BIEE Research Conference 2025 - Speakers

Emma is the Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee, the UK’s national climate advisor. The body advises on the country’s Carbon Budgets and Climate Change Risk Assessments and does annual assessments of the Government’s progress.

From 2020-2024 Emma was the Chief Executive of Energy UK. Emma is an expert in whole-economy decarbonisation and the energy transition and is a Fellow of the Energy Institute.

From 2016-2020, she served as deputy CEO of the trade body Renewable UK, in which role she also sat on the Board of Scottish Renewables and worked with Renewable UK Cymru and Northern Ireland.

Prior to this, Emma was Head of Climate Change and Energy at WWF-UK, in which role she worked on the international Paris Agreement, UK coal phase out, international aviation and shipping, and the design of UK renewables policy.

Before joining the WWF, she worked in finance and in commercial consulting for start-ups in the energy sector. She has a degree from the University of Oxford.

Outside of her main roles she has also undertaken several advisory or Board roles, including for the academic consortia the Energy Research Council, the Energy and Physics Research Council, UK100, and UK Research and Innovation’s “Women in Innovation” grant awards.  Emma lives in Gloucestershire with her family, sharing childcare responsibilities for their two young children with her husband.

Richard Druce is an expert in the energy and utility sectors. He provides compelling economic analysis to support clients’ engagements in regulatory proceedings and disputes. He also helps sector regulators design and implement new policies and regulations and investors gain insights into opportunities and risks from transactions.

Much of Mr. Druce’s work involves advice during electricity, gas, and water price control reviews on topics including incentive design, cost-benefit analysis, valuation and willingness-to-pay studies, cost assessment and benchmarking, and regulatory finance issues.

Mr. Druce also designs and analyzes reforms to market design and network charging arrangements in infrastructure industries. He advises clients on policies supporting renewable energy integration, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and encouraging distributed energy resources and “smart grid” technologies.

In the oil and gas industry, Mr. Druce provides expert evidence in pricing disputes. He also analyzes the effects of low carbon investments and decarbonisation policies, including emissions trading schemes. He has worked across the value chain, including upstream production, mid-stream transportation and processing, and downstream.

Mr. Druce has served as an expert in proceedings before the English High Court, the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal, the UK Competition and Markets Authority, the Hague Court of Appeal, and the Alberta Utilities Commission. His work spans a range of geographies including the UK and Ireland, Continental Europe, the Middle East, Australia, Canada, and Asia.

Mallika is Shell’s Chief Economist. She advises on macroeconomic issues, economic trends, and related policy matters to shape Shell’s long-term scenario outlooks. She leads strategic engagements on energy transitions with national and city governments across the world, notably a multi-year collaboration with the Chinese government. Mallika also advises on Shell’s strategic policy and advocacy approach to support the company’s energy transition strategy. She sits on a range of external advisory boards.

Prior to joining Shell, she was Deputy Director at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs responsible for evidence and analysis across the environment, food, and green economy portfolio. She has held senior positions across the UK government, including at the Cabinet Office as Head of Policy Analysis for the 2009 G20 London Summit. Before that, Mallika worked in senior economics and policy roles in the USA.

Mallika holds Ph.D. and M.S degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, and a B.A. from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

Akshay joined Ofgem in 2017 and is currently Director General, Infrastructure.

Prior to joining Ofgem, Akshay was on secondment from HM Treasury to Transport for London, where he led TfL’s work on funding transport infrastructure in London by capturing the uplift in land and property values associated with transport projects such as Barking Riverside Extension, Crossrail 2 and the Bakerloo Line Extension.

This followed a spell of five years at HM Treasury, where Akshay directed energy and transport projects for Infrastructure UK. He has been involved in the design and delivery of electricity market reform, the competition for carbon capture and storage, the development of the new nuclear energy programme, the reform of the strategic roads network and regeneration projects such as the Northern Line extension to Battersea Power Station in London.

