The Board

Dr Michael Shaw is Managing Director of RPS Ireland Ltd, a business segment within the RPS Group plc. Michael graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Civil Engineering in 1981 and following a 3-year period of research into “Wave- Current Interaction” was awarded a PhD in 1985.

In 1996 he became a Partner in a local consultancy firm, Kirk, McClure, Morton, which became part of the 5500 strong Global RPS multidisciplinary consultancy group in 2004. As Managing Director of over 220 staff in NI, Michael now takes a strategic oversight for all operations and projects within the business. : “We deliver strategic and sustainable projects; we plan, design, develop and manage infrastructure assets for both the public and private sectors.  Throughout my career I have focused on results orientated strategies to deliver “best in class” service to clients. I firmly believe that innovation should be at the heart of an organisation”

Michael is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a Member of Engineers Ireland, a Member of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, and a Member of the Institute of Directors.

Michael is active within the construction industry in promoting innovative excellence, particularly in the fields of Virtual and Augmented Reality, and Artificial Intelligence applied to design and collaborative solutions.

Professor David Rooney is the Dean of Internationalisation and Reputation within the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast. He is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Queen’s and director of the Centre for Advanced Sustainable Energy.

His research focuses on energy generation, materials and system integration with a particular focus on Zero Carbon technologies. He has a H-Index of 57, over 10,000 citations and a grant portfolio of over £10m. He works with a wide range of industries and government bodies, to advance decarbonisation through specific projects, as well as supporting collaboration and cooperation through industrial clusters.

David Moore has been CEO at GES Group since 2019 having joined the company as managing director in 2008. The GES Group is an award-winning company, providing power and energytech solutions for SMEs and large multi-nationals across a number of industry sectors, including renewables.  Most recently David co-founded Girona Energy Limited as a Joint Venture created in 2019 and the Girona ‘Smart-grid’ project worth some £7.5m works by combining expertise in power engineering, FinTech and big data.

I graduated from Queen’s University Belfast in 1976 with a Degree and PhD in Industrial Chemistry and joined Bombardier Aerospace Belfast as a Development Engineer specialising in adhesives and composite materials. In 1992 I was promoted to Technology Development Manager. In addition to managing the R&D Programme at Bombardier’s Belfast facility, I Chaired the Bombardier Aerospace Companies R&D Committee which had responsibility for all R&D within the Aerospace Division of Bombardier Inc. This included Shorts (Belfast), Canadair (Montreal), De Havilland (Toronto) and Learjet (Wichita).

I joined the QUESTOR Centre at QUB in 1996 as Projects Manager and became Director of the Centre in 2002. I also helped set up CASE and was the Founding Director.

I retired from QUB in May 2014 and helped set up Globus 3 Ltd, a Company that has developed a proprietary technology for granulating waste biomass materials (such as chicken litter, digestate and animal slurries etc.) to form spherical granules that can be used as either a fuel or as a fertiliser.

I am currently Chairman and a Director of Globus 3 Ltd.

Former Board Director and Water Industry Professional with high calibre change and transformation management experience, working at Chief Executive, Executive Director and Senior Management positions across complex and heavily regulated environments including public sector, government-owned company, non-departmental public bodies and the private sector.

A Chartered Engineer and Environmentalist, together with being a Fellow of The Institution of Civil Engineers, the Chartered Institution of Environmental Management and Institution of Water Officers, he has led and successfully implemented business change programmes delivering improved customer service and efficiency savings in a management career extending to almost 40 years.  Dealt with a wide range of stakeholders including DRD and other Government Departments, NIAUR, NIEA, DWI, CCNI all at Board or Director level. Currently establishing a portfolio career focused on providing consultancy advice to clients working in the construction, water and wastewater sectors both in the UK and Internationally.

Experience in these markets includes Water Resource Management Planning, Major Incident Planning, Change Management, Risk Assessment and Management, Governance, Renewable energy, Health and Safety and Project Management.   Strong communication skills, spoke at numerous conferences on the water industry and procurement including Dublin, Amsterdam and London.  Awarded the CBE for services to the local water industry and voluntary work in the community, Trevor currently holds 3 non-executive posts being on the Boards of Warrenpoint Harbour, Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and Chair of CASE.

