Rob Woodward has been reappointed Chair of the Met Office for a second three-year term and three new Non-Executive Directors, Anusha Shah, Christine Ourmières-Widener and Prof. Jordan Giddings, have been appointed to the Met Office Board.

The role of the independent, non-executive Chair is to lead the Met Office Board. The Board's primary responsibility is developing the long-term strategy of the Met Office to provide critical weather services and world-leading climate science. The Non-Executive Directors support and challenge the Executive Directors to assist the Met Office in delivering against agreed Key Performance Indicators. The Non-Executive Directors are encouraged to assist in raising external awareness of the Met Office and its work, and to build beneficial external relationships. The new Non-Executive Directors bring a wide range of skills and experience, from scientific expertise through sustainable development to commercial and customer facing experience, which will add further depth and diversity to input to the Board. 

These appointments have been made in accordance with the Governance Code on Public Appointments. The Met Office is a Trading Fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Commenting on the appointments Rob Woodward said: “Over the last three years, the Board has overseen the development of the Met Office’s new corporate strategy, which reaffirms its commitment to provide the best weather and climate information to help the public and customers make better decisions. I am excited to have the opportunity to help realise that strategy at a time when the challenges of a changing world make our exceptional scientific, technological and operational expertise more important than ever.  I am equally delighted to welcome Anusha, Christine and Jordan to join the Met Office Board following an extremely competitive selection process with an impressive field of candidates.  Each brings specific expertise that will help the Met Office tackle the challenges ahead and together they ensure we will continue to have an appropriate range of expertise, experience and diversity of thought on the Board to support the Met Office team.”

Prof. Penny Endersby, Chief Executive Officer, welcomed the appointments, noting: “Rob’s leadership and guidance has been instrumental in re-shaping the Met Office’s strategy over the last three years. His continuing support for me and the Executive team will be of immense value as we drive forward with our ambitious plans.  I also very much look forward to working with Anusha, Christine and Jordan. They bring a depth of understanding of the needs of our partners and customers that will ensure we focus on delivering real and meaningful impacts that help people stay safe and thrive.”

 

Biographies

Rob Woodward

Rob was appointed to his first term as Chair of the Met Office Board in July 2018. He has held leadership positions across both the public and private sectors. His experience includes over 10 years as Chief Executive Officer of STV Group plc leading its successful transformation into a pre-eminent digital media group. He had previously been Commercial Director at Channel 4 Television, Managing Director with UBS Corporate Finance and lead partner for Deloitte's Telecoms, Media & Technology Industry Group in Europe.  Rob is also currently Chair of Court at Glasgow Caledonian University, Chair of technology company Blancco plc and marketing analytics provider, Ebiquity plc.

Anusha Shah

Anusha is a leading chartered engineer, thought leader, keynote speaker, panellist and a passionate advocate for diversity, inclusion and fairness. She is currently Director, Resilient Cities at Arcadis - UK, Fellow and Vice President of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), Visiting Professor at King's College London and Honorary Professor with University of Wolverhampton. She is the Past Chair of the Thames Estuary Partnership Board and was a Non-Executive Director of Thomas Telford Board (ICE’s Business wing). With over two decades of leadership and management excellence on numerous high-profile engineering and environmental projects in the UK and internationally, she is driven by a desire to make societies inclusive, safe, climate resilient and sustainable. Anusha sits on various industry NetZero and Climate Change groups including London Climate Change Partnership. She is recipient of several awards including 2020 - Top 50 UK Women Engineers in Sustainability Award.

Christine Ourmières-Widener

Christine has experience as a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and senior business leader in the travel and transport Infrastructure sectors. She has particular experience in the field of organisational change, designing and implementing business innovation and optimisation strategies. She was previously CEO of Flybe Group, Europe’s largest regional airline having previously spent almost five years as CEO at CityJet. Earlier positions include several years at Air France KLM including as Vice President & General Manager of Air France KLM USA. Christine is currently a Non-Executive Director at Datalex in Dublin and a board member of ZeroAvia, who are building the first practical zero-emission aviation powertrain. She is a recipient of IATA’s Diversity & Inclusion 2019 Inspirational Role Model award.

Prof. Jordan Giddings

Jordan is an experienced leader of innovation and change in systems, data, cyber and technology domains with a background in academia, the private sector and government. His expertise has been recognised at a national and international level. Jordan has worked in the commercial sector (including his present part time role as Chief Scientist for Improbable.io’s Defence business), Government organisations (as the UK's Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser for both National Security and for Transport), European organisations and Trade Associations. He is currently an advisor to a number of UK Government Departments, Professorial Research fellow for UKCRIC (the UK Collaboratorium for Research of Infrastructure and Cities) at UCL, visiting Professor at the University of Hertfordshire and an Honorary Principal Research Fellow to the Imperial College Institute for Security Science and Technology as well as a Fellow of several professional bodies.