On the move: Southern’s CFO steps down

In Utility Week‘s final appointments round-up of 2021, there is news from Ovo, Npower, the Environment Agency and EDF, as well as the first C-Suite departure from Southern Water since Macquarie became majority shareholder.

Southern Water

Southern’s chief financial officer will step down in January, the company has said.

Sebastiaan Boelen will leave the business after three years in the role. A successor will be announced in the new year.

It is the first executive change at Southern since Macquarie became the company’s majority shareholder in September when it invested more than £1 billion to turnaround the business.

Southern’s chair, Keith Lough, said: “The Board and I thank Sebastiaan for all his hard work and commitment in seeing Southern Water through some difficult times over the past three years, and especially for his role in securing additional equity investment.”

Ovo

Chris Russell, former chief executive and co-founder of Tonik Energy, has stepped up to become Ovo’s new chief commercial officer.

Russell, who previously worked as managing director of Ovo Drive, also worked as a consultant at Deia UK and has worked as a director at Baringa.

He succeeds Ben Blake, a former army officer who initially joined Ovo Energy as its chief executive after serving as senior vice president and general manager at Expedia, where he led the Hotels.com brand.

However his role was subsequently changed to chief commercial officer in the months before he decided to step down in November.

Npower

Simon Stacey has stepped down as chief financial officer at Npower after 23 years with the company. Stacey’s time with Npower included overseeing its sale of power station assets and supporting the demerger from National Power to create Innogy.

His role included leading the domestic and SME business, creating the Powershop UK division.

Reflecting on the market, Stacey said: “It was clear a few years ago that the UK energy retail market was not properly functioning and regrettably the introduction of the price cap and the emergence of some poorly run suppliers has led to many of the issues that we see today. But by consolidating the Npower and Eon businesses we have created a scaled low-cost business that I believe will be resilient in years to come and I wish all the team at Eon Next and the I&C business good luck with the journey ahead. Throughout it all, I have been privileged to work with many wonderful people who I have learnt so much from.”

He will leave at the end of this month with a successor to be named next year.

Environment Agency

The Environment Agency (EA) has appointed two non-executive directors to its board, with effect from January for four years. Secretary of state for environment, George Eustice, said Sarah Mukherjee and Mark Suthern’s skills, experience and enthusiasm will be an asset as the EA works to build back greener and improve the environment for future generations.

Emma Howard Boyd, chair of the EA, added: “Sarah and Mark join us at a critical moment for the environment and nature in England. Last year, more than 76,000 incidents were reported to the Environment Agency’s incident management service, including flood, drought, fires, fish kills and pollution incidents. That’s one every seven minutes.”

She said Mukherjee and Suthern will help the EA’s board to deliver improvements.

Mukherjee is chief executive of the Institute for Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) and was previously the BBC’s environment correspondent before taking up leadership roles in utilities and agriculture.

Suthern sits on the advisory board for the Rural Payments Agency and its Audit and Risk Assurance Committee. He chairs The Farming Community Network charity and is a trustee for the Institute of Agricultural Management. Previously Suthern was managing director, head of agriculture at Barclays UK where he focused on farming, agritech, sustainability, energy and the environment.

EDF

EDF has appointed Mike Davies as new station director at Hinkley Point B after Peter Evans stood down from the role after six years.

Davies has worked at the station for 18 years in the chemistry team, the operations division and steering the preparations for the station’s defueling, which  is due to begin in late 2022 after the reactors are switched off for the final time.

Davies said: “I’m honoured to have been chosen by EDF to steer the station over the coming years. I’m also incredibly grateful for everything Peter has done to get Hinkley to the point it’s at now and for how much he’s taught me about effective management of this unique facility.

“Over the next year we have a huge amount of work to do. I’m determined we run the reactors safely, and effectively, over the next few months. We then need to carefully shut them down while we also celebrate the enormous achievements that our teams here, and all those that came before them, have made over more than 46 years of generating. Then we need to turn our attention to defueling this site as safely, effectively and efficiently as possible.”

Everflow

Everflow, the water retailer and technology company, has appointed Ian Black as head of finance to support growth plans in the next year. Black spent four years as head of finance at kitchen firm Roundel Manufacturing. Prior to that, he held finance roles at Walkers, Nestle and Procter & Gamble.

He said: “Everflow’s position in the industry and how the aim is to make things simpler for our customers, and to be a leader in making improvements to the market, was exactly what I was looking for and, in the end, it was a straightforward decision to join when offered the role.”