Engineering and Technical Director
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Project Director Bowdun
Communications Manager (contractor)
Stakeholder Engagement Manager
Supply Chain Manager
Geotechnical Manager
Project Engineer
Grid Manager
Electrical Engineering Manager
WTG Manager
Cables Engineer
Foundation Package Manager
Lead Engineer
Civil Engineering Onshore
Electrical Power Manager
Offshore Consent Manager
Assistant Consents Manager Ayre
Environment and Consents Director
Onshore Consents Manager
Development Manager – Consenting
Land Manager Ayre & Bowdun
Document Controller
Market and Regulatory Manager
Business Development Manager
Procurement and Commercial Manager
Legal Manager
HR Manager
HSE Manager (contractor)
Executive Assistant & Office Manager
Lee sets the strategic direction for TWP and leads the team’s work on all engineering disciplines and technical management, developing ScotWind project sites. He moved into the role after multi-discipline engineering and project management roles, at all stages of large capital project development including 14 years at SSE Renewables.
Lee brings extensive experience in the offshore energy industries, including 20 years in offshore wind. He has a strong background of offshore structures and was Lead Engineer for the detailed design of the Beatrice Demonstrator jackets, a world’s first and brings a robust understanding of wind energy value drivers, having played a key role, in securing 3.6GW CfD for the Dogger Bank Wind farms.
He holds an Engineering Doctorate from UMIST, specialising the decommissioning of large oil ang gas offshore jackets. His first degree is in Mechanical Engineering, also at UMIST. Lee is also a chartered engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Kirstin Gove leads communications and stakeholder engagement strategies for the Bowdun Offshore Wind Farm at Thistle Wind Partners. She is an experienced communications professional with more than three decades of experience across media, events and corporate communications.
Kirstin began her career at STV, where she worked as a news anchor and broadcast journalist on STV News at Six. She has since held a range of senior communications roles, predominantly within the energy sector, including Step Change in Safety, the UK oil and gas industry’s safety body, and Subsea UK (now Global Underwater Hub). As Head of Communications, she led member and media engagement, stakeholder relations and digital communications.
She has extensive experience working across the energy industry and has delivered media training, emergency response and reputation management services to a wide range of clients and public sector organisations. At Thistle Wind Partners, Kirstin develops and delivers communications activity that supports TWP’s value proposition, reputation management, and community, media and government relations.
E: s.best@twp.scot
Suzanne Best joined TWP as HR Manager in April 2024. With over 20 years as a Chartered Member of the CIPD, she brings extensive experience in HR practices from various organizations, including Stirling Council, Scottish Power, and CIPD.
Suzanne is dedicated to creating a positive workplace by offering guidance, advice, and policies that promote better working lives. She holds a degree in Business Economics and a Post-graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management, underlining her professional expertise.
Rhona joined the TWP team in November 2024 as Offshore Consents Manager with responsibility for managing the Offshore Consents for the Bowdun offshore wind farm.
Her role includes helping to secure the necessary consents for the offshore components of the Bowdun project, stakeholder and regulatory engagement, managing environmental impact assessment (EIA) in support of the consents, and coordinating EIA consultants.
Rhona previously worked in the oil and gas sector where she has over 15 years of experience. With a background in environmental consultancy and in her roles as an Environmental Advisor for several oil and gas companies, she worked across a variety of projects with a focus on drilling and decommissioning activities, and emissions monitoring systems. Later in her role, her work centred on decarbonisation projects and successfully obtaining consent for an INTOG project
Eleanor joined the TWP team in October 2023 as an Assistant Consents Manager and provides support with critical consenting, compliance and environmental management activities for the Bowdun and Ayre offshore wind projects.
Eleanor has worked in the offshore wind industry since graduating in 2019. She previously worked for Mainstream Renewable Power as a New Markets Analyst and Environment and Consents Advisor. She has assisted with the early-stage development of several offshore wind projects, globally. More recently her focus has been on obtaining consents for the Arven Offshore Wind Farm, east of Shetland.
