Adam joined Progressive Energy in 2016 following nearly 20 years of consulting experience for Government and the private sector. He has worked on the HyNet project since its inception in 2016, and is currently leading the BEIS-funded HyNet Industrial Fuel Switching programme, working in partnership with Pilkington, Essar and Unilever. Adam also has significant commercial experience, leading due diligence exercises and bids on behalf of a range of investors and energy utilities.

Alister is a senior policy adviser in the Clean Heat Directorate in the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, leading work on hydrogen heating safety. Alister has close to 10 years’ experience in the field of energy and climate change, working across academia and policy.

Andrew joined RSSB in May 2018 to support the Rail Industry Decarbonisation Taskforce. He was the technical author for the Taskforce’s report to the Minister for Rail, and now works on implementation of key recommendations.

He has over 30 years’ experience in senior global environmental and sustainability roles across transport and logistics, construction, civil engineering, natural resources, retail and media, having been based at various times in the UK, Hong Kong, Liberia and Singapore.

Andrew has degrees from Liverpool and Bath Universities, once held a patent for a very efficient irrigation device and was appointed a Fellow of IEMA in 2018.

Following graduation from Aberdeen university, Gus started working for BG group some 20+ years ago. He has since performed a variety of roles in Energy distribution, from Asset management, network design, engineering policy, operations and strategy. For 6 years he headed up SGN’s Innovation & new technology team before being appointed Director of Energy Futures in 2018 with a remit to push the frontiers of decarbonisation of energy. Key breakthroughs have included Biomethane to gas grid (Didcot) the first in the UK, keyhole technology (the core & vac, iCore), Robotics, real-time networks and gas quality.

The Opening up the Gas Markets Project, more commonly referred to as the Oban project that evidenced that a wider range of gases could be accommodated by the networks and their customers was the seminal project for the pathway to decarbonisation of gas, for which he won the global gas award in Paris in 2015. Working with UK and Scottish Governments, he is leading a number of priority projects for the decarbonisation of heat, industry, and energy systems including H100 Fife, which is a world first end to end demonstration of an end to end hydrogen system from turbine tip to burner in the home, which forms part of the UK’s ten point plan. He currently chairs the UK gas quality standard working group for IGEM, which has been set up to facilitate a change to the Gas Safety Management Regulations (GSMR) to allow a wider range of gases to be allowed into the GB Gas Network, including Hydrogen. He is also a director of the Scottish Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association and NECCUS, the North East Carbon Capture and Storage consortium, and a member of Scottish Water’s Net Zero Board.

Brett is a Chemical Engineer and Principal Consultant with more than 14 years’ experience, largely providing Process Safety and Technical Risk support to oil and gas projects. Recently he has become increasingly active in delivering Low Carbon Economy Transition related services, supporting a number of hydrogen projects and conducting physical climate risk assessments.

Buta has 25 years’ experience in Leadership, General Management, leading Sales & Distribution networks, Product Design & Development and P&L responsibilities.

As the CEO at Ryse, Buta has extensive, international experience as a JCB Senior Global Executive, managing the operations of major JCB factories within the EU, North America, South Asia and MEA. Buta is responsible for the day to day operations of the business, building it to a global scale.

As CEO at Bamford Bus Company, Buta has been responsible for the new business start-up and turnaround along with delivery of the world’s first Double Deck Hydrogen vehicle. Buta is leading the way in all aspects of the business to allow further growth, with his strong leadership skills and emphasis on accountability and teamwork

Colin Laing is a Senior Engineer with Ofgem working in the “Engineering Hub” team. Colin is a chartered Chemical Engineer with extensive experience in the Upstream, Midstream, and Petrochemicals Sector, mainly in Operations and Business Development roles. Currently Colin works across a number of departments within Ofgem providing engineering input to activities including Gas Network Price Controls, Gas system operation, Network Innovation as well as advising on some of the future energy system projects being undertaken by Ofgem.

Dan Allason is a Chartered Physicist with over 13 years of experience in Major Hazards Research at DNV GL’s Spadeadam Research and Testing Centre in Cumbria, UK. Conducting research programmes during the past decade related to both domestic, industrial and transport use of hydrogen. Dan is currently committed to leading experimental programmes to enable knowledge gaps in the safety of future gas options.

David is a vehicle systems architect at Airbus and has 20 years of experience in the commercial aerospace industry. David is passionate about working across boundaries to improve sustainability in the aviation industry and in 2020 he joined Airbus Zero Emissions as the leader for Liquid Hydrogen Storage & Distribution R&T. Prior to his current role, David has held senior engineering and project roles, working as part of the Airbus team that delivered that A350 XWB.