Akshay studied economics, finance, management, and bioscience, at the London School of Economics, the universities of London and Delhi, and the Indian Institute of Management.

Craig is responsible for developing Mott MacDonald’s European offering in response to energy market transition, including supporting major energy clients, alongside energy services for Mott MacDonald’s other infrastructure sectors.  He has also been involved in developing Mott MacDonald’s corporate strategy to address the changing energy market.

His previous role was as a senior civil servant in UK government, firstly in DECC and then in BEIS, with responsibilities including provision of engineering expertise to support energy policy reform, oversight of energy innovation policy, and budget responsibility for a range of government Energy & Net Zero innovation programmes.

Prior to this he had wide ranging experience in international energy consulting, including in regulatory reform and energy project development, and earlier in his career he was a senior manager in EdF Energy in both regulated and unregulated areas of business.

An electrical engineer by profession, he is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and a member of the Institution’s Policy Oversight Committee.  He is also a member of the advisory group for Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund.

Jon Saltmarsh is Chief Technology Officer at the Energy Systems Catapult. The Catapult was established to accelerate the transition to a net zero energy system and to help UK businesses innovate and capture the opportunities for growth that Net Zero presents. He is responsible for identifying the key innovation needs and technical strategy for the Catapult to have most impact, including in decarbonisation of homes, sites and local areas; future energy networks; and digitalisation of the energy system.

Prior to joining the Catapult in January 2023, Jon had over 30 years’ experience in the public and private energy and defence sectors, identifying and exploiting opportunities for new technologies to deliver transformative change. This included initiating the government’s innovation programme on hydrogen for heating. More recently, as a Senior Civil Servant he was responsible for the team providing technical, engineering and research based evidence and advice to all the teams delivering Net Zero energy policy.

Michael Grubb is a leading international expert on energy systems and policy responses to climate change, including the economics of energy innovation and systems transition, electricity markets, and climate policies and finance. His wide-ranging career has combined academic positions with and applied roles including the UK Climate Change Committee, the energy regulator Ofgem, and chairing the UK government panel of technical experts on Electricity Market Reform.  At UCL, he is Director of new UCL Centre for Net Zero Market Design.

Recent research positions include the IPCC Sixth Assessment (Convening Lead Author, Chapter 1 Mitigation Report), leader of the Sustainability hub of the UK ESRC programme on Rebuilding Macroeconomics, and Strategic Director for the international programme on the Economics of Energy Innovation and Systems Transition.

Prof Grubb joined UCL in 2014 alongside his role at Ofgem, and in 2017 became full time Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the Institute of Sustainable Resources. Prior to these positions, he was Chief Economist at the Carbon Trust and part-time Senior Research Associate in Economics at Cambridge University, and Chair of the international research network/interface organisation Climate Strategies.

These conjoined appointments followed 10 years at Chatham House where he led the Energy and Environment programme. In 2000, he founded the Climate Policy journal and remained Editor-in-Chief until 2016. From 2008-11 Prof Grubb served on the UK Climate Change Committee, established under the UK Climate Change Act to advise the government on future carbon budgets and to report to Parliament on their implementation, and stepped down to take up his role at Ofgem advising on the transition of the UK electricity system.

Author of eight books, Prof Grubb’s written contributions include more than sixty full journal research articles with 100 other works published in academic journals and major reports, alongside numerous other publications. The book Planetary Economics: energy, climate change and the Three Domains of Sustainable Development (Routledge 2014), brought together insights from 25 years of research and implementation of energy and climate policies, and was awarded the 2021 Marcel Boiteux prize for “outstanding book contributing to energy economics and its literature” by the International Association for Energy Economics.

George Anstey specializes in the economics of utility markets and regulation. His work spans public policy, litigation, valuation, due diligence, and competition policy. His recent work has covered competition in gas and electricity supply markets, arbitration and contract reviews, damages estimation, the design of market rules for gas and electricity, and the design of energy efficiency policies. In addition to his work in energy, Mr. Anstey works across other regulated industries, including the water industry, communications, and the gambling sector.

