Our executive leadership team brings experience and expertise from energy, government, telecoms and industry. They are passionate about delivering the best outcomes for our customers, colleagues and country.
The Board
Board members
Richard McCarthy
Richard joined Capita's Local Government, Health and Property Division as Executive Director for Central Government in February 2012. Prior to this, he was the Director General, Neighbourhoods, at the Department for Communities and Local Government and their lead official for housing, planning, regeneration, local economies, climate change, building standards and the European Regional Development Fund.
Barbara Anderson
Barbara is currently a Non-Executive Director and Chair of Audit and Risk at Sovereign Housing Association, Non Executive Director for BSC2 VCT and a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee of British Business Bank and in addition this year she has been appointed Chair of Saffron Building Society. Her expertise includes innovation, growth and sustainability, strategic planning, start-up acceleration, business transformation, deal preparation and corporate governance.
Ian McCaig
Ian is a Board member and Senior Independent Director at M-Kopa Ltd, Non-Executive Chair of Lumon Holdings Ltd, and a Board Member at the Wesleyan Assurance Society. He is also Non-Executive Chair of Powerverse Investments Limited. In his executive career, he was most recently CEO of First Utility, the largest independent energy provider in the UK and a pioneer in smart-metering technology and energy analytics, which was acquired by Shell at the end of 2017. Prior to that, he was CEO of lastminute.com. His early career was in the IT industry at ICL before moving into telecommunications and spending a number of years at Nokia.
Sarah Eccleston
Sarah joined the DCC Board in September 2022 in her first Non-Executive role after a 30-year career in IT Networking. Sarah has since been appointed to Non-Executive Director roles at 3 NASDAQ-listed companies in Sweden – Telia Company, NCAB Group and Tobii. In her executive career, Sarah was most recently a Global Vice President for Cisco. Originally a software engineer, Sarah has wide-ranging experience in the industry, gained in a variety of engineering, sales, and leadership positions with global technology vendors and service providers including Nortel Networks and Verizon. At Cisco, Sarah previously led the Internet of Things (IOT) and Networking practices for UK and Ireland; for Cisco globally, she was Chief Technology Officer for the Small and Mid-Size business sectors.
Gemma Bate-Williams
Gemma joined the DCC Board in February 2024. She is a UK Certified Chartered Accountant Gemma is a Divisional Finance Director at Capita, where she qualified as a chartered accountant and has held various Finance roles since joining as a Graduate in 2001. Gemma holds several Capita subsidiary directorships including Capita One Limited, Capita Business Services Ltd, Capita Managed IT Solutions Limited and Contact Associates Limited.
Nadia Choudhary
Nadia has an expansive knowledge of Commercial, Procurement, Public Sector Regulations, Risk Management, Corporate Governance, Deal Negotiations and Dispute Management. Nadia joined Capita in January 2023 from the Department of Work and Pensions as the Commercial Director. She was previously a Senior Civil Servant at the Cabinet Office, leading the Disputes Practice across Central Government. Her earlier experience extends into the IT and Telecoms sectors.
Chris Lovatt
Chris joined DCC in March 2025. Before this, he garnered extensive experience in the energy sector, most recently as the Chief Operating Officer at E.ON UK, and as a Non-Executive Director for Eco2Solar. Chris has also held other senior roles including as E.ON’s Managing Director of Residential Supply, and Director of Sales and Service Operations. Throughout his career, he has been committed to achieving a smart, sustainable, and personalised energy world that improves people’s lives. Chris joined DCC with considerable experience on smart metering, having played a leading role in E.ON’s smart metering agenda since 2011.
Gavin Robertson
Gavin was appointed as Chief Financial Officer and as a member of the Board in March 2025. Having most recently served as Director of Risk and Assurance at DCC. With over 30 years of financial leadership experience, Gavin has held a number of senior group finance director roles within various regulated retail, telecoms and energy sector businesses. Most recently, he ran his own consultancy company providing financial management, financial process, risk and control consultancy to start-up businesses and SME’s. Gavin combines strategic and technical excellence with a deep understanding of our financial operations to steer DCC's financial strategy.
