More changes at the top for Thames

Two members of Thames Water’s senior team will be stepping down later this year and a new chief financial officer will join in September.

Chief financial officer Brandon Rennet will depart after four years in the role, which included steering the company through significant investor changes following Macquarie’s exit in 2017. Prior to Thames, Rennet spent 10 years at SSE as managing director of finance.

Rennet will be succeeded by Alastair Cochran, who has 30 years’ experience of finance and commercial leadership roles at BG Group. Morgan Stanley and KPMG. He will join the executive team and take a seat on the board in September.

Sarah Bentley, Thames chief executive, said: “I’d like to thank Brandon for leading the company through a period of significant change, where he built and led a team that has driven an efficiency agenda; developed strong relationships with our investor base and tackled a broad range of commercial challenges. He did all of this with calm authority and played a vital role in helping navigate the company through a challenging period.”

Elsewhere, John Beaumont will be moving on from the company at the end of August. Beaumont, who is currently asset, strategy and planning director, also joined the business in 2017 as Thames’ first digital chief officer.

The departures follow a number of senior re-appointments at Thames since Bentley arrived in September including the recent recruitment of Francis Paonessa as capital delivery director, Warren Buckley as retail director and former Ofwat chief executive Cathryn Ross into a newly created role of strategy and regulatory affairs director.

Bentley, who led customer services at Severn Trent before joining Thames, also beefed up the organisation’s customer experience by adding 180 staff to the teams.