Conference 2018

In her role as General Counsel of the London Bullion Market Association and also as Executive Director of the LBMA Board, Sakhila Mirza works closely with the CEO on the strategic direction of the LBMA. Her responsibilities include all the legal and regulatory work of the Association and that of London Precious Metals Clearing Limited (LPMCL).  Her role involves the LBMA’s work in relation to Responsible Sourcing, lobbying efforts on behalf of members on a wide range of regulatory issues, for example the EU Conflicts Minerals regulation.

Aidan is Director of the BOMcheck industry-led substances declarations web database and the EC4P web database system for WEEE, Batteries and Packaging compliance.

In 2010 Aidan was appointed co-chair of the IPC 1752A Materials Declaration Standard.  In 2012 he was appointed UK National Expert on the IEC 62474 Materials Declaration Standard and the EN 50581 Standard for RoHS2 Technical Documentation.  In 2013 he was appointed as European Regional Coordinator for the IEC 62474 Materials Declaration Standard.

Weiwei’s practice focuses on international and Chinese legal issues, including experience in business transactions (China, EU, US), regulatory, and trade matters. Weiwei advises clients on materials restriction (e.g., RoHS), recycling, chemicals management, raw materials shipment and inspection, and other issues facing manufacturers operating in or shipping to China.

Kerrill is the EU HSE Compliance Specialist for Meggitt PLC, a global engineering company specialising in extreme environment components and smart sub-systems for aerospace, defence and energy sectors.  His remit is to ensure safe working best practice within manufacturing processes and, that Meggitt products comply with international health, safety and environmental law; as well as to stringent environmental contractual parameters prescribed by Meggitt’s customer base.
Kerrill has previously been Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC now ADS) Environmental Working Group (EWG).

Kerrill is an active member of both the ADS Hazardous Material subgroup and also the ASD (European AeroSpace sector) REACH Implementation Working Group (RIWG) dealing with chemical obsolescence issues and regulatory engagement for the aerospace & defence industry.  Since 2017, Kerrill has represented Meggitt PLC on the International Aerospace Environmental Working Group (IAEG).

Paul provides consultancy on environmental and technical legislation including the EU RoHS, WEEE, and Eco-design directives and the REACH regulations. He assists clients to determine their obligations and to deal with the implications of the legislation. He regularly presents papers on regulatory compliance issues at international conferences. Paul has recently worked on several projects for the European Commission on the RoHS Directive, Eco-design and critical raw materials. He regularly advises the UK Department for Business Innovation and Skills on issues relating to electrical equipment and legislation and, he is a member of the EU RoHS Additional Substances Working Group. 
Paul is a chemist with expertise in materials used in electrical equipment and he has carried out numerous investigations into a wide variety of reliability issues and failures of electronic equipment. Paul has written reviews on electrical contacts and connectors, soldering, microelectronics and he is a regular contributor to RINA’s environmental newsletter, “RE4view”.

Michael is the Enforcement Manager at the Office for Product Safety and Standards within BEIS. Safety and Standards are the UK Market Surveillance Authority for enforcing Ecodesign and Energy Labelling, RoHS, batteries (placing on the market), WEEE and a number other pieces of legislation. Michael has a background in academia, but has worked previously in the private sector specialising in airfreight prior to moving into the public sector in 2013. He has worked on implementing and enforcing several technical and environmental regulations at Regulatory Delivery, most recently returning to the Ecodesign team as Manager.

Romain Letenneur graduated in Business Affairs and Entrepreneurship from the EDC Business School in Paris and holds Masters degrees from EMLV and London South Bank University.
He joined Ecologic in 2007. Ecologic is a French WEEE compliance and take-back scheme to manage operations, auditing, purchasing, sales and European affairs. In 2013, Romain contributed to the setup of WEEElogic, a European compliance hub for WEEE, batteries and packaging. Romain still manages the compliance hub which offers a simple and easy solution to producers, original equipment manufacturers, manufacturers and remanufacturers to manage obligations in Europe.
WEEElogic provides legal support, compliance solutions, single vendor solutions and worldwide compliance overviews as well as takeback and recycling solutions.

Alex provides consultancy on product regulatory, standards and policy issues. The focus of this is largely environmental legislation; spanning eco-design, packaging, REACH, RoHS and WEEE.  He also has auditing qualifications and is able to consult on quality, environmental and social compliance management standards. 

Alex has been published in the ‘Review of European Community & International Environmental Law’, ‘Business Strategy & the Environment’, ‘The Environmentalist’, and was a regular contributor to ‘IER Magazine’.  He now writes for C2P and RINA’s environmental newsletter ‘RE4view’.

Nick has over 15 years’ experience working in the development of scientific equipment, instrumentation and semiconductor processes.

He has now turned his troubleshooting experience gained in several branches of high tech industry to the reliability and failure analysis consultancy with RINA, where he has been working since 2010. 

