Project Director
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Deputy Project Director
Energy Export Capacity Manager
Consents Lead
Communications Manager
T: +44 (0)7396 669 968
Development Manager – Engineering
Supply Chain Manager
HSE Manager
Business Development Manager - Energy Supply
Senior Project Controls Engineer
Project Controls Manager
Offshore Consents Manager
Floating Foundations Lead Engineer
Project Engineer
Grid Manager
Executive Assistant & Office Manager
T: +44(0)7960011965
Electrical Power Manager
Development Manager – Consenting
Ian sets the strategic direction for TWP and leads the team’s work on planning, consenting, and developing its newly won ScotWind project sites. He has moved into this role after seven years as DEME’s Offshore Country Manager for both the UK and Ireland, where his focus was on the construction of offshore wind farms.
Ian’s renewables experience stretches back to 2002, starting as TXU UK’s (subsequently taken over by EON) commercial manager for renewable projects. He then headed up SLP Energy’s business, developing and constructing a portfolio of onshore wind and successfully securing and developing the Sheringham Shoal project as well as several offshore wind construction projects.
He joined Good Energies as an Investment Director, managing its portfolio of onshore wind assets as well as setting up and managing, as CEO, a rooftop PV development company in Paris before taking a lead role in the Dutch firm Typhoon Offshore, in the development to FC of the Gemini offshore wind project.
To all his roles, Ian brings cross-sectoral engineering experience forged during the early years of his career when he worked as a design engineer for companies such as Rolls Royce and Alstom. He holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management and took his first degree in Mechanical Engineering.
Albert brings many years of experience in leading multi-disciplinary and international teams working to develop renewable energy projects and build investment portfolios.
Most recently, he has led development of Qair’s fast-growing offshore wind business. Before that, he managed investments, oversaw project development, and headed up the Offshore Wind team at ČEZ Group, the largest public utility in Central and Eastern Europe.
Active in the power industry since the beginning of his career with Siemens PLC, Albert’s experience in offshore wind goes back to 2007 when at RES Ltd. acting as wind turbine package manager. He holds an MEng in Industrial Engineering, an MSc in Renewable Energy and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.
Jean is the Workstream Lead for grid and electrical engineering design for both of TWP’s offshore wind projects. Her team’s key tasks are to ensure that the projects have an efficient connection to the UK grid network and to optimise development of the electrical engineering design in collaboration with internal and external stakeholders.
Jean brings more than 20 years of experience in the energy industry with a focus on the design development of large-scale capital energy projects. She has a proven track record of taking projects from the inception stage, through detailed design and into the construction phases.
Her previous roles include Technical Director for Grid Services at ITPEnergised, as well as Project Manager for Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission and Mott MacDonald Engineering Consultants. Her first role after graduating from the University of Strathclyde with an MSc in Energy and Environment was as an electrical engineer at Balfour Beatty in Glasgow.
Hannah joined the TWP team in May 2023 as Consent Lead with responsibility for managing the Consents Workstream for TWP's two offshore wind farms. This includes leading on the provision of technical environmental and consenting guidance in the development and execution phases and leading the team to deliver the necessary environmental consents for the project.
Hannah has worked in environmental planning and consenting for over 20 years in the consultancy sector, both in the UK and Australia, and in a variety of sectors including renewables, power and oil & gas. Her roles have comprised project management of large-scale EIA’s, interfacing with multi-disciplinary technical teams, technical review and oversight and business leadership to develop strategy and effective engagement and communication.
Her previous roles include Regional Director – Scotland, and Head of Environmental Planning and Consenting at Ecus Ltd, and Technical Director at Jacobs. She has also undertaken secondments with SSE Networks Transmission and Woodside Energy.
E: a.needham@thistlewindpartners.scot
Amy joined the TWP team in November 2022 as Communications Manager with responsibility for managing media relations, supporting community and stakeholder relations, and marketing the TWP brand.
She has previously led project communications and media campaigns for the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult as well as media relations for AXA Insurance’s commercial lines business.
Amy began her career in the Russian Federation and is a fluent speaker of Russian. During her decade in Moscow, Amy led communications for the Association of European Businesses in the Russian Federation, coordinated activity across nine countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia for AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW), and has worked as a freelance translator, editor and copywriter in the cybersecurity, public health and banking sectors.
Taco led the bidding stage of the Scotwind offshore wind leasing for the TWP consortium resulting in the award of the two TWP projects and in his current role is leading the Engineering & Technical workstream.
Taco started his career as a project engineer working on the construction of a water treatment plant in South Africa in 1992 after completing his Civil Engineering degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
Since then, his career has taken him on a journey through water system development in West Africa and South-East Asia, project management of civil and flood mitigation work at Reef Infra in the Netherlands and the launch of marine and environmental projects for Ballast Nedam in Africa.
Most recently, he has led technical teams through tender processes for DEME Group, including TWP’s successful ScotWind bids last year. He is now the Engineering and Technical lead for both projects, where he continues to improve the world around us by bringing innovative development projects to life.
E: g.mackay@twp.scot
Gavin joined Thistle Wind Partners in May ’23 to develop and implement supply chain strategies for the Ayre and Bowdun projects as well as manage supply chain requirements.
He spent 20 years working in machinery manufacturing and economic development, specialising in energy industry development before joining Thistle Wind Partners.
Latterly his focus had been in building business and investment cases to support the development of key port infrastructure, large scale manufacturing facilities and wider supply chain to support the offshore wind industry. Gavin also served as a Board member of Europe’s largest offshore wind cluster organisation, DeepWind and advised the joint government/industry Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council.
