The Energy Institute
Our purpose
The Energy Institute (EI) is the chartered professional membership body for people who work across the world of energy. Our purpose is creating a better energy future for our members and society by accelerating a just global energy transition to net zero. We do this by:
- Attracting, developing and equipping the diverse future energy workforce
- Informing energy decision-making through convening expertise and advice
- Enabling industry and consumers to make energy lower carbon, safer and more efficient
Our values
The EI staff team and its extensive network of volunteers pursue these goals in line with a set of values reflecting the culture of the organisation:
- We are inclusive by treating each other with care and respect
- We build trust through open and professional collaboration
- We are passionate about making a difference
Our status and history
A registered charity (charity no. 1097899), incorporated by Royal Charter in 2003, the EI is licensed by the Engineering Council (UK) to offer Chartered, Incorporated and Engineering Technician status to engineers, and by the Society for the Environment to award Chartered Environmentalist status.
The EI was set up in 2003 as a result of a merger between the Institute of Petroleum (IP) and the Institute of Energy (InstE). Both Institutes had a proud and distinguished heritage developed over many years supporting their particular energy sectors.
Increasingly these sectors have converged, creating an integrated global energy market which has been mirrored by the development of the Energy Institute - established to address both the depth and breadth of the subject.
Today , the EI is home to range of collaborative initiatives, including G+ Global Offshore Wind Health and Safety Organisation, SafetyOn and POWERful Women. We host the annual International Energy Week, EI Awards, publish New Energy World Magazine and the Energy Barometer, and provide the Toolbox web app helping the energy workforce learn lessons from incidents and get home safe.
Energy... we’re working on it
Safe, affordable energy defines modern life for large parts of the human population. It lights, heats and cools our businesses and homes, it makes the world smaller via air, sea and surface transport and it connects us across great distances through advanced digital communications.
But the story of energy is only part told. Responding to the climate emergency while meeting the energy needs of the world’s growing population is one of the great challenge of our age. We need more, cleaner, better-managed energy - and fast.
We're proud of our members and partners, which is why this film is all about them. Jaz, David, Robert, Kenny, Rose, Andy and Vivien work in different parts of the energy system and in different parts of the world, but they have one thing in common - they are some of the ingenious professionals making all this possible.
Council
President
Juliet Davenport OBE HonFEI
Founder, Good Energy
Juliet was awarded an OBE in 2013 for services to renewables and has spent her entire career in the energy sector creating solutions to combat climate change.
In 1998, Juliet founded the AIM-listed company Good Energy, a 100% renewable energy utility specialising in decentralised small-scale renewables. In her role as CEO she oversaw its growth to a £130 million turnover business, including developing over 150MW of renewable assets and supporting 160,000 homes generating their own power. Juliet stepped down as CEO in 2021, moving to a non-executive board director role and chairing the Good Energy subsidiary, Zap-Map. She has since stepped down from both Good Energy and Zapmap.
Juliet has a wealth of non-executive and advisory experience. She serves on the board of the Crown Estate and supports their integration of sustainability across the organisation together with the development of renewables on Crown property. She recently stepped down from Innovate UK having served as a council member for 4 years, and has taken a position with Ombudsman Services. Most recently she took up the position of Chair for Atrato Onsight Energy, a listed Investment Trust developing onsite commercial solar rooftops and a NED on Connected Kerb, a business revolutionising the business of kerbside charging for EV. IT is the first LSE listed company to have an all-female board.
Juliet has had various appointments with academic organisations and think tanks focusing on sustainability and innovation, including the Gratham Institute at Imperial College and London School of Economics and The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford University.
Vice President
Greg is the founder and CEO of Octopus Energy Group, the green energy tech pioneer and certified B Corp based in the UK. Launched in 2016, the company’s mission is to bring cheaper, greener power to all. In 2021, Octopus also entered the renewable energy generation market.
Greg's vision of using technology to disrupt the energy market has enabled Octopus Energy to create tariffs which unlock the power of the green grid - offering cheaper electricity when the sun is shining and wind is blowing. With its smart tariffs proving customer appetite for flexibility, Octopus is pioneering a global system change to enable a cheaper, faster transition to renewables.
Greg is an experienced digital entrepreneur, passionate about using technology to make positive change. He’s founded a number of successful businesses, including e-commerce company C360, and is an angel investor in a wide range of tech start-ups. He also served as Director of several innovative businesses, including Zopa, the world’s first peer-to-peer lender, which has now lent almost £2bn fairly and responsibly.
Charles Hendry was Minister of State for Energy from 2010-12. He was previously the Conservative Party’s spokesman on energy issues, from 2005-2010, holding the portfolio for longer than any other spokesman.
