Speakers
Aiken Besley
Senior Advisor – Water Resources, Security of Supply, Environment & Business – Water, Environment Agency
Aiken specialises in water resources policy, planning and regulation. He has more than nine years’ experience in water resources planning locally and nationally, including more than seven years of regulatory work on demand management and leakage. His work has helped underpin England’s national water demand target. Aiken plays a leading national role on water demand within the Environment Agency, working closely with Defra and the water industry, and has advised senior government officials on key water resources issues. As a member of the International Water Association, he has also presented internationally on England’s water resources challenges and policies.
Matt Burrows
Leakage and Smart Networks Manager, Portsmouth Water
Matt began his career at Portsmouth Water as a leakage technician in 2014, and has since held roles in leakage analytics, leakage operations and smart network optimisation. His current responsibilities include leakage detection operations, leakage and water balance reporting and assurance, and smart network logger maintenance, optimisation and analysis. Matt has helped build the Leakage Department at Portsmouth Water from a small team of 10 in 2022 to a team of 45 in 2026. He is also responsible for pressure optimisation and DMA/PMA design, where there has been a large active roll-out programme across AMP8, with an additional 40 PRVs and 100 DMAs installed so far – a 100% increase from the end of AMP7.
Ken Cartwright
Senior Associate Engineer – Leakage Service Line Lead, AtkinsRéalis
Ken has more than 30 years’ experience in the water and leakage industry, and leads the AtkinsRéalis Demand Management Workstream. He champions a whole-system approach to water management that spans abstraction, treatment, distribution, leakage reduction and customer demand. In recent years, Ken has specialised in upstream leakage, helping develop industry best practice and contributing to recommendations to Ofwat on the transition from leakage estimation to flow balance-based reporting. He has also led and supported a wide range of water demand reduction initiatives within the UK and internationally, including pressure management, network water loss reduction and customer water efficiency, delivering sustainable improvements in performance and resilience.
Jon Chappell
Deputy Director – Water and PR24 Delivery, Water UK
Jon leads reforms to planning for water supply, from source to tap and supporting infrastructure delivery. He previously worked on the Government’s 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy at HM Treasury and led water policy at the National Infrastructure Commission, authoring reports on costs, planning reform, asset resilience standards and climate-resilience.
Thomas Coleman
CRO and Co-Founder, Lightsonic
Lightsonic uses distributed fibre optic sensing to turn existing telecom networks into underground acoustic microphones that help water utilities find leaks. Thomas founded Lightsonic with three co-founders in 2024 and is responsible for its commercial, legal and delivery-related activities. He works closely with UK water companies to help them meet their AMP8 leakage commitments. He focuses on showing how earlier and improved detection delivers measurable operational, financial and regulatory benefits. He is passionate about tackling the UK’s growing water scarcity challenge and believes cutting the water lost from our networks is one of the fastest ways to protect future supplies.
Richard Collins
Senior Lecturer in Water Engineering,
University of Sheffield
Richard graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in aerospace engineering in 2005. He completed his PhD on the use of smart materials in valves in the departments of Materials and Mechanical Engineering. In 2009, he joined the Department of Civil Engineering as a researcher looking into the risks of hydraulic transients in water distribution systems. Now, as Senior Lecturer in Water Engineering at University of Sheffield, his research is focused on understanding and ensuring the future of all kinds of buried pipe infrastructure. This involves understanding the condition and deterioration of the systems but also how this is affected by the ways in which they are being used and managed. A vital component of this is determining the information we can extract from the water systems to give us real-world actionable knowledge, whether from high frequency transient information or making use of the increasing levels of consumer smart meter data.
Anastasia Cottrell
Mechanical Engineer, AtkinsRéalis
Anastasia has four years’ experience specialising in water and wastewater projects. She has worked on a wide range of schemes for major UK utilities, including treatment works design, asset condition assessments, water regulations compliance and sludge treatment projects. Her experience spans design and asset management, with a strong focus on improving the reliability and resilience of critical water infrastructure. Based on recent projects for non-water company clients, Anastasia has a newly found growing interest in leakage and, combined with her understanding of the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations and strong technical background, is keen to further develop her knowledge of the leakage industry.
Rachel Cunningham
Networks R&D Manager, Engineering Innovation, Thames Water
Rachel has worked for Thames Water for almost 30 years within its Innovation/R&D team. Rachel is the R&D manager for all network research, both water and waste, and leads a multidisciplinary team of 15 researchers delivering and embedding innovation across the business. Her experience includes the Tideway tunnel, in-pipe inspection, fatbergs, cast iron pipe failure research – and even sludge treatment.