The Executive Committee
ExCo members
Chris Lovatt
Chris joined DCC in March 2025. Before this, he garnered extensive experience in the energy sector, most recently as the Chief Operating Officer at E.ON UK, and as a Non-Executive Director for Eco2Solar. Chris has also held other senior roles including as E.ON’s Managing Director of Residential Supply, and Director of Sales and Service Operations. Throughout his career, he has been committed to achieving a smart, sustainable, and personalised energy world that improves people’s lives. Chris joined DCC with considerable experience on smart metering, having played a leading role in E.ON’s smart metering agenda since 2011.
Gaynor Fisher
Gaynor has over 20 years’ experience in leading People Teams, predominantly in the telecoms and retail industry. Previous employers include Vodafone, Telefonica O2, Dixons Carphone and Kingfisher Group where she had responsibility for Board-level Business Partnering, People Strategy and Programmes, People Transformation Leadership and Talent strategy. Most recently, Gaynor has excelled in HR consulting roles within the Public sector and Financial Services most recently working with Legal & General.
Karin Meurk-Harvey
Karin has an international background in engineering, technology and telecoms spanning over 30 years. She joined DCC from Vodafone, where she spent five years as their Global Vice President of Commercial for IoT, Cloud and Security. Karin was appointed to the Rotork plc board in 2021, adding commercial expertise particularly in high-growth markets. Between 1996 and 2013, Karin held a number of senior roles with Ericsson and has also served as a Non-Executive Director of Korala Associates Ltd, a privately-owned ATM software business.
Ian Speller
Ian joined the Smart DCC Security team in 2018 and assumed the role of Director of Security in 2019. Before joining Smart DCC he spent many years in IT, specialising in security for the past 17 years. During that period he has gained extensive experience in security management working for a range of large organisations operating a variety of sectors including Service, Insurance, Manufacturing and Telecommunications.
Stève Hervouet
Stève has 23 years of professional experience in regulated utilities, both in the UK and overseas. He joined DCC in 2021 as Chief Strategy and Regulation Officer, and before this, his previous role was Director of Strategy and Regulation at Affinity Water (the largest water-only company in the UK). He also worked at Water Plus, a JV between United Utilities and Severn Trent, and the largest water retailer in the UK. Stève also worked for Sembcorp Utilities, a $5bn Singaporean based utility operating globally in Asia, Europe and America. Before this, Stève held senior roles in the water sector in Latin America.
Penny Brown
Before joining DCC in 2018, Penny held a number of senior roles at British Telecom. Her career and experience spans more than 20 years in telecoms, focused on successfully leading large operational teams through complex transformation and growth. More recently, amongst other responsibilities, Penny has led DCC’s work to migrate millions of first-generation (SMETS1) smart meters.
Gavin Robertson
Gavin was appointed as Chief Financial Officer and as a member of the Board in March 2025. Having most recently served as Director of Risk and Assurance at DCC. With over 30 years of financial leadership experience, Gavin has held a number of senior group finance director roles within various regulated retail, telecoms and energy sector businesses. Most recently, he ran his own consultancy company providing financial management, financial process, risk and control consultancy to start-up businesses and SME’s. Gavin combines strategic and technical excellence with a deep understanding of our financial operations to steer DCC's financial strategy.
Siobhan Stanger
Siobhan leads DCC’s work to support the renewal of DCC’s licence to operate. The new licence will define the scope of DCC’s work and set out the regulatory framework in which it will operate. Prior to leading this programme, Siobhan led the strategy and regulatory affairs team in DCC. Before joining DCC in December 2018, Siobhan worked in the civil service for 16 years in a number of different Departments including the Department for Energy and Climate Change and the Department for International Development. She has experience of designing multi million pound government programmes, strategy development, stakeholder engagement and delivering legislative change.
Further reading