With a background spanning almost 20 years in the commercial roofing industry, Senergy are a Belfast based enterprise that design and   manufacture SMART Solar Thermal Panels. Combining her roofing expertise with that of global leading engineers, Christine Boyle Senergy CEO has developed the Senergy solar thermal panels. Unlike current solar thermal panels that are made from glass, copper and aluminium, Senergy panels are manufactured using advanced nanocomposite plastics reducing the manufacturing and installation costs by 50%

The panels integrate easily with the construction architecture and are embedded with low cost sensor and information technologies that easily integrate with the digital architecture of buildings. The IOT/ IQT platform means the energy supply is more efficient and the building owner has greater control.

Senergy is currently building a real-world demonstrator and securing potential partners and customers in the UK, Europe, the USA and Africa, as these regions roll out legislation that all new buildings must install solar on their roof.

Mr Christopher Johnston (M.Sc. B.Sc.) is Project Leader with responsibility for AFBI’s Agri-Environmental Technologies unit which carries out R&D & demonstration of production of bioenergy, the associated recycling of wastes to biomass crops, biomass processing and combustion systems and the resulting emissions and environmental protection. He has over 12 years’ experience in the sector in both a private SME and a public sector capacity.

The bulk of his past and current workload is research and the development of proof of concept biofiltration solutions demonstrating the use of SRC willow plantations for the management of waste waters and effluents from varied sources (sewage, municipal waste water, farmyard, food processing, leachates, diffuse agricultural pollution) in which he has been successful in drawing down funding (in excess of €1.5m) over the last few years from a variety of sources including EU, Innovate UK, Research Council, local Departmental.

Roger Henderson currently holds the position of Network Assets Director at NIE Networks with responsibility for network development and asset investment strategy.

He joined NIE Networks as a graduate engineer and has developed extensive management experience in networks operations, major project delivery and connections of renewable technologies to the electricity network.

He previously held the position of Network Connections Director and led the change within the business to facilitate competition to the connections market in Northern Ireland.  He is a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Demonstrable track record of commercial achievement in instigating new environmental business, both on behalf of private investors and large waste companies. Now operating via his company Organic Power Ireland Ltd which is leading, and has collaboration agreements with a number of advanced and complimentary European waste (to energy) technologies. This enables the group to offer sustainable and cost effective solutions from this portfolio, for the management and treatment of household waste, agri wastes (from farm to fork) and waste water. Our philosophy is to treat ‘waste’ as a resource and to bring ‘closed loop solutions’ to reality.

Professor Neil Hewitt is the director of The Centre for Sustainable Technologies which incorporates aspects of the Northern Ireland Centre for Energy Research and Technology (NICERT), the River Hydraulics and Hydropower group, the Highway Engineering Research Group (HERG) and Construction.

David is a director and shareholder of each of the B9 Energy Group companies; Chairman of the Matrix Sustainable Energy Advisory Panel in Northern Ireland and also the North‐South Market Development Steering Group on waste management.

In 1992, David, and his colleagues, formed B9 Energy group which has built 10 onshore wind farms and represent the UK & Ireland’s largest independent operator of wind plant with 550 wind turbines on 35 wind farms. B9 Energy also developed NI‘s first utility scale anaerobic digestion power station.

Thomas Cromie is an experienced business and project developer, consultant and project manager with over ten years expertise within the anaerobic digestion sector in the UK and Ireland.

Specific technical areas: anaerobic digestion (project funding, contract negotiation, technology selection, biogas utilisation, project design; perfomance optimisation and enhancement; feedstock management; agriculture; waste); nutrients;

Active in renewable energy policy development (external stakeholder for Dept of Agriculture and Rural Development and for Dept of Enterprise Trade and Investment) and innovation support (Steering committee of the Center of Advanced Sustainable Energy).

Specialties: project funding for anaerobic digestion, contract development and relationship building; technology foresight; strategic innovation; advice to SMEs.