On leaving Ministerial office, Prime Minister David Cameron appointed him as his Trade Envoy to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, a role he continued until leaving Parliament in 2015. He was awarded the CBE in Her Majesty The Queen’s 2019 Birthday Honours for his work in supporting British Trade in Russia and Central Asia.
On leaving Ministerial office, he was appointed as an Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh Business School and Visiting Professor at the Mining University of St Petersburg. He is President of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce; President of the British Chamber of Commerce in Kazakhstan; President of the British Institute of Energy Economics; Vice-President of The Energy Institute and Patron of the Nuclear Institute.
He works extensively across the energy sector.
Charles was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he received an Honours Degree in Business Studies. He is a University Regent and also an Honorary Fellow of the Energy Institute.
Aleida is the Head of Engineering for the Upstream and the Upstream Engineering Centre (UEC). In this role Aleida is accountable for the center of technical discipline engineering expertise in the Upstream and plays a key role in connecting Upstream Engineering as a discipline and holding a segment-wide view of discipline health and capability for over 1600 engineers.
Throughout her 27-year career at BP, Aleida has held a variety of leadership posts in operations and engineering. Aleida’s most recent role was the Vice President of Operations for the Gulf of Mexico operated assets and prior to that she held the same role in BP’s onshore lower 48 business.
Aleida holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Texas A&M University and is a member of the university’s Chemical Engineering College Advisory Board. Aleida was recently awarded the Texas A&M 2019 College of Engineering Outstanding Alumni Award in recognition of her STEM advocacy and service to the oil and gas industry. She is on the Board of BP Shipping and Fellow of the Energy Institute serving as Chair of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC).
Aleida and her husband Eduardo have three sons.
Vice President & Honorary Secretary
Dame Vivienne Cox is Non-Executive Director and Workforce Engagement Director of the global pharmaceutical company GSK. She worked for BP plc for 28 years, in Britain and continental Europe, in posts including Executive Vice President and Chief Executive of BP’s gas, power and renewable business and its alternative energy unit.
Vivienne was previously a Non-Executive Director of BG Group plc and Rio Tinto plc, the Senior Independent Director of Pearson plc, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Vallourec and the Lead Independent Director at the UK Government’s Department for International Development. She was awarded a CBE in 2016 and a damehood in 2022 for services to diversity and inclusion and sustainability in business.
A graduate of Oxford and INSEAD, she is also Chair of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, Vice Chair of the SAID Business School and on the advisory board of the African Leadership Institute and of Montrose Associates.
Honorary Treasurer
Simardeep Soor is a Chartered Accountant, who trained and qualified at KPMG, and holds a MEng in Engineering Science, Economics and Management from University of Oxford.
She is an Assistant Director at UK Government Investments, where she has worked on a variety of corporate finance and governance projects, including asset sales in the energy sector, the shareholder role for UK Green Infrastructure Platform and the shareholder role for National Nuclear Laboratory.
Prior to joining UK Government Investments, Simardeep spent over six years in corporate advisory and investment banking roles at Houlihan Lokey and KPMG. During this time, she advised on a number of UK and cross-border M&A transactions for UK, European and US clients.
Members
John is a Chartered Engineer with over 30 years’ experience in teaching, research and practice. Formerly Chief Engineer with Carlsberg-Tetley Brewing, John has represented the Industry at national level to bring about significant reductions in energy utilisation. He is Director of the Scottish Energy Centre at Edinburgh Napier University where he has secured significant levels of external funding (EPSRC, TSB, FP7) helping to support innovative products, processes and supply chain initiatives across the Scottish SME sector. The main focus of his research interests include monitoring and modelling building performance and the development of novel and innovative renewable energy systems and successfully directed over 9PhD/MPhil completions and published over 50 refereed articles. John retains strong professional links with external organisations and is a Fellow, Member of Council, and Past Chairman of the Energy Institute, Chairman of the Energy Institute Accreditation Panel, Member of the Engineering Council - Engineering Accreditation Board, Co-Chairman of Scotland’s 2020 Climate Group and recently founded Retrofit Scotland. As well as chairing numerous academic accreditation panels both in the UK and abroad, John holds current External Examination posts with Heriot Watt University, London South Bank University and University of the Highland and Islands.
Robert Gross became Director of the UK Energy Research Centre at University College London in February 2020, having previously been a co-Director. He is also Professor of Energy Policy and Technology, Director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Technology (ICEPT) and former Policy Director of the Energy Futures Lab at Imperial College London. He is also a trustee of the Energy Institute. Robert has published extensively on energy policy and technology. He has extensive research management expertise and has made a substantive contribution to UK energy policy development, acting as advisor to Select Committees, preparing reports and chairing committees for Govt. departments and NDPBs, and as a consultant. He was seconded to the Cabinet Office in the early 2000s and contributed to the Blair Government’s Energy Review. He also has extensive teaching experience at masters and PhD level. He has been invited speaker at a wide range of conferences and related forums in the UK and overseas. He makes regular contributions to the popular debate surrounding energy, in the mainstream broadsheet press, online and in TV and radio appearances.
