Meet the innovation team

Ben joined the business in July 2023 and leads our asset and technology and strategy and growth directorates focusing on developing our operational investment and technology.

He boasts a wealth of both UK and global utilities experience having worked at the consultancy Guidehouse where he was partner and the international energy sector lead.

As he joins the business, Ben will play a critical role in leading our £2bn electricity network investment programme over the next five years until 2028.

He will also lead the growth of Electricity North West’s commercial private network business, Electricity North West Construction and Maintenance.

Victoria holds a master's in electrical and electronic engineering and is a member of the IET. Victoria has worked with ENWL since joining as a graduate in 2010 and has enjoyed a wide variety of technical and leadership roles; from system planning engineer and innovation delivery to control centre manager. Before joining the innovation team, Victoria was head of strategic planning where she was responsible for the efficient long-term development of the ENWL network and the technical assessment of new connections to the network.

Victoria become head of network innovation in 2022 and is now responsible for the development and delivery of our multimillion-pound portfolio of innovation projects.

Delroy started his engineering career in research and development, working as a noise and vibration engineer, designing and building bespoke test rigs to test various equipment, ranging from small circuit boards to prototype sports cars. He then moved into the aerospace industry as an industrial engineer working to optimise machining and manufacturing processes on confidential projects.

In 2012, Delroy joined ENWL as a project engineer for the operations section and gained operational authorisation to work on the 11kV network. This role involved managing projects to construct, repair, and maintain electrical switchgear, transformers, cables and overhead lines. In 2018 Delroy moved to ENWL's innovation team as an innovation project manager where he is responsible for the Celsius Project.

Lucy joined Electricity North West in 2009 as an executive PA and has since worked across multiple directorates including finance, IT, network strategy and customer. She has a business administration degree and has previously worked with projects and programmes in the import, recruitment and insurance industries. As innovation PMO manager, Lucy leads the innovation project management office which is responsible for overseeing the innovation programme and managing the day-to-day business of ensuring projects meet milestones and budgets.

Before joining Electricity North West Jayne spent five years working in procurement for a printing company and Bunzl Retail, a global industrial equipment supplier.

Since joining Electricity North West in March 2011, she has spent three years working in the procurement team where she delivered a financial system training programme, oversaw the procurement transition from cheque to BACS payments and managed a new vendor process. In her current role, Jayne is responsible for procurement, budget management, putting contracts in place and providing event management support.

Christopher has a BEng in Electrical Engineering and a MSc in Engineering Management. He has over 10 years of experience working in the power sector.  Starting his career at SSE in a 2000MW Power Plant, he was responsible for the maintenance and operation of large electrical machines including generators, motors, and transformers. 

Joining ENWL in 2018 working for the Strategic Planning team, he undertook a wide range of Power System Analysis studies on the 132kV, 33kV and HV network including fault Level, earthing and protection studies whilst also working closely with National Grid ESO on the appendix G process. 

Since joining the Innovation team in 2023 he has been the technical lead on the Bi-TraDER and Net Zero Terrace Projects.

Andy is a chartered engineer with 30 years experience in engineering and managerial roles in the electricity industry. His experience covers a range of areas from generation through to metering, including policy, design, operations, IT and commercial responsibilities.

Andy has spent three years overseeing the innovation programme as PMO lead. He is now using his programme and project management skills as programme manager for our CLASS project.

Ben graduated from UMIST in 2006 and joined Schneider Electric as a bid manager in their project team, tendering for projects ranging from replacement switchgear for United Utilities pumping stations through to parts of the Great Ormond St Hospital refurbishment. After three years he joined United Utilities (subsequently Electricity North West) in the system management team. He spent six years working as a 132kV outage planning engineer and a 33kV authorised control engineer before joining the innovation team in April 2015. After having successfully delivered the Smart Street project he is now responsible for a number of other innovation projects.