Geoff Darch
Head of Strategic Asset Planning, Anglian Water and Non-Executive Director, Water Resources East
Geoff leads teams responsible for supply and demand forecasting and monitoring (including the water balance and leakage), supply-side and demand management strategy and resource trading. He is also a non-executive director of Water Resources East, the regional, multi-sector membership organisation pioneering new approaches to managing water resources. Prior to joining Anglian Water in 2017, Geoff spent 17 years in consultancy, advising on infrastructure climate risks and adaptation for international finance institutions, government departments, environmental agencies and utility companies. He has a PhD in hydro-climatology from UEA, is a Chartered Scientist, and a Fellow of CIWEM and the Royal Meteorological Society.
Shane Gloster
Head of Leakage, Thames Water
Shane has worked at Thames Water for almost 12 years in roles spanning operations, asset management and transformation, and has been Head of Leakage for the past two-and-a-half years. He currently leads Thames Water's leakage strategy, and the operational teams’ approach to active leakage control. He is a mechanical engineer, and has spent his career improving asset performance from a strategic and delivery perspective. He has played leading roles in building Thames Water’s calm system capability, shaping their approach to upstream leakage, moving the company to a more qualitative-driven approach to ALC, and building local ownership capability within the business.
Matthew Harrison
Head of Operations, PRVentor
A Chartered Accountant and former Royal Marines officer, Matthew provides strategic and commercial leadership at PRVentor, drawing on experience across industries from farming and leisure marine to economic regulation, defence technology and SaaS. He is focused on the commercialisation and adoption of PRVentor, working with water companies and industry partners to demonstrate the potential of precise, stable, full-range pressure control. Matthew’s particular interest is in broadening the role of pressure management, from reducing leakage in the short-term to protecting assets in the long-term, with the wider leakage, resilience and water-quality benefits that brings.
Reagan Hawkins
Head of Calm & Smart Networks, WRc
Reagan has more than 20 years’ experience in the water industry, combining operational expertise with data analysis and strategic leakage management. His operational experience includes managing leakage detection activities, deploying and maintaining acoustic logging technologies, and overseeing pressure management installation, optimisation and servicing. He is experienced in DMA verification and calibration, monitoring performance and improving leakage detection processes. His data analysis and strategic experience includes developing and managing performance dashboards, analysing data from multiple sources to support leakage targeting and developing the Sustainable Economic Level of Leakage (SELL). He continues to work with diverse teams of utility staff and contractors in the UK and overseas on projects delivering tangible leakage reduction, customer service improvements and robust regulatory reporting.
Alex Hayton
Head of Leakage, Affinity Water
Alex Hayton has more than 26 years’ experience in the UK water industry. Throughout his career, Alex has held a range of operational and senior leadership roles, developing extensive experience across water abstraction, treatment, distribution and network operations. Having previously led large operational teams responsible for maintaining essential water services, Alex brings a strong understanding of the challenges facing the industry, balancing day-to-day operational performance with long-term resilience, efficiency and customer expectations. In his current role, Alex is responsible for leading Affinity Water’s leakage operations and delivering its leakage reduction strategy. He is passionate about developing high-performing teams, challenging traditional ways of working and embracing innovation and emerging technologies to deliver meaningful operational improvements.
Jeremy Heath
Innovation Manager, SES Water
With more than 30 years' experience in the water industry, Jeremy is responsible for the management of innovation within the Pennon Group’s clean water businesses. He has a keen interest in innovations that will transform how we manage our water networks, in particular smart metering, smart networks, artificial intelligence and IoT communications. In addition to his role at Pennon, Jeremy is also the lead for the UKWIR national zero leakage project and is responsible for driving the UK leakage research programme.
Elliot Howell
Customer Leakage Manager, Southern Water
Elliot has been in post for two years, developing a new team and process to help Southern Water reduce customer leakage quicker. The team will soon move from leakage to the company’s customer department. Elliot previously spent 10 years at Affinity Water, where he worked in water efficiency before heading up their CSL programme. Before that, he spent time as an inspector with Thames Water and Severn Trent Water.
Matthew Hughes
Smart System Strategy Manager, Anglian Water
Matt brings broad experience from across the water industry, spanning operational leadership, asset management, major infrastructure investment, optimisation and smart water networks. He has led teams responsible for delivering safe, clean drinking water and, more recently, specialist programmes covering network optimisation and pressure management, energy efficiency, treatment works optimisation and smart network solutions. These programmes have delivered significant reductions in leakage, water loss, operating costs and carbon emissions while maintaining excellent customer service. Matt also led the Safe Smart Systems Ofwat Innovation Fund project on behalf of Anglian Water and the wider industry, alongside several AI initiatives. He now leads the strategy and implementation of Smart Water Networks, creating value from source to tap.
