Archives: Speakers

Alasdair holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Cambridge University, joining Buro Happold in 2005 as a specialist in energy and infrastructure systems.

Alasdair is part of our Directorship, working with the Cities teams in the UK, US, Europe, Middle East and India, helping develop their energy consulting offer. He is also continuing to bolster our global climate change consulting services.

He has worked on projects from individual building scale, campus scale as well as city wide energy strategies and infrastructure projects. He has led a variety of projects through different stages including optioneering, feasibility, scheme design, detailed design and procurement. This work covers a variety of sectors and technologies including wind, solar PV, district heating and cooling, biomass and combined heat and power. Alasdair is passionate about infrastructure systems which can enable sustainable and low carbon development, particularly when utility systems for energy and water can be designed to ‘close the loop’ with materials, waste, and wastewater cycles.

As well as technical expertise Alasdair has experience of developing energy plans and techno-economic models of low carbon energy and infrastructure systems. He has also developed business cases for funding and procurement and has experience of the planning system and major re-development projects. Recent work has included energy masterplans for Birmingham, Camden, Islington, Cornwall and Havering councils as well as developing heat network projects with Plymouth, Westminster, Islington, Camden, Cornwall and Redbridge councils and Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews, Plymouth and Lincoln Universities.

Alasdair’s major project experience has focused on delivery of new sustainable utility systems which has given him strong insights into the energy services and multi-utility market place from both technical and commercial perspectives. Key projects involving this approach include the London 2012 Olympic Park, Brent Cross Cricklewood, Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical Corporation Medical City (Qatar), UCL East and Tun Razak Exchange (Malaysia).

Alasdair has worked on a number of building projects which used innovative approaches to energy and sustainability. These include: low carbon hempcrete based housing in Elmswell in Suffolk, Palestra: the UK’s first fuel cell CCHP office for Transport for London in Southwark, The David Attenborough Building Refurbishment for Cambridge University and the Samba Bank HQ in Riyadh.

As well as this project based work Alasdair has led a number of policy and research projects, including work for London First and the Greater London Authority and for the Energy Technologies Institute and National Grid.

Helén Johansen Blanco is Senior Clinical Director, Clinical Development at the Swedish biotech company Cantargia AB. She has 21+ years’ experience in clinical research and has worked within Big Pharma as AstraZeneca, the generic company Mylan, larger biotech as Celgene and in large and small CROs, in addition to several Scandinavian biotech companies. The majority of her career is within project/study management of phase I, II and III studies; with a track record of several leading registration trials within oncology, leading to successful marketed drug. Previously, she has worked and lived in Switzerland, Australia, Iceland, Sweden and Norway. Her passions are quality in clinical trials, proactive risk management and financial oversight.

Frederik Grell Nørgaard is Project Manager for decentralised trials at the Clinical Trial Unit, Danish Medicines Agency (DKMA). Frederik is working as a regulatory assessor and coordinator of clinical trials applications and runs several Danish initiatives such as the dialogue forum for decentralised trials (DCT). He is also the co-author and coordinator of the Danish DCT guidance. Frederik is a member of several workgroups within the Clinical Trials Facilitation and Coordination Group (CTFG) being involved in development of DCT guidance and a Q&A regarding the IVDR-CTR interface. Frederik has a background as Master in Pharmacy.

Sunand Prasad is a Principal of Perkins&Will and co-founder of the highly regarded architects, Penoyre & Prasad which became a studio of Perkins& Will in 2019. The practice’s work ranges widely across many sectors and places, with a commitment to sustainability, research and high quality design as evidenced by multiple awards and publications.

Sunand was President of the Royal Institute of British Architects 2007-09 campaigning for action on climate change, reform of architectural education and better integration in design and construction. He is one of the London Mayor’s Design Advocates and Chairs the Editorial Board of the Journal of Architecture. He was a founding Commissioner of the Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment, member of the Government’s Green Construction Board, trustee of the Centre for Cities, advisor to the Government’s Building Better Building Beautiful Commission, and Chair of Article 25, the humanitarian architecture charity. He is the author of a number of books, articles and broadcasts on architecture, culture and sustainability.