Deb has 30 years’ experience in the process industry. He is a specialist of process safety in the chemicals, oil & gas, cement & minerals, renewables, fuel storage and water industries. In his career he has carried out accident investigations, acted as an expert witness and an independent engineer.

Deb joined Stopford in 1999. Since then, he has been a director for the last 14 years, with responsibility for all consultancy activities at Stopford. More recently, he has lead in hydrogen process safety projects.

Dr Andy Franks is a Senior Principal Specialist in The LR Maritime Decarbonisation Hub. He has over thirty years’ experience in risk assessment and related areas, particularly with respect to hazards with high impact potential. Andy has conducted numerous quantitative risk assessment (QRA) studies on a wide range of installations handling toxic and flammable materials. He specialises in hazard identification, risk analysis studies and development of risk analysis methods. For the last six years he has worked on the development of novel risk assessment methods for tankers and other cargo ships, together with development of safety cases for naval vessels.

Andy's research activities have been widely published in conference proceedings and scientific journals. He has a doctorate in chemistry and is a Chartered Engineer.

Dr Cristina Garcia Duffy is Head of Technology at the ATI with accountability for the Institute’s sustainability agenda. This seeks to address the impact of aerospace on the environment via R&T investments in technology solutions that improve aircraft lifecycle emissions, noise, materials and waste. The ATI’s sustainability framework is set out in the Institute’s latest INSIGHT paper.

Cristina is a member of various sustainability-related groups in the UK and internationally, including ACARE working groups, the Sustainable Aviation Advisory Board, the aviation representative in the Department for Transport Research and Innovation Board’s decarbonisation working group, a member of the ATI’s technology advisory group and chair of the ATI’s sustainability working group.

Cristina is also responsible for the development of the Institute’s technology strategy and for integration of cross-cutting technologies. She joined the ATI in 2014 after being seconded to the UK Aerodynamics Centre, the pilot of the ATI, to launch the Institute’s activities.

Prior to that, Cristina held various management positions within the R&T department at Leonardo Helicopters. She was part of the skunkworks team which delivered Project Zero, the world’s first electric autonomous tilt-rotor demonstrator aircraft. The Project Zero team were awarded the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) Team Gold Medal in 2014.

Cristina holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and an MSc and BSc in Aerospace Engineering from Saint Louis University, both in the USA.

ITM Power is an electrolyser (hydrogen generator using water electrolysis) manufacturer based in Sheffield. Nick leads the compliance activities for ITM’s electrolyser and refuelling station products and operations. As part of this activity, Nick has become UK lead expert to International Standards Organisation (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) ISO TC 197 developing standards and technical guidance for hydrogen technologies, also UK lead expert to the Comité Européen de Normalisation (CEN) TC 268 WG5, preparing standards harmonised to the European Directive 2014/94/EU on alternative fuels infrastructure. He is chair of the British Standards Institute (BSI) committee PVE/3/8 that contributes to these international committees, and is also secretary of the British Compressed Gases Association (BCGA) technical sub-committee (TSC) 9 developing UK national standards relating to alternative fuels. Further to this, Nick is the chair of the FCH JU Regulation Codes and Standards (RCS) Strategy Coordination Group (SCG), and also an active member of the SAE FCEV Interface Task Force, the informal GTR13 working group and the CEN/CENELEC Sector Forum Energy Management (SFEM) Working Group Hydrogen.

Dr Stuart Hawksworth has worked in the area of Safety for 25 years, fulfilling a number of technical and oversight roles at the Health and Safety Executive’s Laboratory in Buxton in the UK. These include creating and managing the Centre for Energy and Major Hazards, made up of 70 expert scientist and engineers working in the area of risk management, fire, explosion and process safety. He has oversight of a programme of Hydrogen Safety Projects covering power, heat and transport funded by the European Commission, UK Government and Industry. He is also the President of International Association for Hydrogen Safety and a task leader in FCHJU’s European Hydrogen Safety Panel.

Dr. Laura Hill manages the Safety, Codes and Standards (SCS) Subprogram at the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO), encompassing such enabling activities as the Hydrogen Safety Panel, quantitative risk assessment, fuel quality and hydrogen behavior R&D. Under her leadership, the SCS subprogram and the National Laboratories play a leading role in providing the scientific basis for the safe deployment of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. In her capacity as SCS Manager, Dr. Hill also co-chairs the IPHE Regulations, Codes, Standards and Safety Working Group. Prior to becoming a permanent member of HFTO, she was a Science and Technology Policy Fellow in the HFTO from 2014 to 2016.

