Monday 14^th July : Climate Countdown: The Race to Net Zero

Ananda is a Principal Consultant at PA Consulting, where she specialises in operating model design and business transformation. She works with clients across the energy and infrastructure sectors to drive strategic change, optimise performance, and embed sustainability at the core of business operations.

In addition to her consulting work, she serves as Chair of the London & South East branch of Women in Nuclear, advocating for greater diversity and inclusion in the nuclear and wider energy industry.

As Program Manager for the Westinghouse eVinci® Nuclear Test Reactor, Erin Orga leads the company’s 300+ engineers in the design, licensing, assembly and testing of a 1/5 scale eVinci microreactor at the Idaho National Laboratory DOME facility. 

Ms. Orga brings more than 17 years of program and project management experience to this role – having worked at Westinghouse in a wide range of projects including the China and US AP1000 programs, the award of a Generic Design Acceptance for the AP1000 by the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation and many digital instrumentation and control system upgrade projects at operating nuclear plants across the United States. Most recently, Ms. Orga led the first successful digital safety instrumentation and control system upgrade under the revised US Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing requirements at the Waterford Nuclear Generating Station Unit 3. Prior to her career at Westinghouse, she served for 10 years in the US Air Force as an F-15E fighter pilot, flying 52 combat missions.

Ms. Orga graduated from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana with a degree in aerospace engineering. She holds a Project Management Professional certification with the Project Management Institute and is a board member for Veterans in Energy.

Ms Kunene is a Senior Manager in regulatory compliance at Necsa, with over 20 years experience in the energy sector in highly regulated environments (HRE). She has occupied various roles at Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant and at the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa).

In her current capacity at Necsa, she is championing strategic projects such as Small Modular Reactors  and the Nuclear Fuel Cycle.

She is currently pursuing a Masters in Nuclear Engineering Management. Her greatest passion is learning and sharing her expertise for the betterment of individuals and organizations. This quality enables her to be effective in business improvement and as a compliance professional.

Rebecca is a Director General in the Ministry of Defence, responsible for defining and delivering a wide ranging and complex portfolio across the broad aspects of nuclear deterrence. The portfolio covers a complex lifecycle, involving strategic materials, design, unique science test and evaluation capabilities, all while working closely with international partners. She has oversight for delivering day to day operations and responsibility for a large number of major infrastructure programmes and projects, all working in partnership with delivery bodies, industry and academia.

Previously, Rebecca was the Chief Operating Officer for Sellafield Limited, within the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, accountable for directing the nuclear operations and major nuclear programmes in the complex highly regulated and unionised environment of the Sellafield site. These major programmes included supporting the UK nuclear generation fleet, retrieval activities from first generation UK nuclear activities, as well as the wider nuclear material management and reprocessing, treatment and storage, decommissioning and remediation for the whole of the UK programme.

Rebecca is passionate about deploying and embedding innovation and has held for many years wider roles within the UK involving cross-government, industry and academia collaborations, such as realising the opportunities of smart machines across the economy through robotics and artificial intelligence.  

Rebecca has over 25 years' experience in the UK civil and defence nuclear sector and has worked across the fuel cycle nationally and internationally, particularly in the US, France and Japan. She has held a number of senior positions across Programme and Project Delivery, Operations, Commercial and Technical; and has worked within the heart of government and in the private sector, experiencing transitions to and from government ownership and contractual change.  

Rebecca has supported personal and professional development throughout her career and is passionate about education, inclusivity and developing others. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK and has a degree in Physics and an executive MBA from Oxford University, as well as an engineering doctorate. She is recognised as an international expert across nuclear fuel cycle activities by the International Atomic Energy Agency and has previously sat on their Scientific Advisory Committee on Nuclear Energy, advising the Director-General.  

Ruth has responsibility and oversight of the Procurement, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Construction and Operations functions. Her focus is on industrialising the manufacture, construction and assembly of the Rolls Royce SMR powerplant.

Ruth has held senior roles in some of the UK’s largest infrastructure programmes and has a wealth of experience in transformational management and leading complex programmes. Ruth most recently headed up the Commercial Directorate within the UK’s High Speed 2 (HS2) programme, leading on procurement, commercial and contract management, including land and property related activity.

Ruth also has significant prior career experience from the Covid-19 Vaccine Task Force, where she led the programme to deliver coronavirus vaccines for the UK receiving a CBE in recognition of her contribution. Prior to this, Ruth was Commercial Director at the Submarine Delivery Agency, an executive agency of the Ministry of Defence. She previously worked for Babcock International where she managed the Land Equipment (military vehicles and other army equipment) support supply chain. Prior to that she was programme director for Jaguar Land Rover, improving their inbound supply chain.

Ruth has a degree in Manufacturing Engineering and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.