Darren Burbury joined TWP in September 2024, where he currently manages the Geotechnical Package. His responsibilities include overseeing geotechnical and geophysical surveys, as well as the geotechnical aspects of infrastructure design, such as foundations, anchors, and cables. Darren also provides support for foundations, cables, offshore substations, and consents.
Darren holds a BSc (Hons) in Applied Geology and an MSc in Engineering Geology. He is a Chartered Civil Engineer (CEng MICE) and a qualified Project Manager (APM-PMQ).
Darren's career began with 11 years as a consultant at Fugro, the world's largest geosciences provider, where he gained substantial experience in geotechnical design and installation of both oil and gas and renewable structures, as well as offshore surveys. He then moved to Iberdrola, an OWF developer, where he headed Ground Engineering as Team Manager and Technical Authority for a global portfolio. Following this, Darren joined Ørsted, where he served as Head of Geotechnical Design Projects.
In addition to his professional roles, Darren is an active member of the executive committee of the Society of Underwater Technology's Offshore Site Investigation and Geotechnics (OSIG) special interest group.
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.
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.
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.
E Lian joined TWP in summer 2024 as our Market and Regulator Manager, leading on the engagement with regulators and government on offshore wind sector policy, managing regulatory route to market opportunities and risks associated with Ayre and Bowdun, and all regulatory matters specific to OFTO.
E Lian brings over 15 years of energy sector experience to TWP, having held various roles at SSE. She has a wide knowledge of working across business plan submissions, regulatory reporting, pricing methodology, and development of ESCO projects. E Lian is a graduate with a Master in Business Administration.
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.
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.
Mallika joined TWP in October 2023 as the Electrical Engineering Manager for both of TWP’s offshore wind projects and is responsible for managing the technical and logistical aspects of the projects’ electrical system including the offshore cables (export and inter-array), onshore substation and topside platform.
Mallika has over 13 years’ experience in power transmission projects in the UK and New Zealand across various domains of design and construction including HVAC cable design, rail, project management & team management.
Prior to joining TWP, Mallika worked at Balfour Beatty as a Senior Cable Designer for 7 years, leading numerous National Grid and SSE network upgrade projects up to 400kV. Mallika went on to lead the team as a Design Delivery Manager providing line management and leadership to a team comprising 32 staff in the UK and India combined, and was responsible for team performance, maintaining technical capability and timely delivery of cabling projects.
Maryanne joined the TWP team in September 2023 as Onshore Consents Manager with responsibility for managing the Onshore Consents for TWP's two offshore wind farms. This includes identifying and securing statutory consents for all onshore components of the projects, managing EIA consultants and EIA compilation to support consent applications, as well as undertaking regulatory and stakeholder engagement.Maryanne has worked in Environmental Consenting and EIA for over 20 years, delivering environmental assessments for projects at all stages of delivery, from the initial planning through procurement to construction supervision. She has extensive experience managing and leading environmental assessments in a variety of sectors including renewables (onshore wind, hydro and solar), highways, bridges and rail. Her projects include nationally significant infrastructure such as Queensferry Crossing and A9 Dualling. Before joining TWP she was Divisional Director and Scottish EIA Lead for Jacobs.
Gordon joined TWP in October 2023 to manage the WTG packages for the Ayre and Bowdun projects.
Following a MSc in Environmental Sustainability in 2011, Gordon started his career as Technical Sales Engineer with, at the time, a ground-breaking scanning Lidar system as part of renewable energy specialist consultancy SgurrEnergy. It was during this time that he implemented a pioneering measurement campaign at Alpha Ventus wind farm which sparked a passion for offshore wind.
He then continued his journey in wind energy working as a Sales and Key Account Manager at Senvion, closing TSA and Service Agreements across the UK, before joining Renewable Parts as Head of Sales to drive their growth of supply chain services through their innovative circular economy approach.
More recently, Gordon has led project sales teams at Vestas Offshore working on a number of projects in the UK and Ireland, including ScotWind and ORESS1 projects.
