Ofgem reshapes top team with flurry of appointments

Energy regulator Ofgem has announced a number of new appointments within its senior leadership team.

They include new directors for communications, retail, and analysis and assurance.

• Communications director

Priya Brahmbhatt-Patel joins Ofgem as the regulator’s director of communications from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

Brahmbhatt-Patel began her new role at the end of January after serving as MHCLG’s interim director of communications since April last year.

Prior to MHCLG, she was the deputy director of communications at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and has previously worked at the Department for Transport, the Home Office and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

• Analysis and assurance director

Simon Wilde began his role as analysis and assurance director in December 2020. He previously worked as Ofgem’s senior financial adviser where he led the regulatory finance and investor relations teams.

Before joining Ofgem, Wilde spent 26 years in investment banking, predominantly focused on the utilities, renewable energy and infrastructure sectors.

In addition to his professional practice, he is a visiting lecturer and research fellow at Imperial College Business School and has held faculty positions in finance at the University of Bath and UWE Bristol.

• Energy systems management and security director

Charlotte Ramsay and Richard Smith will be sharing the role of energy systems management and security director in a job-share partnership.

Ramsay most recently worked for National Grid, where she led the creation of a separate Electricity System Operator and secured investment decisions on National Grid’s portfolio of electricity interconnectors.

She spent several years at Ofgem, developing the “cap and floor” regime for interconnector investment and led work on integrated transmission planning and regulation.

Smith meanwhile also worked at National Grid where he most recently led the networks, market change, and commercial teams and sat on the executive team of the Electricity System Operator.

Smith will begin the role in early February while Ramsay will start early next month.

• E-Serve director

Philippa Pickford, who was previously Ofgem’s regulatory director for retail, has become the director of Ofgem E-Serve, the administrator of the government’s Energy Company Obligation scheme.

Having worked for Ofgem for more than a decade, Pickford has led on regulation of the Electricity System Operator (ESO) and on delivering legal separation of the ESO within National Grid.

She has previously led Ofgem’s work relating to the evolving distribution system operator role, security of supply, wholesale market design including the Capacity Market, wholesale market conduct and smart metering.

• Chief data officer

Helen Crooks was appointed as Ofgem’s first chief data officer and started in December 2020.

Crooks’ previous roles include group customer data director at Tesco, head of information strategy and governance at Virgin Media and chief data officer for Lloyd’s of London, where she drove digital change into the traditional insurance market.

Outside Ofgem, Crooks is an ambassador for AI and the data economy for Innovate UK. She has been recognised in both DATAIQ Top 100 and Women in Data global awards.

• Retail director

Anna Rossington became the interim director of retail on 1 February, following Pickford’s move to E-Serve.

Rossington previously served as deputy director for future consumers and retail price protection.

Business Stream

Elsewhere in the utilities sector, water retailer Business Stream has appointed experienced aviation and distribution sector professional Forsyth Black to its board as a non-executive director.

Black is currently a non-executive director at Aberdeen Harbour Board, having previously been chief executive of John Menzies PLC where he was responsible for overseeing its move away from its traditional markets to become a pure-play aviation services business and successfully completing the largest acquisition in the company’s history.

Before becoming chief executive, Black held various senior positions at Menzies Aviation and John Menzies, including being president and managing director of the former.