Mr. Anstey’s expertise in competition policy covers restrictive agreements, abuse of a dominant position, and state aid. His work across utility markets and regulation spans a wide range of geographies, including the UK and Ireland, much of Western, Central and Eastern Europe, the Far East, and the Middle East and Africa.

Mr. Anstey has been widely published in economic and trade journals, including the Electricity Journal, New Power, Water Utility Management International, and Competition Policy International’s Antitrust Chronicle. He is recommended as a leading energy expert by Who’s Who Legal (2019, 2022 and 2023) and described as an “esteemed economist with vast experience advising on complex competition matters in the energy sector.” Mr. Anstey is commended for “his deep understanding of utility and energy regulation.” Mr. Anstey is also recognized in Who’s Who Legal (2022–2024) as the top of his generation in the arbitration future leader series.

Rebecca Beresford was appointed as NESO’s Director of Markets in September 2024.  Prior to joining NESO Rebecca spent over 20 years working for EDF, where she most recently held the position of Director of Net Zero Strategy and Policy.

Rebecca’s career has focused on implementing the right energy policies and frameworks to support a decarbonised energy system, including work on Electricity Market Reform and more recently on REMA.

At NESO, Rebecca leads a team responsible for designing and delivering energy markets that facilitate security of supply at the lowest sustainable cost for consumers, while enabling the transition to net zero.  Rebecca is passionate about ensuring a balanced and whole system approach to market design, which puts the needs of customers at the heart of the solution.

Rebecca is passionate about people, decarbonisation, energy and infrastructure.

Rebecca started her energy journey at E.ON working in energy trading, portfolio strategy and subsequently in international roles on strategic business transformation projects.

Joining EDF in 2011, she went on to lead the B2B business, delivering notable growth in emerging market areas, such renewable PPAs and in 2020, stepping up as UK Director of Policy and Strategy, representing Retail, Nuclear and Renewables.

In 2022, Rebecca joined the NGV Interconnectors business as Commercial, Customer and Regulation Director, responsible for strategy, policy, regulation and commercial optimisation of the interconnectors. In 2023, Rebecca became Managing Director of the end-to-end interconnectors business.

Rebecca sits on the UK ESO Markets Council, is a Fellow of the Energy Institute and a Founder of the Women’s Utility Network (WUN), which has over 4400 members. Having three young children, she spends her free time cooking, travelling and endlessly tidying up toys.

Zoisa is the dynamic CEO of three arms of Octopus Energy Group – Octopus Energy Generation, Octopus Energy for Business and Octopus Electroverse.

Octopus Energy Generation is on a mission to create an abundance of cheap, green energy for people around the world, and already manages hundreds of renewables projects in 20 countries worth £7bn.

Zoisa’s team comes up with innovative tech-enabled products to transform ingrained thinking about energy and positively influence the net zero economy. This includes the ‘Fan Club’ with 38,000+ communities requesting local wind turbines with cheaper bills and Winder (Tinder for Wind) – all engaging people around clean energy.

Before joining Octopus as one of its early employees of a now 10,000-person business, she was the UK CEO of Dutch Utility Eneco B.V. growing their UK renewable assets. Zoisa also serves as a Trustee of the Octopus Energy Equality Foundation and Younity, Octopus Energy’s community energy joint venture with Midcounties Coop.

Jean-Baptiste Fressoz is a historian of science, technology and the environment, a researcher at the CNRS and a professor at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées. He is the author of several books : Happy Apocalypse. A History of Technological Risk, Verso, 2024 ; The Shock of the Anthropocene, 2016 (with C. Bonneuil) ; Chaos in the Heavens verso 2020 (with F. Locher).  More and more and more. An All Consuming History of Energy, Penguin, 2024. This latest book proposes a new history of energy based on the notion of ‘energy symbiosis’, which is more apt to describe the past – and perhaps the future – than the all-too-common notion of ‘energy transition’. He also writes a monthly column for the newspaper Le Monde.