Agenda – 22th October 2021

Tim Buisseret is the Bulgaria Country Director for the Department for International Trade, based at the British Embassy in Sofia. He has lived and worked in Bulgaria for twenty years, primarily in the telecoms sector, including several years as General Manager of Mobikom, the first mobile phone company. He understands well the opportunities and challenges of doing business in Bulgaria.

Richlove Mensah is Department for International Trade’s Regional Director for Trade and Investment in Central and Eastern Europe. Based in Warsaw, he provides leadership and strategic direction to ten teams across the region: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Prior to joining DIT he worked as an Economic Adviser at the UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) where he had the responsibility for setting the strategic direction of the department’s analytical work on international trade and investment.

Prior to this, he worked at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) as Head of Global Economy and G7 Foreign Affair sous Sherpa, where he was directly involved in international G7 negotiations.
Before joining FCO, he worked as the Head of DfT’s Better Regulation Unit, where he had the overall responsibility for the quality of the Department’s Regulatory Impact Assessments.
He has also held two positions at the UK’s Business Department, including as Trade Economist. He represented the UK in this capacity at the WTO, OECD and the EU.
He studied Economics and Politics (BA) at Manchester University and International Economics (MSc) at Lunds Universitet in Sweden.

Chris O’Brien is a Senior ESG consultant with 14 years’ experience in sustainability. Beginning his career in the largest steelworks in the UK, Chris spent eight years as an environmental manager and auditor, later specialising in greenhouse gas monitoring and reporting under various regulatory requirements including the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. From steelmaking Chris became a Permitting Officer with the Welsh regulatory authority, Natural Resources Wales, regulating compliance with the EU Emissions Trading schemes as well as two other UK mandatory energy and carbon monitoring and reporting schemes, the Carbon Reduction Commitment and the Energy Savings Opportunities Scheme. Since joining SRK in 2018 Chris has contributed to due diligence studies, resource and reserve reporting and environment and social impact assessments (ESIA), but continues to specialise in developing greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories as part of ESIA studies and corporate reporting. Chris has a bachelor’s degree in marine and freshwater biology, a master’s degree in environmental dynamics and climate change, is a Chartered Environmentalist and a Lead Verifier for the international standard for GHG inventories, ISO 14064:2018.

Experienced environmental auditor since 1987. Auditing experience covers pre-acquisition, compliance regulatory and health and safety, and environmental financial liability assessments.

Simon has over 30 years of experience in integrated water management, site regeneration, demolition and decommissioning, soil and groundwater remediation, waste management, wastewater engineering and environmental engineering.

Simon has worked on a wide range of hydrological and hydrogeological assessments including catchment scale modelling, flood risk assessments and assessment of water availability/scarcity, social and environmental implications with respect to mining and oil and gas exploration and operation, optioneering assessments looking at water implications on design, closure and aftercare.

Simon has worked on site regeneration projects including the identification of re-use options for former industrial facilities, master planning/planning and environmental impact assessment work. Also the assessment of contamination impact and need for and cost of remediation within the context of redevelopment.

Simon has particular expertise in in-situ thermal focused solutions to provide rapid, cost effective and sustainable answers for the most complex site contamination problems and recalcitrant compounds, such as chlorinated solvents, PCBs, Pesticides and 1,4-dioxane.

Jenny joined the National Coal Mining Museum for England as Museum Director in October 2019. The Museum aims to illuminate the past and light the future of England's connection with coal, mining, and its rich heritage. Having led the Museum through her first pandemic she is now working with the team to develop a ten-year master plan looking at how to develop the full breadth of the site to tell the story of coal from zero to hero to net-zero!

Prior to joining the NCMM Jenny spent 15 years with the National Trust firstly as a Human Resources specialist before moving into operations management, spending her last five years as the General Manager for Nostell an 18th Century treasure house based in Wakefield.

Jenny is also passionate about culture’s role in placemaking and is a Board member on Creative Wakefield whose ambition is to ensure Wakefield is a happy, prosperous, welcoming, and inclusive place where culture and creativity are everywhere and for everyone.

I am an Environmental and Geological consultant with over 35 years of experience in the provision of environmental management and sustainability services to clients and projects across the UK, Europe and Africa.

This has included being the Project Manager for Environmental Assessments of Mine closure, reclamation and regeneration projects both in the UK and overseas. This covers the full range of associated issues including spoil heap safety assessment and reclamation, the decommissioning of existing facilities and the planning for future regeneration and sustainable development.

My involvement in the strategic development and implementation of mine closure planning has covered the range of ESG and ESMS issues necessary to give communities a sustainable future, by addressing the legacy and future environmental issues that arise from deep or opencast pit closure.This has also included delivering a wide range of ESIA’s and SEMP’s for international developments to criteria including IFC, World Bank and EITI standards.

I set up Ensure Environmental Consulting Ltd in 2016 as a cost-effective virtual consultancy to allow myself and senior colleagues to get back to practical hands-on environmental and social issue resolution, regeneration and land reclamation to deliver a sustainable future.

Stoyan has more than 13 years of experience in human resources management in the energy industry. With wide knowledge in the legal framework in EU, corporate governance, and process management he can create, develop and reengineer different sets of structures, teams, and entities. Stoyan manages the team and corporate structure development in EU and Balkan countries. He holds a bachelor's degree in Business administration, as well as a Master's degree in Finance.

Sam began his career working as a town planner within the Banks Group, Mining company based within the north east of England. Sam led the planning input into a number or new open cast coal proposals as well as managing the restoration of a number of sites that the company had within its portfolio. Following his time at Banks Sam joined Wardell Armstrong and provided further advice in relation to mineral planning and regeneration projects in both the UK and abroad. Sam has recently set up a new planning practice to provide a wide range of advice including in relation to the development and restoration of former mining projects.

Stephen Williams is the Managing Director and Owner of Energy Recovery Investments (ERI).  He is also a coal processing and marketing executive with extensive experience in the UK and Europe.

ERI is recognised as the UK’s only Specialist Coal Tip Reclamation Company with over 40 years of experience in Coal Tip Reclamation.  ERI’s advanced Coal Tip Reclamation means restoring derelict coal tips back to the original landscape, habitat, and wildlife without the requirement from public money by the recovery of coal from the mine waste.

John Grogan is the former MP for both Selby (1997-2010) and Keighley (2017-2019)  in Yorkshire in the North of England . Selby was one of the largest deep mines in Europe. When closure was announced John worked with Government to set up the Selby Taskforce to assist the miners find new jobs and bring new opportunities to the area.  Between 2012 and 2015 John chaired employee owned Hatfield Colliery which was the last but one deep coal mine in the United Kingdom to close . John is currently Chair of the Mongolian British Chamber of Commerce