Andy Hadland is an energy engineer who now heads up development at Arenko, a leading battery storage owner operator in the UK. In the past he has led industrial and commercial engineering projects for blue chip clients; from deep retrofit energy efficiency rollouts, through to 85MWth/25MWe Biomass CHP installations behind the meter. He is a regular guest lecturer at Imperial College Energy Futures Lab on topics such as Thermodynamics, electric vehicles, and energy storage and is a passionate STEM Ambassador. He has keynoted National Instruments NI Week, been invited to speak at high-level roundtables with BEIS, and was part of a record-breaking team that designed and built an all-electric supercar – which then drove 26,000km from Alaska to Argentina. At the Energy Institute he was the founding Chair of the London YPN branch, and is passionate about improving the opportunities for young professionals within the sector. Now he sits on the EI Council where he is working to help develop the EI's offering and relevance to young professionals.
Emily Spearman is the Head of Project Management Office at Ørsted Wind Power, the world leading green energy company. During her time at Ørsted Emily has held the position as Asset Manager of five offshore windfarms and Commercial Manager for Hornsea Project 1, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, currently under construction. Prior to this, Emily was the youngest Associate Director in Engineering Consultancy URS Scott Wilson, where she held leading positions on a number of high profile projects in the environmental and industrial sectors around the world (including, Crossrail and Palm Island, from West Africa to Australia). In her early career she worked onshore and offshore on Oil and Gas rigs with Schlumberger in the UK and USA.
Dr Joanne Wade is a sustainable energy expert with 30 years’ experience in energy efficiency and community energy. She is the Chief Strategic Advisor of the Association of Decentralised Energy (ADE), a Trustee of the Energy Institute (EI) and former Chair of the EI’s Energy Advisory Panel. Her work is currently focused on buildings energy efficiency policy and practice. Prior to her current roles, Joanne held posts including Chief Executive of the Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE), CEO of Impetus Consulting, Research Director at ACE and post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute. Joanne is also Vice President of the European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College London; previously she chaired the EI’s HR Committee, chaired the Board of Trustees of the Eaga Charitable Trust and served as a Commissioner on the London Sustainable Development Commission.
Michael is the Strategy and Business Development Manager for Global E&C, a leading energy services brownfield EPC contractor focussed on the UKCS. Michael is an authentic future leader with over 11 years’ experience within the upstream (E&P, topside and subsea) and clean energy sectors.
Michael has been involved with the Energy Institute for over six years and was elected Chair of the Aberdeen Highlands and Islands Young Professionals Network in January 2019 where he led the re-structure of the yearly calendar into Learn, Network and Grow focussed events. Michael holds a BA (Hons) in Business Management with Economics from the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and was elected to the EI Council in July 2022, where he will further the Generation 2050 agenda to hold todays leaders accountable for a world young professionals will inherit in the future.
Lisa is the current Senior Vice President of Emerging & Future Business at Equinor, with a career spanning over 25 years across the energy sector. Lisa has held several senior roles at Equinor having begun as their VP Exploration, moving up to Senior VP Exploration in 2018 before stepping into her current role. Current responsibilities include heading up the newly established 'Emerging & Future Business' team that looks beyond the core business to find new energy solutions for tomorrow.
Lisa began her career at Schlumberger, as a Geophysicist in 1995 working in seismic acquisition and processing, before moving to ARCO & Vastar Resources as a Geophysicist. She spent 4 years at the company with explorations in the Central North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico shelf and deepwater. In 2000, Lisa moved to BP as a Senior Geoscientist where she completed explorations across Angola and Egypt – working at the company for 9 years. Following BP, Lisa worked at Statoil (now Equinor) from 2009 to 2016, working her way up to the role of VP Exploration where she was the Head of Exploration for the Regional Southern Hemisphere. As Statoil rebranded to Equinor in 2018, Lisa remained with the organisation, continuing to progress her career to the senior role she is in today.
Lisa holds a BSc (Hons) in Petroleum Geoscience & Geology as well as an MSc in Petroleum Geoscience, both from Imperial College London.