Ben graduated from John Moores University with a BSc in quantity surveying. He then went on to work for a contracting company, Walker Sime, where he worked with many organisations including Freedom, ENWL and Baker Hicks.  

In 2015, whilst working for Walker Sime, Ben was seconded to ENWL as a quantity surveyor. His role was to assist the commercial team in pricing a high-level cost estimate for the works associated with the Moorside nuclear project.  

In August 2022, Ben became an employee of ENWL. He began his work within the commercial department, providing support on projects such as QoS2, QoS3, LineSIGHT, LV Monitoring and LV PRESense. More recently, Ben joined the innovation team as innovation transition manager. 

Neil is a chartered engineer and manager, graduating from UMIST with a BEng (Hons) in electrical engineering & electronics, followed by a post graduate MSc in power engineering from the University of Manchester. He is a member of the IET and the CMI, and has over 20 years’ experience in the power industry.

Starting his career at Siemens, he spent a number of years working across automation and drives, switchgear, and protection and control in the UK and Germany. He joined Electricity North West in 2008 and has enjoyed completing a number of technical and leadership roles including asset management, programme management and strategic planning.

Neil joined the innovation team in 2023 and is responsible for the transition of our portfolio into business as usual deployment (inclusive of LineSIGHT, LV PRESense, SMART Street & REFLEX).

Geraldine graduated from Queen’s University, Belfast with a degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in generator design. She joined United Utilities (subsequently Electricity North West) as a graduate engineer and has over 20 years experience in the industry.

After various roles within our policy and standards team, Geraldine joined the innovation team in 2012 to provide technical expertise for our portfolio of low carbon projects. She provides technical input to the development and submission of our flagship innovation projects and was part of the team which gained funding to deliver CLASS, Smart Street, Respond and Celsius. Geraldine project manages a range of NIA projects and helps to transition all of our projects into business as usual.

Elizabeth graduated from Swansea University with a BA in english and classical civilisation, and went on to complete an MA at the University of Central Lancashire. Elizabeth joined Electricity North West as an analyst for estates and wayleaves in January 2014. She spent three years in this role before joining the innovation team as installation planner on our CLASS project, where she was responsible for planning and coordinating the outages required for the rollout of CLASS technology across the network. In her current role, Elizabeth is responsible for managing our discretionary funding applications to enable future innovation projects.

Rachel is a chartered electrical engineer with extensive experience leading projects across the energy industry. Beginning her career in nuclear power, Rachel held roles in design and project engineering, commissioning, process control, and hazard assessment, before leading a programme of smart grid innovation projects for a major gas and electricity supply business.  

Joining Electricity North West in 2014, Rachel managed major projects for connections and network reinforcement schemes, supported delivery of the ED2 business plan and spent time as regulatory compliance manager.

Rachel joined the innovation team in September 2023 to support the development, delivery and completion of projects in our innovation portfolio.

Steve joined United Utilities (subsequently Electricity North West) as a graduate engineer in 1999. He has led a team of 15 engineers in field operations providing maintenance and support for protection and technical services up to the National Grid interface level.

He is a 132kV field control senior authorised protection engineer and is a chartered engineer. Steve was responsible for the specification, procurement and installation of the key technologies on our CLASS and Respond projects. He is now involved in the technical support of the new commercial implementation of the CLASS project.

Gary started his career with Turner & Townsend, a chartered surveying firm, after graduating from Nottingham University with a Mathematics degree, and obtained an MSc in statistics as part of their development program. He then accumulated over 40 years of experience working in the contracting industry, including a significant role with Carillion, a major contractor involved in multi-million pound projects, where he eventually became commercial manager of northern infrastructure. 

In pursuit of a new challenge, Gary took on the role of commercial manager of regulated connections at United Utilities in 2004, now Electricity North West. He has undertaken a number of significant projects since, including in his role as head of strategic projects, and joined the team as innovation programme manager in 2023 to assist in the delivery of TOTUS, CLASS, QUEST and HMS.