Surjit brings over seventeen years’ experience in the HSE field initially in the execution phase of projects working globally on offshore construction projects before moving into the planning phases of offshore renewable projects.
He is passionate about delivering on health safety & Environmental matters and believes that by empowering people to play their part can only make the work place a healthier, safer, and more productive place to be.
He holds a Masters Degree in Safety, Health and Environment, achieving a Distinction level award.
Kelvin joined the TWP team in April 2023 as Senior Project Controls Engineer with responsibility for implementing and managing the cost controls of the projects.
Previously, Kelvin has managed project controls in the water, rail and aviation sectors. He worked for Jacobs Engineering and then Turner and Townsend before joining TWP.
Nick joined the TWP team in August 2022 as Offshore Consents Manager with responsibility for managing the Offshore Marine Consents for TWP's two offshore wind farms. This includes identifying and securing statutory marine consents and sea-bed agreements, managing Marine EIA consultants and EIA compilation to support consent applications, as well as undertaking regulatory and stakeholder engagement.
He has previously held roles at SSEN Transmission as a Marine Consents Manager; at Xodus Group as a Senior Environmental Consultant; and at the Statutory Nature Conservation Body (SNCB) and Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) as an Offshore Industries Advisor.
After completing a BSc in Applied Marine Biology, Nick began his career in the oil&gas sector where he offered environmental consultancy and science services on a freelance basis, undertaking benthic, marine mammal and ornithological surveys within the UK and Internationally, whilst also providing in-field mitigation and regulatory advice to several major oil&gas operators.
Johan has been part of the TWP team since the beginning of the Scotwind adventure back in 2019.
During the bidding phase, he was involved in the development of the technical concept, with a special focus on turbines and foundations. He now leads the engineering of the floating foundations for NE2 (Orkney).
With a double Master's Degree in mechanical engineering from ENSTA Bretagne (France) and the Technical University of Prague (Czech Republic), he started his career in 2015, working on the development of an automotive electric motor; first, as a calibration engineer (in Germany), then as a software engineer (in Belgium), and finally as an R&D project engineer in Paris.
Seeking to have a greater impact in the Energy Transition, he then went on to complete an Advanced Master's Degree specialising in marine renewable energy, which he concluded with a thesis on the coupled aero-hydro-elastic analysis of floating wind turbines.
He then joined Qair as an engineering manager for floating wind and tidal turbine projects.
Johan brings to TWP his experience in complex system engineering, as well as development and management of offshore renewable energy projects in international environments.
Sil was involved in the ScotWind offshore leasing bids for the TWP consortium and is now working as Project Engineer in the Engineering & Technical Workstream.
Sil started his career in 2016 as a Tender Engineer in DEME Offshore after completing his Master of Science in Civil Engineering (Offshore Engineering & Dredging) at the University of Ghent. In DEME Offshore, Sil has been involved in and managed a variety of tenders – ranging from geosciences, WTG T&I and foundation EPCI to Balance of Plant and decommissioning tenders.
Since then, Sil has worked as a Tender Coordinator in DEME Concessions. He is involved in various early development and tender processes for offshore wind projects, focussing on such areas as technical feasibility studies, CAPEX and OPEX analyses.
Calum joined the team in January 2023 as the Grid Manager for both of TWP’s offshore wind projects with responsibility for leading engagements with (but not limited to) the Electricity System Operator (ESO) and Transmission Operators (TO) for both regulatory and contractual arrangements.
Calum bring over 10 years of experience to TWP in the grid/networks advisory space, previously holding roles at ITPEnergised, culminating in leading their grid development and project management workstream, working in the development and negotiation of connections for GWs of offshore/onshore wind, solar and battery storage projects.
Calum is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with two Bachelors of Engineering degrees before finishing with a Masters all from their Design Manufacturing and Engneering Management department before entering industry.
E: m.ziervogel@thistlewindpartners.scot
Michelle is the first point of contact for TWP’s leadership team and workstream leads. She joined TWP in the summer of 2022 and supports the business in a variety of ways: acting as PA to the leadership team, overseeing the administration of the office and everyday running of the business, and supporting the team and its Board. Michelle brings more than fifteen years’ experience working in executive and personal assistant roles for C-Suite stakeholders in the chartered surveying, banking and retail sales businesses in the UK and at the international level.
Gunnar has worked in the renewables industry for 27 years in technical and commercial roles. For the past nine years, he has worked as an Electrical Specialist and Electrical Power Manager, primarily on engineering, procurement and commercial activities related to the electrical infrastructure required for offshore wind farms across the globe and their connections to national grids. He has also been involved in hydrogen, battery storage, solar (PV), grid integration and HVDC projects related to major renewable project developments.
Mark played a key role in developing TWP’s successful ScotWind bids, and in his current role he leads the consenting activities (both offshore and onshore) for the projects.
Over the last nine years, Mark has worked in the renewable energy sector as Development Manager for DEME Concessions (a TWP founder company). His responsibilities have included business development in the UK and Ireland as well as project development for the West Islay Tidal Energy Park (WITEP) in Scotland.
Prior to this, Mark was Project Manager for DEME Environmental Contractors (DEC) for almost a decade, successfully delivering a range of contaminant remediation work (marine, riverine, and terrestrial) and hydraulic engineering projects, both nationally and internationally, and working across multi-faceted disciplines.
If you have any queries about our wind farm projects, TWP’s community engagement, careers with TWP, or anything else, please fill out our general enquiries form.