Leadership team
Chief Executive
Dr Nick Wayth CEng FEI FIMechE
ceo@energyinst.org
Connect on LinkedIn
Nick was appointed as Chief Executive of the Energy Institute in 2021 and has overall oversight of all the Energy Institute’s activities globally. Prior to this he spent nearly 22 years at BP plc in a broad variety of executive and management roles. Latterly Nick held the post of Chief Development Officer of Alternative Energy, where he led BP’s strategy and business development in a broad range of renewable technologies, including solar, offshore wind and digital energy. Through this role Nick was also a member of the BP Ventures Investment Committee, sponsoring several of BP’s venture investments.
Nick also held senior roles as VP Competitor Intelligence and as Head of North America Investor Relations, based in Houston. Nick’s early career was spent in a variety of operational, technical, and commercial roles in the upstream business, based offshore in the North Sea, Aberdeen, Algeria and London.
Nick holds a PhD in Mechanical / Electrical Engineering and a degree in Mechanical Engineering, both from the University of Southampton. Nick is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and a Fellow of both the Energy Institute and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Nick is passionate about creating an inclusive and supportive environment for everyone and is a Board Member of POWERful Women. Nick sits on the International Advisory Council of Universiti Teknologi Petronas, in Malaysia. Nick also advises and mentors entrepreneurs in energy start-up companies.
Outside of work, Nick enjoys running, cycling, yoga and spending time with his wife, Debbie, and their two sons.
Directors and Heads
Nick Turton FEI, Director of External Affairs
Ava Longhurst, Director of Finance and Facilities
Martin Maeso CEnv MEI, Director of Technical Innovation
Violeta Argerich, Head of Digital Transformation
Lydia Malley, Head of EI Academy
Robbyn Snow, Head of Events
Dr Mark Scanlon MEI, Head of HSE
Sarah George, Head of Knowledge
Terry Winter, Head of Membership and Accreditation
Zehra Hussain, Head of People and Culture
Martin Hunnybun MEI, Head of Sustainable Fuels
Yewande Abiose, Interim Head of Strategic Partnerships
Governance
Royal Charter and byelaws
Annual reports and financial statements
The latest annual reports are available to download here:
The EI annual report 2021
The EI annual report 2020
Code of conduct
All EI members are bound by the EI Code of Conduct. If you feel that an EI member has not met the standards described in this Code, it is open to you to make a complaint. Please contact us for a copy of the complaints procedure and a complaints form.
Download the EI Code of Conduct
There is a separate Code of Conduct for the EI’s RPEC register. For further details, visit the RPEC page.
Compliance with Competition Law
The EI is committed to ensuring that all of the activities carried out under or in association with its name, are strictly compliant with all relevant competition regulations.
The EI and the environment
Our role
As the chartered membership body for professionals working globally across the energy sector, the EI provides the skills, knowledge and good practice needed to protect the environment during operations and to advance the global energy transition required by the climate emergency.
Our Operations
We are committed to providing a comfortable environment to help our staff and volunteers provide the best services possible. We recognise the nature of our work comes with an obligation to lead by example using energy and resources in an efficient and sustainable manner. Our energy and environment policy is designed to ensure this commitment is incorporated into our strategy and operations at our 61 New Cavendish Street premises, that staff are appropriately aware and trained, that we procure environment-friendly goods and services, promote energy efficient travel, and increase transparency around our energy consumption and GHG emissions. Recent improvements include the installation of solar panels on the roof of our premises, an energy efficient air handling unit with a rotary heat exchanger, LED lighting and the introduction of more environment-friendly paper, ink and wrapping for our magazines.
In May 2020, the EI pledged to end the impact of its operations on the climate, using the Society for the Environment’s Pledge to Net Zero framework. We set science-based greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for our central operations – our London head office and staff business travel - through to 2035, en route to reaching net zero well before 2050. In 2021 we signed up to the SME Climate Commitment, which is recognised by the United Nations Race to Zero campaign. We've now published two years of progress reports, 2020 and 2021.
Our Revenue
The EI is a not-for-profit organisation funded through a combination of fees from tens of thousands of individual members, hundreds of company members, and from sales of publications and tickets to our conferences and training courses. Our products and services meet the needs of professionals spanning the breadth of the energy sector, from oil and gas to renewable and energy efficiency technologies. They are continuously refined to keep pace with and support the changes under way in our field.
Our investments
Beyond ownership of our 61 New Cavendish Street premises, the EI does not own substantial assets. A total of around £3.5 million of our reserves are held in the mixed portfolio Sarasin Endowment Fund. Sarasin’s Climate Pledge presses investee companies to align with the Paris Agreement goals. While this does not preclude investment in oil and gas, companies are tracked in relation to their statements, ambitions and progress and investment decisions based on that. The fund does not invest in producers of tobacco, weapon systems and civilian firearms, nor in companies with more than 5% of revenues related to adult entertainment and 10% of revenues related to gambling, armaments or alcohol products and services. Our investment policy is reviewed annually.
January 2020
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