Joshua Ketley
Leakage Consultant, WRc
Joshua specialises in data-led, evidence-based approaches to leakage management and strategy development. His experience includes building and refining Sustainable Economic Level of Leakage (SELL) models, Natural Rate of Rise (NRR) studies and pipe-level leakage hot spotting models. Joshua has also worked across water balance calculations, uncertainty modelling, upstream losses targeting and reporting, and hydraulic modelling. He has supported projects in the UK and internationally, combining analytical and modelling approaches to help water companies of varying size and maturity better understand, target and deliver leakage reductions.
Dr Natalie Lamb
Senior Manager, Sector Intelligence, Spring Innovation
Natalie drives centralised intelligence for the UK and Ireland water sector across water companies, the supply chain, academia and regulators. Alongside her day role, she chairs the UK Young Water Professionals for the International Water Association and serves as Global YWP Chapter Coordinator. She is also Vice Chair of the Institute of Water's Eastern Area and a visiting researcher at the University of Sheffield. Spring Innovation recently ran a global call for innovation in the no dig space, drawing on international expertise to surface new solutions for the sector, and is now coordinating cross-sector efforts around leakage to bring together water companies, suppliers and researchers to accelerate progress in this priority area.
Karma Loveday
Editor, The UK Water Report
Karma Loveday is a specialist water sector journalist and advisor. She founded and continues to edit The UK Water Report, which specialises in policy, regulation and finance. She also works as an advisor to the Major Energy Users' Council, a membership body for large water and energy consumers, and to British Water, which represents the water supply chain community. She is a regular chair and speaker at industry events.
John Marsden
CEO, Origin Tech
John is an experienced business leader, co-founding Origin Tech in 2019. Motivated by a passion to make sustainable impacts in the water industry through innovative technology, he has dedicated his career to pushing the boundaries of technology. He is committed to fostering trust-based relationships throughout the water industry and creating a workforce of specialists from around the world. One of John's greatest achievements has been the commercialisation of satellite leak identification and repair services that proactively reduce leakage, carbon emissions and save water at a global scale.
Phill Mills
Independent Chair, UK Water Retailer Council (UKWRC)
As chair of the representative body for retailers in the business retail market, Phill has a keen interest in water efficiency and is a member of the Water Efficiency Campaign (WEC) Stakeholder Group and NHH working group. He is also an independent consultant in the water sector and supports other organisations, including the Energy and Environment Awards. He carries out the Competent Operator Scheme audits of water companies and the National Association of Drainage Contractors as an advisor to the Board. Phill’s previous roles include Deputy Chief Executive at Water UK and Divisional Manager at Wessex Water, where he was responsible for water supply from source to tap.
Glen Mountfort
Integrated Systems and Environment Director, WRc Group
Glen joined WRc in 2020, and is part of the Exec team, and has specialised in leakage and water resources planning in a career spanning 23 years. He has previously worked for Jacobs and prior to that, South Staffs Water. Glen has been involved in business planning and water resources planning between PR09 and PR24, and has also undertaken technical assurance for water companies during his career. He continues to support UK water companies and has been involved in the delivery of a number of international projects.
Dr Prabhakar Muchukota Narendra
Research Associate in Polymer Engineering, University of Bristol
Dr Narendra has extensive international research experience in polymer science, advanced composite materials and sustainable material technologies. His research interests include polymer formulation, fibre-reinforced composites, mechanical characterisation, fracture mechanics and self-healing materials. He has contributed to peer-reviewed scientific publications, patented innovations and internationally collaborative research projects. At Bristol, he contributes to the £3.5m Ofwat-funded Designer Liner programme, focusing on the development and characterisation of innovative polymeric liner materials for water distribution infrastructure. His current research investigates the mechanical performance, damage behaviour and healing potential of fibre-reinforced polymer composites, with the aim of supporting more durable and sustainable water infrastructure.
Ian Pemberton
Principal Engineer – Engineering and Asset Management, Ofwat
Ian is a chartered engineer with ICE and CIWEM and, for the last ten years, has been an engineer at Ofwat. His keen interest in leakage and particularly the accuracy with which leakage can be reported has been instrumental in Ofwat establishing their ongoing review into leakage reporting methodology for England and Wales. Ian has a background in metering and data acquisition, and has an interest in how all stakeholders can best define meter accuracy and, therefore, derive the best value from metered data. Ian also advises colleagues on technical issues related to clean water supply including innovation, casework, assessment of company performance and the definitions for performance commitments.