She received her PhD in 2014 in Materials Science and Engineering from Clemson University, where her research focus was Novel Light-Emissive Yttrium-Based Nanoparticles and Composites, developing novel materials for LED applications at the Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies. Prior to her graduate career, she performed research on chalcogenide glasses at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as part of the SULI program. She received her undergraduate degree in Ceramic and Materials Engineering, also from Clemson University, in 2008.

Graham is a Vice President of DNV GL and is head of their UK Energy Transition team. He has been employed by DNV GL for the last 26 years.

Graham holds a 1st class honours degree in Mechanical engineering and has been supporting customers in the oil & gas industry for more than 30 years.

Graham is the primary author of the oil & gas companion report supporting the DNV GL Energy Transition Outlook. He has also supported several clients in both the industrial and financial segments in decarbonisation considerations as part of purchaser and vendor due diligence reviews for mergers, acquisitions and disposals.

Currently, Graham leads the DNV GL UK activities in hydrogen and CCUS, working with UK gas networks, industrial clusters, and policy makers in examining the alternatives for deep decarbonisation. In 2020, Graham was elected as a Fellow of the Energy Institute in recognition of his work in the energy transition area.

Ian is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of both the Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers (IGEM) and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). He also holds a NEBOSH Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety. He is currently the Head of Technical and Policy at IGEM and has extensive gas industry experience. Ian is a Director of the Gas Industry Safety Group and sits on a wide variety of IGEM Committees and Working Groups covering upstream and downstream gas.

Ian is also a steering group member of the Decarbonised Gas Alliance and a member of the BEIS Hydrogen Programme Development Group. He has significant project management experience of delivering highly detailed technical projects including leading on the Hy4Heat work package delivering Hydrogen Standards for downstream and a new Gas Quality Standard for the UK developed by IGEM. Ian manages the recently formed IGEM Hydrogen Committee which brings together expertise on hydrogen matters relating to health and safety, best practice guidelines for operations, including guidance and support to member companies regarding Safety Cases, COMAH, HAZOP surveys, planning enquiries. He has an excellent understanding of the legislative framework with proven technical, safety and leadership skills in managing and influencing teams in both operational and customer focused environments

As an environmental chemistry graduate from The University of Edinburgh, Kate has over a decade of work contributing to sustainable energy systems. She is an advocate of collaborative working between public and private sectors, safety in design and using robust science and evidence to enable the safe transition to future energy systems. Kate has been central to the delivery of the Safety Energy in Excellence Series since its inception in 2016 contributing significantly to the content and scope of all events. In her seven years at HSE Kate has delivered a number of large-scale complex hydrogen and engineering project for organisations in the energy sector both UK and Internationally and her work has been published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. More recently working as part of HSE’s Centre for Energy Kate has been involved in scoping large scale international prenormative hydrogen research projects; PRESLHY, HYTUNNEL-CS and MULTHYFUEL all of which have been awarded by the European Commission. Kate holds a position on the board for the International Association for Hydrogen Safety and is involved in planning and delivery of ICHS 2021. She has represented the UK at Mission Innovation – Hydrogen meetings to establish how safety can be into deployment of hydrogen applications. Kate works with multiple divisions within HSE understanding the drivers from policy, regulatory and research perspectives.

Lorna joined SGN in 2018 with a background in energy, education and engagement. Before coming to SGN, Lorna had previously worked on hydrogen projects in renewable energy education and in economic development, specialising in offshore wind. Lorna is now working on key heat decarbonisation projects within the Energy Futures team at SGN and is involved in the delivery of H100 Fife.

SGN manages the network that distributes natural and green gas to 5.9 million homes and businesses across Scotland and the south of England. With central heating accounting for up to a third of the UK’s greenhouse gas output, SGN’s H100 Fife project is a pioneering plan for a world-first green hydrogen heating network for homes.

Mark Crowther read Chemistry at Magdalen College Oxford before joining the Coal Research Establishment, where he worked on coal liquefaction and gasification. Later, he became head of British Coal domestic and commercial technology developments, but foreseeing the challenges of this fuel, on privatisation in 1994 created Gastec at CRE Ltd.

This small company soon developed a reputation as a large scale auditor of the in-situ behaviour of many products designed to save energy and reduce carbon emissions. Examples of such performance surveys and field trials included mCHP, condensing boilers, air and ground source heat pumps and very recently biomass boilers. It was during this time that Mark realised that the combi boiler is probably Europe’s most popular heating device and that decarbonisation of its fuel (entailing the use of hydrogen) had an elegant simplicity. Simultaneously, this could solve the inevitable intermittency of renewable electrical supplies.

