McAulay’s appointment was approved by Ken Harvey, Pennon Group’s chairman and supported by the group’s nominations committee. He will take over from Colin Drummond who announced his intended retirement in March of this year.
Harvey said “I am delighted to welcome Ian to Pennon Group. He brings with him extensive experience of developing and delivering large scale, capital intensive infrastructure projects in both regulated and unregulated businesses and management of major complex organisations, which I believe will prove invaluable to the company.”
McAulay is currently chief of global strategy and corporate development with MWH Global based in the US. His responsibilities include company strategic planning and execution; corporate development; mergers and acquisitions; and operational management of MWH’s ResourceNet business in Pune, India.
Previously he was managing director of capital programmes at United Utilities where he was the executive director responsible for management of the regulated capital programme and the company’s non-regulated water portfolio.
He started his career as a consulting civil engineer and held a number of positions with Crouch and Hogg in Glasgow and subsequently Montgomery Watson which merged in 2001 with Harza to form MWH Global.
McAulay is a chartered civil engineer, has a degree in civil engineering and has successfully completed the Harvard Business School’s advanced management programme and Cambridge University’s business and environment programme.
Drummond will retire as chief executive and will take up the position of non-executive chairman of Viridor on McAulay’s appointment, which takes effect from 9 September 2013.