Speaker biographies

Charles Hendry

Charles Hendry - Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change

Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change

Charles Hendry is Minister for Energy at the Department of Energy & Climate Change, and has been Member of Parliament for Wealden since 2001. Prior to joining the Government, he was Shadow Minister for Energy. He had previously held the position of Shadow Minister for Energy, Industry and Postal Affairs. Before this, Charles was the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party (2003-05), Shadow Minister for Young People (2002-05) and Shadow Minister for Industry and Enterprise (May – December 2005).

From 1992-97, Charles Hendry was Member of Parliament for High Peak, Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party (1995-1997) and Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Homelessness (1992-1996). Following the 1997 General Election, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Rt Hon William Hague during his leadership of the Conservative Party, before establishing and leading the Business Liaison Unit at Conservative Party headquarters.

Charles Hendry’s business career has mostly been spent in Public Relations, working with the international communications groups Ogilvy & Mather PR and Burson-Marsteller. He was Special Adviser to the Rt Hon John Moore MP as Secretary of State for Social Services (1988) and to the Rt Hon Tony Newton MP as Minister of State for Trade & Industry and then Secretary of State for Social Security (1988-90). He was Founder/Chairman/Chief Executive of The Agenda Group (1999-2005), a specialist consultancy helping company Chairmen and Chief Executives with their corporate networking.

He was born and brought up in Sussex and attended Rugby School from 1972-1976 before going on to study for a degree in Business Studies at Edinburgh University from 1977-1981.

Vincent de Rivaz

Chief Executive, EDF Energy plc

Vincent de Rivaz is the Chief Executive of EDF Energy, which incorporates British Energy from 5th January 2009. EDF Energy, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of EDF Group, one of the UK’s leading energy companies.

He joined the EDF Finance Department in 1999 as Deputy Chief Financial Officer and in 2000 became Head of Strategy and Finance with group wide responsibility for the financial strategy and operations for EDF Group. Between 1995 and 1998 he worked as Deputy Head of EDF International Division, creating a new Projects Department which he managed. This enabled Mr de Rivaz to be involved in, among others, the acquisition of London Electricity in 1998.

Mr de Rivaz was awarded The Energy Institute’s 71st Melchett Award in June 2006. He was named National Ambassador by HRH the Prince of Wales, in July 2009, for his significant contribution to the Prince’s Business in the Community projects. In November 2009 Mr de Rivaz became an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers as recognition for the major contribution he has made to engineering. He was born in October 1953.

David Kennedy David Kennedy - Chief Executive, Committee on Climate Change Chief Executive, Committee on Climate Change David Kennedy is the Chief Executive of the Committee on Climate Change. Previously he worked on energy strategy at the World Bank, and design of infrastructure investment projects at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He has a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics.

Neil Bentley

Dr. Neil Bentley - Director, Business Environment, CBI

Director, Business Environment, CBI

As CBI director of business environment since 2008, Neil is responsible for leading the CBI’s climate change campaign to build a low-carbon economy, our work on energy, transport and planning, environment regulation, localism and the construction sector. Neil also sits on the board of the Carbon Trust.

Prior to this role, from 2005, he was CBI director of Public Services, responsible for leading the CBI’s campaign on public service reform. And from 2002, he was Head of Skills and Employment with responsibility for areas such education, skills, diversity, trade union relations, employee involvement and working time.

Before joining the CBI in 2002 he was European employee relations consultant at EDS Ltd, a global IT services company. Prior to EDS, Neil was a researcher on European employment law and industrial relations issues at the Industrial Relations Services. Neil’s doctorate focused on trade union attitudes to racism and immigration.

Richard Watson

Richard Watson

Richard Watson is a writer, speaker and scenario planner focused on strategic foresight and the impact of long-term trends. He is the founder and publisher of What’s Next (a quarterly report on global trends), co-founder of Strategy Insight (a scenario planning consultancy) and the author of Future Files: A History of the Next 50 Years (2007) and Future Minds: How the Digital Age is Changing Our Minds, Why This Matters and What We Can Do About It (2010).

Richard has worked on strategic foresight and scenario planning projects with, amongst others, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Westfield, IBM, Public Libraries NSW and St George Bank and has been a columnist for a number of business magazines including Fast Company (US), Future Orientation (Denmark) and Retail Banking Review (Aus).

Examples of speaking topics

• Trends (current and future)
• Strategic foresight (emerging trends for specific industries)
• Scenario planning, forecasting and prediction

Nick Butler Chair Kings Policy Institute, Kings College London and The Future Foundation Nick Butler - Chair Kings Policy Institute, Kings College London and The Future Foundation Visiting Fellow and Chair of the Kings Policy Institute at Kings College London. Adviser on energy policy to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Formerly Group Vice President for Strategy at BP – 2002 to 2006 – and Senior Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister 2009/10.

Michael Tully

Michael Tully, Account Director, Public Sector/NGOs, Energy and Utilities, Future Foundation

Account Director, Public Sector/NGOs, Energy and Utilities, Future Foundation

Michael Tully is the account director for energy and utilities and the public sector/NGOs at the Future Foundation. In his three years at the Future Foundation, Michael has advised a wide range of organisations from BP International to the UK Department of Work and Pensions and is currently also consulting for the likes of British Gas/Centrica and the Energy Saving Trust.

Before joining the Future Foundation Michael worked for the media agency group OMD, where he set up and ran OMD’s first trend forecasting unit and produced innovative work on green consumerism which is still in use internationally.

Diane Coyle

Diane Coyle Enlightenment Economics

Economist and author Diane Coyle runs the consultancy Enlightenment Economics. She is a visiting professor at the University of Manchester and a BBC Trustee. She is a member of the Migration Advisory Committee, was a member of the Browne Review of higher education funding, and was for eight years a member of the Competition Commission.

She specialises in the economics of new technologies and globalisation, including extensive work on the impacts of mobile telephony in developing countries.

Diane is the author of several bestselling books. The latest is The Economics of Enough (February 2011, Princeton University Press), the previous one The Soulful Science (Princeton University Press 2007), Her first book was The Weightless World (1996), one of the very first to identify the impact of new technologies on the economy and society. Others include Sex, Drugs and Economics (2002, Paradoxes of Prosperity  (2001), and Governing the World Economy (2000), all translated into many languages. She has also published numerous book chapters, reports and articles, and was formerly a regular presenter on BBC Radio 4′s Analysis.

Diane was previously Economics Editor of The Independent and before that worked at the Treasury and in the private sector as an economist. She has a PhD in economics from Harvard.

Diane was awarded an OBE in January 2009.

Cathy McClay

Cathy McClay - Head of Modelling & Analysis, Optimisation, EDF Energy

Cathy was appointed Head of Modelling & Analysis, Optimisation, EDF Energy following the merger of British Energy and EDF Energy. Cathy joined British Energy in 2006 as Head of Commodity Research, responsible for the modelling and analysis underpinning hedging decisions within the business.

She has 11 years experience in electricity trading in the UK and Netherlands in a range of analytical and strategic roles. Cathy began her energy career with Edison Mission Energy, gaining extensive experience of modelling a variety of assets and developing trading strategies for the pumped storage business. During her time with the company Cathy also obtained an MBA from Manchester Business School. She subsequently spent one year in the Netherlands with Nuon managing the Fundamental Analysis of energy commodities across a wide range of European countries.

Prior to joining the energy industry Cathy was an academic. She obtained her PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cambridge and lectured at both Cambridge and Imperial College, London.