James Ramsay
CTO & Co-founder, Lightsonic
James Ramsay is co-founder of Lightsonic, a UK company that uses existing telecoms fibre as distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) networks to detect leaks on water distribution pipes. He leads engineering and product development, including the signal processing and machine learning that turn raw fibre data into leak locations for water utilities. James has more than a decade of experience in data science and data platform design. Before founding Lightsonic, he worked at LYTT, where he developed a cloud-based fibre-optic analytics platform for BP and spent several years applying distributed fibre sensing in the energy sector. At Lightsonic, his focus is on making fibre-based monitoring practical at network scale. That means reliable detection, accurate location and outputs that leakage teams can act on in the field.
Rosie Rand
NHH Smart Metering & Demand Reduction Programme Manager, Thames Water
Rosie leads the roll-out of Thames Water’s large-scale smart metering programme for businesses (with more than 50% of all business meters now smart). The programme focuses on using smart data to drive down demand, improve efficiency and deliver value for business customers and retailers. With 21 years in the water industry and six specialising in smart metering, Rosie is an expert in smart meter programme delivery, data insight, water efficiency and demand reduction, and stakeholder engagement. She is a member of the MOSL Metering Committee and the steering group for the upcoming Smart Meter Read Hub, and is passionate about tackling continuous flow and leakage through data-led insights. Rosie shares lessons from roll-outs and outlines future priorities for scaling smart metering across the NHH market to maximise the benefits.
Dr Joe Sanders
Senior Technical Director, Tetra Tech
Joe has more than 18 years’ experience working in the water industry as an academic, water company employee and consultant. His areas of expertise include asset management, leakage, water resources and network optimisation. He has extensive knowledge of leakage assessment, reporting and calculation techniques. Before moving to Tetra Tech he held a number of positions at Affinity Water and Artesia Consulting, where he focused on leakage and network asset management. Joe is still involved in academia, assisting in primary research on a number of projects. He co-authored Water UK’s A Leakage Routemap to 2050, which sets out the needs of the industry for the next 25 years. He is a chartered engineer, scientist, environmentalist, and water and environmental manager, and a Fellow of CIWEM and Vice Chair of their Engineering Standards Committee.
Harry Smith
CEO, LeakSolve AI
Harry is a cyber security graduate with a passion for building a business that makes a real difference. An initial conversation with a leakage specialist, combined with attending the Annual Leakage Conference and Future Water events, helped him identify a gap in the market and a problem worth solving. From this, LeakSolve AI was born, capturing experienced technicians’ knowledge and making it available to the next generation with AI to close the leakage skills gap.
Bob Taylor
Chief Executive Officer,
Portsmouth Water
Portsmouth Water has a 160-year history of providing water services on the south coast of the UK, and today serves a population of around 800,000. The company has a well-established reputation as one of the consistently best performers in the sector at lowest price and has embarked on the first major reservoir project to be built in the UK since privatisation. Prior to joining Portsmouth Water, Bob was Operations Director – Drinking Water Services for South West Water, part of the FTSE-listed Pennon Group.
Stuart Trow
Consultant, Trow Consulting
Stuart Trow has recently retired after a career of exactly 50 years in the UK water industry, most of which was directly involved with leakage management from all perspectives. He has managed leakage data and leak detection teams as a water company manager, has owned and managed a company specialising in ELL estimation, pressure management and leak detection, and has been a director of two pressure management companies, and two mains rehabilitation companies. He has undertaken regulatory and strategy reviews for several UK water companies, Irish Water and some other international work. He was Ofwat reporter for Anglian Water and was the Leakage Reviewer for WICS and Scottish Water from 2009 to 2022. Stuart has acted as Project Director for the Ofwat funded Managing Background Leakage initiative for the past four years.
Dr Xiaohan Wang
Advanced Research Engineer, National Composites Centre
Dr Wang is a chartered engineer with 15 years’ research and development experience in aerospace and turbomachinery, marine, energy and civil engineering. He specialises in engineering analysis, including finite element analysis, automation and optimisation, and has been the technical lead on process development for cooperation in space programmes at NCC, and the leading analysis engineer across multiple other projects. He has participated in multiple innovation programmes with large OEMs such as Rolls-Royce, Airbus and Siemens. His experience also covers test rig design and application for R&D programmes. His work for Design Liner focuses on the mechanical design of liners with composite materials, and derisking the design concepts by improving the understanding of failure modes through structural analysis. His work is closely correlated with manufacturing trials and testing to enable prototyping and demonstration of the lining technology.
Tom Woolley
Chief Revenue Officer, Optimatics
Tom has more than 20 years’ experience in market development across the water and renewables sectors. His background spans IoT, smart metering, analytics, AI and real-time optimisation, giving him a practical view of how data and technology can improve network performance. A qualified engineer, he has lived and worked in several countries, including five years in Zambia. Tom is known across the industry for building collaborative, innovative solutions, and he brings that approach to Optimatics, helping utilities tackle operational and regulatory challenges with new tools and thinking.
