CCW welcomes new independent Board members

CCW is pleased to welcome four new independent non-executive Directors to its Board, following their appointment by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Lisa Tennant, Jeff Halliwell, Rachel Onikosi and Bev Keogh all began their new roles with the consumer body on 1 June. Their appointments represent the latest move by CCW to transform the way it operates and forge positive partnerships within the water sector and beyond.

Robert Light, Chair of CCW, has welcomed the appointments:

Our four new independent Board members will bring fresh thinking and new ideas to an organisation that’s committed to modernising its approach to representing water consumers in England and Wales. The next four years present us with a golden opportunity to implement the changes we believe will end water poverty as well as ensuring consumers have an even more powerful voice during the next price review. The expertise and influence of CCW’s new Board members will play a vital role in achieving this.

Robert also paid tribute to the contributions of outgoing CCW board members Sir Tony Redmond, Julie Hill MBE, Professor Bernard Crump and David Heath CBE: “Through constructive challenge, our departing Board members showed themselves to be true consumer champions and have achieved a great deal on behalf of water consumers over the years. I wish them great success in their future endeavours.”

CCW continues to provide a strong and independent voice for water consumers in England and Wales. Since it was established in 2005, the organisation has helped over 430,000 customers deal with complaints or enquiries about their water and sewerage services and secured over £33 million in compensation and redress.

About our new Board members

Lisa Tennant is an experienced Non-Executive Director, Chair and Entrepreneur specialising in Consumer Affairs, Digital Transformation and Regulation. She serves on the Boards of the Energy and Communications Ombudsman, Riverside Group and Forestry & Land Scotland. She previously served on the Boards of NHS Ayrshire & Arran, the Scottish Police Authority and The Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal. Lisa is passionate about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and is an Ambassador for Women on Boards.

---

Rachel Onikosi is an elected Councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and between 2014 and 2018 was a Cabinet member with political responsibility for environmental services. Between 2015 – 2017, Rachel was a CCW consumer advocate working hard for water customers particularly those in the South East Region where Rachel provided high level scrutiny challenging water companies on their customer service performance and value for money principles. Rachel also sat as a CCW representative on the independent Customer Advisory Panel of Southern Water helping to tackle some of the challenging dissatisfaction issues arising out of customer research. Rachel is a sitting magistrate at two South East London courts and has also taken up a Board trustee role with Victim Support. She is also a local school governor at two primary schools in Lewisham.

---

Jeff Halliwell’s executive experience is in CEO roles with consumer-facing businesses such as Fox’s Biscuits/ Northern Foods, First Milk, and Bernard Matthews. His background is in international marketing and commercial roles with blue-chip businesses such as Mars and Colgate.  He also ran a private equity backed tech SME. Since leaving his most recent executive role, Jeff has built a varied Chair and Non-Executive portfolio across private, public, and third sector organisations, particularly supporting organisations with a social purpose.  He has been Chair of Cafedirect plc, and of Airport Coordination Ltd., and a NED of Working Links Ltd and Natures Menu petfood. He has served as a Trustee of Shaw Trust and of Homestart Leicester, as a NED in a number of NHS organisations, and has sat on the Boards of two universities. Until August 2021, Jeff is Chair of Transport Focus (the transport watchdog).  He has recently been appointed as Chair of the Coal Authority, and Deputy Chair of the Sea Fish Industry Authority (Seafish). He chairs the Customer Engagement Group in respect of Electricity North West, and has previously chaired similar customer challenge groups in respects of number of Anglian Water, and Heathrow Airport.

---

Bev Keogh is an experienced utility executive whose career spans over 35 years in the regulated electricity and water industries. Having led operational engineering, customer experience and business assurance teams, she brings a diverse knowledge of utility regulation, legislation, customer and people transformation, compliance, audit, and risk. Bev established her own consultancy business in 2019. She  is also a member of Electricity North West Customer Engagement Group, ensuring the voice of customers and stakeholders is strengthened in the process of setting the 2023-2028 price control business plan. She works as a global associate for one of the world’s leading Diversity and Inclusion organisations and runs a successful executive and senior leader coaching business.