Neil Griffiths-Lambeth is an Executive Director in Moody’s Infrastructure Finance team, based in London, and responsible for the rating agency’s coverage of regulated and unregulated utilities across EMEA. Over the course of his career at Moody’s, Neil has acted as lead analyst for a broad range of utilities and transport infrastructure companies. He has followed the UK water sector since 2008, writing extensively on regulatory and other developments and playing a key role in developing the rating agency’s strong reputation in the sector. As an authoritative independent commentator, Neil is a frequent speaker at conferences and other events. Moody’s has a leading global Infrastructure Finance franchise, rating some US$2 trillion of corporate and project finance securities, representing more than 90% of all public bonds issued globally in the sector. 140 analytical sector staff cover more than 1,000 infrastructure issuers globally. Moody’s EMEA team of 50 specialists is responsible for rating around 416 issuers. The rating agency covers more than 11,000 corporate issuers and 135 sovereign nations. Prior to joining Moody’s in 2007, Neil spent 15 years at Lazard. Over this period he advised a broad range of clients on raising finance in the public and private markets. Notable transactions included advising the UK Government on support and funding for Network Rail, Veolia on the acquisition and highly-leveraged financing of Southern Water, and Wind Telecommunicazioni on funding for its network roll-out. Neil read Mathematics at the University of Sussex and pursued postgraduate research at Imperial College, London.

Stefanie Voelz is a senior analyst in Moody’s EMEA Infrastructure Finance team, based in London. She is currently responsible for a portfolio of regulated utilities and infrastructure issuers in the United Kingdom. Over an extended career in credit, Stefanie has developed in-depth knowledge of utilities and transportation infrastructure sectors across Europe. She is also an expert in the credit assessment of highly-covenanted financing structures in the regulated utility space as well as project financings.

Stefanie is Moody’s lead analyst covering UK Water and has published extensively on the sector. She is the lead author of Moody’s Rating Methodology for Regulated Water Utilities, last updated in June 2018. Stefanie has also been one of Moody’s lead commentators on European regulated networks.

Prior to joining Moody’s in October 2004, Stefanie worked in the credit department of Bankgesellschaft Berlin AG (now Landesbank Berlin AG) in London and Berlin, where she held portfolio responsibility for project finance transactions in the energy and infrastructure sectors.

Stefanie holds a degree in business administration (Diplomkauffrau) from the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin.

Alessandra Mac Donald is a Director and Credit Research Analyst within BlackRock’s Global Fixed Income platform, specialising in the European and UK utilities sector. She brings 14 years of experience analysing utilities and infrastructure credits. Prior to joining BlackRock, Alessandra held credit research positions at MetLife Investment Management and Moody’s Investors Service. She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Finance from Bocconi University.

Chris specialises in the economics of regulation and regulatory finance. Since joining Oxera in 2011, he has advised clients on numerous aspects of regulation, including market power assessments, customer engagement, capital expenditure, efficiency, the cost of capital, financeability, cost allocation, regulatory risk, incentive frameworks and outperformance sharing.

Chris has provided support on regulatory and strategic issues to clients in the air traffic control, airport, energy, rail, road, telecoms, and water sectors. He has direct experience of working in Planning and Regulation teams and providing executive-level advice on regulatory strategy. He was seconded into NATS En Route Ltd (NERL) to provide day-to-day support during its appeal of its RP3 price control (2020–24) to the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Before this, he undertook secondments at a regulatory authority (NHS Improvement) and a regulated company (Dublin Airport).

Chris coordinates Oxera’s Regulation and Market Design Centre of Excellence and is the course lead for Oxera’s biannual Utility Regulation courses, on which he regularly presents a number of sessions. He has published research papers on the regulation of highways companies across Europe, and approaches to funding and regulating capital expenditure.

David Henderson joined Water UK as Chief Executive Officer in February 2023.

His Government experience includes working as a special adviser in Australia and as an official in HM Treasury and 10 Downing Street. In the private sector, he has specialised in building and strengthening the reputations of large organisations, most recently at WPP and KPMG.

Iain has over 27 years’ experience as a banker, primarily in the power and utilities sector.  

Iain has worked on a variety of strategic advisory and financing transactions for power, utility and infrastructure clients in the UK and across Europe, including corporate and asset buy-side and sell-side M&A, joint ventures, dual-track M&A / IPO transactions and equity and debt financings.

Recent roles include advising National Grid on the acquisition of WPD, sale of NECO and sale of National Grid Gas; Pennon on the sale of Viridor and acquisition of Bristol Water; Fortum on the stabilisation measures package for Uniper; and Zenobe on its capital raise. Iain is advising the UK Government on the equity capital raise for Sizewell C.

Iain joined Barclays in 2010.  Prior to Barclays, Iain worked at Nomura (2009-10) and Morgan Stanley (1996-2008).

Dame Julia is an experienced senior executive and non-executive board member who has had leadership roles in some of the UK’s most prestigious and reputationally sensitive organisations in the public and private sector, including Oxford University, the Financial Conduct Authority, British Academy, Bank of England and UK Research and Innovation.

She brings strategic leadership, sound judgement, and innovative thinking, with a strong record of delivering change across multiple domains.

 Earlier this year, Julia was appointed as Senior Adviser to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on Water Reform Transition. In this role, Julia provides advice, guidance and support throughout the transition to the new water regulator.

Kunal Koya joined EQT Partners in August 2024.

Prior to joining EQT Partners, Kunal spent eleven years at Goldman Sachs Infrastructure Partners where he was a member of the Infrastructure Investment Committee. Prior to that he spent five years at Evercore Partners in its Utilities and Infrastructure team having previously started his career at UBS.

Kunal holds an MA in Economics and Management from Oxford University.

Philip Duffy was appointed Chief Executive at the Environment Agency on 3 July 2023.

Previously Philip was Director-General, Growth and Productivity at HM Treasury.

Philip grew up in Slough, Berkshire. After university, he lived abroad for a while and joined the Civil Service in 2003. In 2006, he spent a year training with the French civil service. He has worked on a wide variety of subjects, from housing and the environment to community cohesion and immigration. In 2011 he became Director, Immigration and Border Policy at the Home Office, and in 2014 became Chief Operating Officer at the UK Border Force, managing customs, immigration and crime operations at the UK Border.

In 2017, he joined HM Treasury as Director, Enterprise and Growth, leading work on transport, productivity, the environment, business support and culture. He was promoted to Director-General in May 2020.