So in February 2012 he gave a lecture to DECC’s Scientific Advisor (the late Prof McKay) and his colleagues, where he proposed repurposing local gas distribution grids to hydrogen. This was well received, leading to the HyHouse study, where the dispersion of hydrogen from a leak in a house was studied in detail for the first time. Subsequently Kiwa Gastec (as it had become) acted as main contractor for the NGN Leeds H21 project. This was the world’s full scale design study to convert a city to hydrogen.

Mark has subsequently been appointed technical lead of the Government’s Hy4heat project which is working with appliance manufacturers to launch new domestic and commercial hydrogen appliances and is supporting SGN in their FEED study in Scotland. This plans to use an existing 7MW wind turbine to produce hydrogen which would be used in over 300 houses and thus effectively decarbonise them completely.

Matt Candy was project manager with the successful British Landspeed World record team where many of the team connections where made. He has worked on a range of projects covering a breadth of industry sectors and recently involved in rail industry plant equipment projects as well as consultancy and start-ups covering aircraft seating, race car and bike design, rail technology and concept, development of consumer and development products. He has a Design Engineering background with a passion for ‘Cradle to Cradle’ and Human Centred Design principles.

Matt Hindle works with ENA’s members on issues affecting the gas transmission and distribution networks, including the future role for gas in heat and transport and energy policy more widely. Prior to joining ENA, he spent six years working on green gas, energy policy and recycling issues for the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association, ultimately as Head of Policy.

Nancy Thomson has over 12 year experience in high pressure oil and gas pipeline, onshore and offshore around the world. She has a MSc in Pipeline Integrity Engineering and for the past 4 years she has worked at SGN undertaking innovation projects on the LTS network and lately working on investigating repurposing the LTS network for hydrogen and CO2.

Nick is the Executive Director, Growth and Low Carbon Division within the Department for Energy and Mining in South Australia.

Nick leads the teams responsible for capturing the growth and economic value associated with South Australia’s world leading renewable, mineral and energy resources. The Growth and Low Carbon Division delivers projects of major importance to the Government, provides strategic policy and communications advice to the Minister and has a focus on developing future industries and decarbonising existing markets that align with the energy and mining sectors.

Nick is the Vice President of the International Association for Hydrogen Safety (HySafe) and a member of the Future Fuels Cooperative Research Centre’s Research Advisory Committee.

Prior to joining Government in 2014, Nick held a range of senior commercial and operational roles predominantly across the LPG and construction materials industries.

In addition to Nick’s energy and industry future planning roles, he is a non-executive director and Deputy Chair of Cara Inc, a large disability service provider; holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration, is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Energy.

Nigel Holmes has been a member of the Scottish Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (SHFCA) since 2005, and became Chief Executive Officer of SHFCA in April 2011. Over the past ten years he has trebled the SHFCA membership and has established SHFCA as one of the most proactive H&FC industry associations in Europe.

SHFCA is recognised as one of the most proactive hydrogen & fuel cell industry associations in Europe. SHFCA now has more than 130 members, with an increasing number from across Europe and overseas and want to become more involved in Scotland.

In May 2019 the Scottish Government announced the ambition to become Net Zero by 2045. This further reinforces Scotland as one of the leading locations in Europe for deployment of hydrogen and fuel cell solutions into developing low carbon energy systems. Highlights include the expanding hydrogen bus fleet in Aberdeen, local hydrogen energy solutions in Orkney, along with many other innovative projects such as Acorn in St Fergus and the proposed H100 development at Methil.

These projects in locations including North-East Scotland, Fife, the Western Isles, and the Orkney Islands are leading the way and 'learning by doing'. Our proactive SHFCA approach involves events and networking activities which build the understanding and connections which help to identify and progress these opportunities for the development and deployment of low carbon technologies. We are particularly keen to engage with locations and projects which are leading the way with a 'learning by doing' approach, and who are similarly willing to share best practice and experience.

Phil is an energy sector manager with extensive experience gained from over 50 years working for British Gas, Transco, GWINTO and Energy & Utility Skills.

His significant contribution to the industry includes a key role in the creation and development of GINTO in 1998, helping to introduce the Group Competence Scheme for Gas Safe Register renewal and leading the implementation of Transco’s Competition Act compliance programme.

