he was involved in institutional fund raising and sat on the boards of a variety of UK companies. He is currently a partner of a strategic consultancy, a non-executive director of a virtual reality content business, a commercial adviser to the Cabinet Office and a member of the Finance Committee of Cambridge University.
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Member of the Management Team
Job Titles:
- Chartered Accountant
- Non - Executive Board Member
Catherine is a qualified chartered accountant. From 1988 to 2002, Catherine worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers, latterly as an audit partner based in Johannesburg.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the Management Team
- Director, Strategy
Chris Flatt was appointed Director in November 2018. He leads on strategy, rights and legacy matters. He first joined the Northern Ireland Office in 2002, working on various policy issues including the legacy of Northern Ireland's past, public inquiries and human rights as well as on corporate services delivery. Chris worked in the Scotland Office from 2010-2015, leading on constitutional issues during the build up to the 2014 independence referendum. He returned to the NIO in 2015.
Chris' previous roles in government include: Deputy Director, Legacy in the Northern Ireland Office - 2015 to 2018; Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Scotland - 2014 to 2015; Deputy Director, Constitution in the Scotland Office - 2010 to 2014.
Chris Heaton-Harris was appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on 6 September 2022.
He was previously Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Chief Whip) from 8 February 2022 to 6 September 2022.
He was Minister of State at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office from 19 December 2021 to 8 February 2022.
He was previously appointed Minister of State at the Department for Transport on 25 July 2019. He was previously a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union from July 2018 to April 2019.
Previously he was Comptroller of HM Household (Government Whip) from 9 January 2018 to 9 July 2018. Chris was previously Vice Chamberlain of HM Household (Government Whip) from June 2017 to January 2018.
He was made an Assistant Government Whip in July 2016. He was elected Conservative MP for Daventry in May 2010.
Job Titles:
- Non - Executive Board Member
Dame Caroline Spelman served as a member of Parliament from 1997-2019.
During this time she undertook a number of front bench roles culminating in Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the coalition government, helping to secure a UN agreement on biodiversity in Nagoya and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreement in Rio. Afterwards she served as a member of the House of Commons Environmental Audit committee.
Before entering Parliament she worked in agriculture for 15 years and published a book on the non food uses of agricultural raw materials.
A long standing and passionate environmentalist she is a member of the RSPB, the National Trust and Warwickshire Wildlife trust.
Job Titles:
- Director General
- Member of the Management Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Non - Executive Board Member
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Chairman and CEO of Vocation Group Limited
Gail held senior executive roles in strategy, finance and M&A at Diageo plc and then SABMiller plc for over 20 years. She has led major change and driven profitable growth in large and small businesses across Europe, US, Asia, Africa and Latin America.
She has served as a senior adviser to several professional services firms and large corporates. She has also been a non-executive director on the board of both listed and private companies.
Currently, Gail is Chair and CEO of Vocation Group Limited, a BGF backed craft brewer, and is a non-executive director of Waterford Distillery Group Limited.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Advisory Board
- Chairman of Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd
Kevin Taylor has previously been Chair of Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd and before that was Managing Director of BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, the Cyber Division of BAE Systems Plc. He has also previously been the Group Strategy Director as well as the Managing Director of the Military Air Business, and of the Submarines Business. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, having graduated from Oxford with a physics degree.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Lead Non - Executive Board Member
Job Titles:
- Parliamentary under Secretary of State
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Independent Member of Council of the London School of Hygiene
Mark was a partner at Clifford Chance, an international law firm headquartered in London, for 35 years, retiring at the end of April 2023. He advised corporates across a wide range of sectors on domestic and international acquisitions and disposals, business partnerships, restructuring and governance. During the COVID pandemic he was part of a team advising Her Majesty's Government on securing the development and supply of COVID-19 vaccines and investment to scale up COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing capability in the UK.
Through the second half of his career, he has held various management roles culminating in leadership of the firm's Corporate Practice in London for a 4-year term. He is a member of the firm's Inclusion Committee and sponsor of Accelerate, the firm's gender parity affinity group.
In December 2022, Mark was appointed as an Independent Member of Council of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, renowned for its research, post graduate studies and continuing education in public and global health.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Permanent Secretary for the Northern Ireland Office
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Paul has 33 years' construction experience at senior management or executive level, largely with building materials manufacturers. He also served for 6 years as a non-executive director on the Builders Merchants Federation board, before transitioning to a portfolio career as Vistage Chair, Non-Executive Director at the Building Research Establishment, and advisor and technology investor for numerous companies.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Infrastructure and Project Finance Advisory Executive
Sacira Coric is a global infrastructure and project finance advisory executive with more than 20 years of experience in economic and social infrastructure, advising public sector authorities, equity investors and lenders on infrastructure strategy and procurement, development, operation and maintenance, privatisations, acquisitions and contract management.
Sacira is a Director, leading Business Case and Project Finance advisory at Turner & Townsend LLP, an independent, global professional services company specialising in programme and cost management and advisory on major capital programmes in infrastructure, real estate and natural resources.
Sacira has a strong knowledge of public sector value for money drivers, policy and regulatory objectives, investors' and lenders' interests and concerns, project sponsors' drivers and most prevalent challenges arising on transactions involving private capital.
She has developed, operationalised and managed private and capital markets investments and corporate spin-offs from large multinational advisory firms.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Head of Commercial Banking for BBVA UK
Silvia has been Head of Commercial Banking for BBVA UK since 2019. She has specific responsibility to work with UK-based corporate companies and develop a global relationship model throughout BBVA's network. This involves providing solutions and expertise in each geography that supports their business.
Prior to this role, she developed her career in Spain in various positions within the Business and Corporate Banking division. She has over 26 years of experience in the financial services industry.
She is a qualified EFPA European Investment Practitioner (EIP) and ISF Adviser Level 1. In 2021, she also completed the MBA fundamentals online program at the London School of Economics. She is also a Member of the Board of Omnia Learning Trust since 2020 and a Mentor for IMFAHE and most recently Mentored at the University of Westminster.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Director, Political
Job Titles:
- Chairman of Victim Support
- Vice Chair and Trustee of Action for Children