Craig is Programme Manager across Digital Devices, Consumer Electronics and Environment and Compliance which covers issues as diverse as modern slavery, conflict minerals, new tech, compliance and Brexit. Prior to joining techUK he worked in public affairs, communications, television and consumer electronics and he has an avid interest in new and emerging technologies.

Steve Brambley is Chief Executive at GAMBICA, the Trade Association for Instrumentation, Control, Automation and Laboratory Technology in the UK.

Steve brings experience from the automotive industry, having worked for the Michelin Tyre Company and the Dana Corporation in roles across manufacturing, quality, logistics and engineering. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Loughborough University.

GAMBICA is the voice of the instrumentation, control and automation industry in the areas of standards, regulation and economic policy. It offers members a common platform for voicing their opinions and representing their common interests. GAMBICA seeks to spread best-practice and be thought leaders in the sector. Further information can be found at http://www.gambica.org.uk/

Dr Emily Lydgate is a University of Sussex Law Lecturer whose expertise lies in international trade law and agricultural and renewable energy policy and, she is widely published in these topics. Emily is also a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO), a partnership between the University of Sussex and the renowned international affairs think tank, Chatham House. Created in June 2016 following the UK’s Brexit referendum, UKTPO is an independent expert group that seeks to initiate, comment on, and analyse trade policy proposals for the UK as well as give training to British policymakers and trade negotiators. In her capacity as UKTPO Fellow, Emily offers advice to businesses and government representatives on the implications for the UK of leaving the EU.

Prior to joining the University of Sussex, Emily consulted at the United Nations Environment Programme’s Economics and Trade Branch where she acted as a World Trade Organisation liaison. She also served as the programme officer of the Clean Trade Project.

Sue has been with the Business department for 20 years, predominantly working on legislation across the technology space.  She has most recently led the EU Exit work for the Office for Product Safety & Standards and is now looking at the legislative needs of OPSS for the future, including looking at opportunities that arise from EU Exit. 
Prior to joining the Civil Service, Sue spent 10 years in the private sector working in retail and banking. 

Steve George has worked for in the Aerospace industry for 29 years in a range of product development and management roles, in recent years specialising in functional management of issues relating to supply chain management and engineering work undertaken by suppliers.

Steve is currently chair of the Aerospace and Defence Industries of Europe (ASD) REACH working group, and also a Director of the International Aerospace Environment Group.

Steve Andrews is a former Deputy Head of the Resources & Waste Division in the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra).  He is a policy expert, with more than 17 years of experience in EU policy development focusing on sustainability, product, waste and recycling legislation (including RoHS, WEEE, Packaging and the Circular Economy Package).  Steve left Defra at the end of March this year and joined Assent Compliance as a Subject Matter Expert in Environmental Stewardship & Policy in June.

Steve Pearson has served the Royal Navy for almost 35 years, beginning in the Fleet Air Arm as an AEW Observer and moving on through the Warfare Specialisation as a Gunnery Officer and Area Air Defence Specialist rising to Command HMS Newcastle for two years including an eight-month global deployment that included visits to China, Russia and Vietnam.  Spells instructing in the sea training school included developing programmes for the Navies of South Africa, Poland and Norway.  A tour with NATO added some diversity leading the NATO Counter-IED Task Force and integrating Albania and Croatia into the Alliance.  His seagoing career culminated as Commander HMS Ark Royal and as Captain Surface Ships in Portsmouth responsible for generating the Flotilla’s ships for operations. A tour as Head of PR for the Navy included developing Branding Rules, the Navy Website and TV documentaries.

Ourania Georgoutsakou joined LightingEurope as Secretary General in April 2017 with 15-years’ experience of advocating for membership associations. Ourania worked for 5 years as Director, Public Policy Europe for SEMI, the global trade association representing the manufacturing supply chain for the semiconductor and related industries. She liaised with SEMI member companies and EU decision-makers to create a balanced regulatory environment and to promote Europe’s global competitiveness. Previously, Ourania worked for 10 years as Senior Policy Coordinator at the Assembly of European Regions in Brussels and Strasbourg, where she worked directly with elected regional politicians to help shape and to implement EU policies. During her career Ourania has worked on several issues, from the EU Lisbon Treaty to the EU Services Directive, and from health and social policy to environmental rules and e-innovation. Ourania holds degrees in European Law and Policy-Making.

Marco Meloni joined the Foundation as a Research Analyst in March 2017 after obtaining an Industrial Ecology MSc. degree from TU Delft and Leiden University in the Netherlands. Since then, he has worked on understanding how to transition to a circular economy and the benefits this would entail for different industry sectors.

Dr. Freimut Schröder is Vice President and head of the corporate department of Environment, Health & Safety at Siemens Healthineers, located in Erlangen Germany.

Graduating from the University of Göttingen in Germany, with a degree in physics, Freimut is active in several professional organisations, including ISO, IEC and COCIR. He is also a part-time lecturer at the University of Bamberg.