With his extensive experience in developing and implementing strategy, as well as in the design, development and delivery of training and assessment solutions, Phil designed and implemented the EU Skills Standard Setting function for HSE, designed and delivered the legal case study package for RSMA, developed a Competence Management Framework for the water industry and designed and delivered a Hydrogen Competence Framework for BEIS.

Since 2015 Phil has worked as an Independent Management Consultant, specialising in organisational capability, competence management and training design and implementation.

Thomas JORDAN is senior scientist working in the multi-physics domain at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, now Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT, since 1989. There he is heading the Hydrogen Group of the Institute for Thermal Energy Technology and Safety and is teaching “Hydrogen Technologies”.

In 1994 he received his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from University Karlsruhe. In 2001 he founded a spin-off for data mining in the semiconductor industries and returned to KIT to coordinate the EC Network of Excellence for Hydrogen Safety in 2003. He was co-founder and had several positions in the executive board of the International Association for Hydrogen Safety HySafe. He is representing Germany in the IEA Hydrogen Safety Task and consulting the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency in establishing a national hydrogen safety expertise. He is member of the German Mirror Committee of ISO TC 197, of the FCH JU Regulations Codes and Standards Strategy Coordination Group and since 2017 appointed member of the European Hydrogen Safety Panel. Currently, he is coordinating the FCH JU project PRESLHY for pre-normative research for the safe use of liquid hydrogen.

Richard is a Senior Civil Servant in the Clean Heat Directorate in the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, currently leading work to investigate the options for hydrogen heating. Richard has worked in a number of Government Departments in a range of policy and managerial roles in over 25 years as a civil servant. He has worked in the energy policy field for the last 10 years.

Sarah has thirty years’ experience of strategic planning, leadership and change management, dealing with complex issues across the business, voluntary and governmental sectors. She has considerable experience of building partnerships between diverse people and organisations to deliver shared aims. She has served on a wide range of boards and is currently a Non-Executive Director of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust.

Between 2010 and 2019 she was an MP and served for three years as a Member of the Science and Technology Select Committee before becoming a Minister in the Home Office and latterly at the Department of Work and Pensions, where she had the honour of working with the HSE and leading the Health and Work unit. Amongst other responsibilities while at the Home Office she led work on tackling modern slavery, human trafficking and human exploitation.

Before entering the House of Commons, she was Director of the International Longevity Centre - UK, Age Concern England and American Express Europe. She also served as a Councillor in the London Borough of Merton.

Sarah was educated at Falmouth Comprehensive School and Kings College London. Sarah won a Rotary International postgraduate scholarship in the USA.

Sarah is married with three children.

Stewart McEwen has over 38 years of experience in different areas of Government Policy. He currently leads the team responsible for policy development for onshore gas and pipelines, offshore safety, mines and quarries. Most recently, in addition to the continuing review of the Gas Safety (Management) Regulations 1996 (GSMR) he has been leading HSE’s policy development in hydrogen and the wider Net Zero space. These have been enabling projects, ensuring that any potential constraints imposed by GSMR and other health and safety legislation do not stand in the way of innovation, industry change or safely dealing with anticipated operational difficulties.

Tim has 40 years experience in the UK gas industry covering a wide range of operational and project roles across distribution and transmission. His current role is Head of Programme Management and H21 project director responsible for NGN’s H21 research programme alongside maintenance, capital projects, REPEX and connections. Previously working for 8 years in National Grid Transmission (NGT), he held a number of senior roles as pipeline engineer, project delivery engineer and engineering manager. In a long career mostly spent in and around the West Yorkshire area he has also held a number of operational roles within gas distribution covering pressure control & storage, mains replacement and emergency response.

Tom has over nine years’ experience in National Grid, covering both Gas Distribution and Gas Transmission. Tom joined National Grid in 2011 as part of the Graduate Development Programme, having graduated from the University of Birmingham with a Business Management Degree.

During his time at National Grid Gas Distribution, Tom completed a number of Graduate Placements in customer-facing roles before joining the Innovation Team mid-2012. Here he gained a wealth of experience across the end to end innovation process and has forged key links across the industry. In early 2016 Tom joined the Gas Transmission Innovation Team where he’s held several roles, bringing together best practice across innovation and building a strong track record of performance for Gas Transmission.

Tom’s current role focuses on building a culture of innovation across the organisation, delivering a strong portfolio of innovation and collaborating across the industry to deliver the best value to UK energy consumers. Tom is leading on the FutureGrid Network Innovation Competition (NIC) Project to build an offline transmission test facility starting in April 2021.