He will be succeeded by Jenny Harrison, who was previously financial controller at UK Power Networks, when he leaves on 31 March.
Roberts has been finance director at the company since its creation in October 2010 and held the role at its legacy firms – EDF Energy Networks and Seeboard. However, he said the last seven years have been the highlight for him.
He said: “It has been a really great seven years and the performance of the business has improved beyond anyone’s expectations. It was a complete mindset change, for the better. We became really focused and had a proper vision, which had hard measurable targets across every area, so month-on-month we could track how we were doing.
“This has been the highlight of my career, helping take an under-performing organisation to one recognised among the best performing utility companies in the UK. I’m most proud of our safety performance. Safety starts at the top of the organisation and whatever role you are in you must care passionately about it and make sure everyone you are in contact with cares passionately about it.”
Commenting on his departure, he added: “I am sure I will miss it. I have genuinely loved working for UK Power Networks, Basil (Scarsella, chief executive) in particular. He is a great boss, a ‘proper’ chief executive who is very focused on performance.
“He gets frustrated with issues, not the person and wants things fixed quickly. He is the longest boss I have ever worked for and the first boss I have ever had who is also an ex-finance director, so he knows all the difficult questions to ask.”
After qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1987 Roberts gained experience in regulated and non-regulated activities in the energy sector. He started at KPMG, one of the big accountancy firms, where he worked on privatisation of the electricity industry.
He joined Seeboard as commercial manager 18 months later, where his role was to help parts of the business become more commercially focused following privatisation. This led to an appointment as financial controller in Seeboard’s contracting business.
He worked on the bid team for the 30-year contract to provide power infrastructure for the London Underground. The bid was successful and he was appointed into the new management team for the contract and worked on strategic mergers and acquisitions and under-performing areas of the business for the chairman and chief executive.
In December 1999, when the firm was putting a new management board in place, Richards achieved his first big break as financial director, a role he has fulfilled for more than 18 years.