Saul is a Procurement and Commercial Manager for TWP. He joined from NESO, where he supported the transition to the public sector by implementing public procurement and procurement ‘best practice’.
He also brings experience in tendering for large scale cross-country generation projects and years of procurement experience with a UK Transmission Owner.
Saul holds an MSc in Operations and Supply Chain Management and conducted three years of procurement ‘best practice’ research at Glasgow Caledonian University.
Mohammad Saif joined in September 2023 as Balance of Plant Manager for the Bowdun (Fixed) and Ayre (Floating) Offshore Wind Farm projects. He leads all aspects of foundation design and engineering delivery for both developments, covering the full lifecycle from concept selection through to detailed design, fabrication, installation, and operation.
He brings over a decade of experience in offshore wind, having held senior roles across engineering, package management, and innovation. His background includes managing early-phase foundation designs, leading R&D initiatives for advanced fixed and floating technologies, and overseeing interface management, design verification, and project risk activities on large-scale developments.
Mohammad combines deep technical and commercial understanding of foundation engineering and project delivery, underpinned by a strong background in structural and mechanical engineering. He holds an MSc in Structural Engineering with Consultancy Skills and a BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering, both from Newcastle University.
Shona joined TWP in October 2024 as Legal Manager responsible for overseeing the delivery of legal services for TWP and for the Ayre and Bowdun projects.
Shona is a qualified Solicitor with extensive experience in providing commercial legal advice in the construction and projects sectors. She has been working in the wind industry for over 15 years, firstly at Senvion where she worked in both the legal and service operations functions for onshore wind farms across Northern Europe, and recently at Siemens Gamesa where she worked on large UK offshore wind projects. Shona is also a member of the Law Society of Scotland’s Energy Law Committee.
Kirsty MacAulay joined TWP in September 2023 as the Stakeholder Engagement Manager with responsibility to create and develop relationships with all levels of project stakeholders from local communities and businesses to policy makers, and is based in North East Scotland close to the Bowdun site.
Previous to working with TWP, over the last five years, Kirsty worked for two different MP’s both in Westminster and in the local constituency, working on various briefs and engaging with constituents and politicians alike.
She graduated with a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the University of Stirling in 2018.
Josh joined TWP in May 2024 to manage the design of fixed foundations for the Ayre and Bowdun projects. This includes support to both the WTG and offshore substation scopes.
After completing a MEng in Aeronautical Engineering in 2015, Josh started his career as a structural engineer at Frazer-Nash Consultancy, working on a range of aerospace, gas turbine and renewable energy projects.
In 2018 he decided to specialise in offshore renewables and moved to K2 Management, working as a consultant in the foundation design team. Whilst there he was engaged as foundation design manager for Marwin OWF (USA), responsible for project management of the foundation design contract, and also as a lender's technical advisor for the foundation design at several OWFs worldwide.
David joined the team as the civil engineer in October 2023 and will be the focal point for all civil works. He looks after the civil engineering related elements of the cable and substation designs through pre development to construction. This includes interfaces with local infrastructure including roads, rail and drainage. David brings over 8 years of experience in Civil Infrastructure related to the energy sector. During his career he has worked on numerous projects in both pre construction and construction, this included 11kv to 400kV infrastructure routing and installation, including cables, substations and overhead lines. David started his career on site dealing with projects all over Scotland, he then moved to the Transmission Operator and worked on design development of large scale energy projects.
David graduated in 2016 with a Masters in Civil Engineering and Construction Management from Heriot Watt University, prior to this he complete his undergraduate in Civil Engineering.
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.
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.
David joined the TWP team in June 2024 as Land Manager with the responsibility for managing the onshore land engagement activities for both of TWP's offshore wind farms. This includes leading on all aspects of land assembly and negotiations with key stakeholders. David is educated to degree level and is an accomplished land professional with over 18 years experience in land acquisition, having lead the land functions with FTSE100 and privately owned companies. David is familiar with the key pre-development stages and works collaboratively with colleagues in consenting and engineering to achieve key project milestones.
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