CHAIR AND PANELISTS BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES JON ASHLEY Jon works in Ofwat's Market and Economics Division looking at ideas for upstream markets and the trading of water. Jon works closely with Ofwat's other market reform teams looking at retail competition, the Water Supply Licensing regime, accounting separation and supporting the Environment Agency on abstraction licensing. Prior to working on upstream issues Jon worked for Ofwat on Competition Act 1998 cases. Before joining Ofwat in 2003, Jon worked for the European Commission on its market reform strategy TONY BALLANCE Dr. Tony Ballance is Director of Strategy and Regulation at Severn Trent Water. Prior to joining Severn Trent in August 2005 Dr. Ballance was an economic consultant in the utilities sector working as a Director for Stone & Webster Consultants and London Economics. His work was principally divided between advising UK water companies and regulators and work in developing countries on privatization and restructuring (for the World Bank, DFID and other international agencies). Prior to going into consultancy, Dr. Ballance was Chief Economist at the Office of Water Services (Ofwat) where he worked for 6 years. CHRIS BOLT CB Chris Bolt was appointed as the statutory Arbiter for the London Underground Public- Private Partnership Agreements in December 2002. His appointment runs until June 2011. An economist, his career has focussed on economic regulation and has included senior roles in both the public and private sectors. He was part of the team which privatised the water industry in 1989 and then became Head of Economic Regulation at Ofwat. He moved to ORR in a similar role in 1994 and was Rail Regulator from December 1998 to Page 1 of 5
July 1999. Between 1999 and 2002, he was Regulation and Corporate Affairs Director at Transco plc and then Group Director, Regulation and Public Policy at its parent company, Lattice Group plc. He was the first Chairman of the Office of Rail Regulation, serving from July 2004 to July 2009. Chris was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 2010 New Year Honours. MARTIN CAVE Martin Cave was a Professor at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, UK, until March 2010. He will join the London School of Economics in September 2010. He is a regulatory economist specialising in network industries. He has written many academic articles in this area. He is co-author of Understanding Regulation (2007) and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Regulation (2010). He has consulted for regulators in many member states and for the European Commission, and conducted a number of regulatory reviews for the UK government, including an independent review of innovation and competition in the England & Wales water industry, published in April 2009 GEORGE DAY George is Director of Metering and Charging at Ofwat, leading work on customer charging and supply/demand issues. This includes Ofwat's Future water charging project to renew policy on metering and charging, following the Walker review of charging for household water and sewerage services. Until December 2009 George was Director of Network Regulation responsible for capital and operating expenditure and incentives for the 2009 price review. His water regulation experience also includes asset strategy, capital maintenance, environmental policy, regulatory incentives, comparative efficiency and competition policy. Before joining Ofwat in 1999 George was a professional economist working on overseas development projects and consultancy. Page 2 of 5
COLIN HARLEY Colin Harley has been with Southern Water for 31 years. He is a qualified accountant who developed away from pure finance into the wider aspects of water regulation at privatisation in 1989. In 2007 he was appointed to Director of Regulation and Competition with responsibility for the regulatory interface to OFWAT, EA, DWI and HSE. Colin has been a key player in all the Periodic Reviews of price limits in 1994, 1999, 2004 and 2009. He has led the production of the regulatory Business Plans and part of the final teams in each of the negotiations with OFWAT. CATHRYN ROSS Cathryn Ross is Director of Markets and Economics at Ofwat, having joined Ofwat in September 2008. She is leading Ofwat s work on market reform and how price limits are to be set in the future. Her other responsibilities include enforcement, enquiries and complaints, licensing and tackling anti-competitive behaviour under the Competition Act 1998. Cathryn previously worked at the Competition Commission where, as Director of Remedies and Business Analysis, she was involved in a number of high profile merger and market investigations. Before that she held senior economist posts at the Office of the Rail Regulator (ORR) and Oftel, now Ofcom. Prior to that Cathryn worked as an economic consultant and as a research associate at the Regulatory Policy Institute, Oxford. GRAEME SIMS Graeme Sims is United Utilities regulation director, responsible for the company s relationship with Ofwat. Before joining UU in 2000, he spent three years in Abu Dhabi. He advised its government on the regulatory system for the water and electricity industry and was then appointed to lead the sector s independent regulator. Page 3 of 5
From 1991 to 1997 he worked for the Office of Electricity Regulation, where he was the Deputy Director-General responsible for the Scottish electricity industry. Graeme s early career was in management consulting with the Boston Consulting group. He is a graduate of Oxford University, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics. TONY SMITH Tony joined the Consumer Council for Water in December 2005 as Chief Executive. Since it was set up, CCWater has tried to encourage water companies, their regulators and government to make sure that the industry and the way it is regulated is fully focused on customers and their needs. His early career was in strategy and marketing, implementing business turnarounds in oil, aerospace, automotive and fast moving consumer goods businesses. Later Tony joined the utility sector where he has worked at senior level in electricity and as a director in the water industry and the rail sector. During his career in the utilities, he has led corporate strategy, corporate services and stakeholder relations, customer service, investment programme and PFI procurement and delivery and competitive market business development. His last job was with Ofwat, as Director of Competition and Consumer Affairs, where he was responsible for consumer issues in the lead up to and through the 2004 price review and for implementing the new competition regime in water. JON STERN Jon Stern is a Senior Visiting Fellow and a founder member of the Centre for Competition and Regulatory Policy (CCRP) in the Department of Economics at City University, London, where he was also Research Director. He is also a Senior Advisor at CEPA (Cambridge Economic Policy Associates) and an Associate Researcher at EPRG, Cambridge. Previously, Jon Stern was Associate Director of the Regulation Initiative at the London Business School. Page 4 of 5
Jon has worked extensively as an economic consultant and before that he spent over 15 years as an economist in the UK Government Economic Service. He is a co-author of the Handbook for Evaluating Infrastructure Regulatory Systems (World Bank, 2006) and has also published a sizeable number of papers on infrastructure industries and their regulation in both developed and developing countries. He is currently a member of academic panels convened by Ofgem and Ofwat. ROBERT WEEDEN Robert Weeden is currently an independent non executive director of South East Water and trustee of the Water Companies Pension Scheme, and has been involved with the water industry since 1995. Previous roles have included economic regulation adviser at Water UK and senior economic adviser at H.M. Treasury, the Inland Revenue [now HMRC] and the Department of Health. Prior to entering the civil service in 1975 he was a lecturer in economics at the University of Reading and research officer at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research specializing in regional and labour economics. Page 5 of 5