Our Leadership

Our Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director John-Paul has a strong background in investment banking, telecoms, and agriculture. He specialises in M&A, corporate finance and business operations.

After seven years with former banking giant Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, initially covering Russian oil and gas majors, John-Paul joined US-based investment giant Bear Stearns as Managing Director for telecoms and media before co-founding a Tanzanian agribusiness for biofuel which grew into East Africa’s largest rice producer.

He read Philosophy and French at Oxford and has further achieved an MGA from the University of Pennsylvania as a Thouron Scholar.

Steve is our Chairman of the Board, with key professional skills in delivering sustainable growth, formulating and delivering strong business strategy, and expertise in private equity.

He was previously CEO of Wood Mackenzie from 2007 to 2015 – playing a key role in its transition to Verisk where he took on the role of Chairman, Natural Resources. He has also held energy roles in oil and gas with both BP and Total.

Steve is a board advisor for Loops and is a member of the Advisory Board at Scottish Equity Partners as well as Aurora.

He has an honours degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Edinburgh.

As Chief Operating Officer at Aurora, Meng is responsible for the Business Infrastructure & Operations, Legal and Transformation departments, and ensures that the company is able to operate efficiently as it scales.

Prior to this role, Meng was Aurora's Transformation Manager and Legal Counsel, having started her career a private practice lawyer at Allens Linklaters in Australia, and at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Hong Kong and London. She also worked for a number of years in a marketing technology start-up in product and in client services.

Meng has a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws from the University of Melbourne, as well as a Master of Business Administration from Central St-Martins and Birkbeck.

Hugo Is Aurora’s Managing Director for APAC and California. He also led our UK consulting team, as well as our expansions into Australia, California, Japan, and now broader expansion into South-East Asia.

He is the author of several major Aurora reports on renewables, grid dynamics, storage, hydrogen, policy and regulation. He has led buy and sell-side energy due diligence for over $10b of EU, USA and APAC assets.

Hugo has previously worked at McKinsey & Co. in Sydney and New York with a focus on energy and resources. He has a Law degree from the University of Melbourne, and an MBA and MPA from the University of Oxford.

Sebastian is our Strategy Director, responsible for long term strategic planning and initiatives, including Aurora’s strategy process, partnerships and investments. Beforehand as the Global Commercial Director, he was a driving force for the success of our subscription analytics and software solutions business as well as our industry-leading events and conferences.

After a project leadership role at BCG, advising European utilities on strategic, organisational and operational issues, he was responsible for Strategic Business Development at Gazprom in Berlin before joining the Aurora team.

Sebastian holds a PhD in energy economics from University of Duisburg-Essen. His research focused on short-term flexibility markets for electricity. He studied business administration at Leipzig Graduate School of Management.

As Head of People & Culture, Jani partners closely with Aurora’s senior leadership team to identify business priorities, drive our global People & Culture strategies and programs to support the firm's continued success in achieving its strategic growth plans.

Jani joined Aurora from Amadeus, a global leader in travel technology, where she was Head of Talent UK and part of the UK People & Culture leadership team. In this role, she was recognised across Amadeus globally for transforming the UK Talent function to one that is now highly regarded and high performing.

Prior to this, Jani built up over 18 years of experience in HR Consulting in London and Guernsey providing talent strategy, leadership development & People & Culture operational delivery expertise to clients in investment banking, private equity, and professional services. Her clients included Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, SBC Warburg, BNP Paribas, KKR, Coller Capital, Permira, Accenture, BDO Stoy Hayward, KPMG, Coca Cola, Heidrick & Struggles, and Korn Ferry.

Fluent in French, Jani earned her bachelor's degree in European Business from NEOMA Business School, Reims and Middlesex University, London. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for Brunel Sen Mat, a 0-25 multi-academy trust focusing in the special education sector. Formerly, Jani was a Member of the People Strategy Steering Group for the BTA, the representative body for Travel Management Companies and the business travel community in the UK. Jani has a special interest in social mobility and returner programmes.

Richard is Aurora’s Global Research Director and is responsible for managing and developing Aurora’s suite of market intelligence services across power markets, renewables, flexible and distributed energy, hydrogen and upstream energy markets.

Before joining Aurora he was a Director and Head of Energy and Environment at Policy Exchange, where he authored a number of influential reports on energy and environmental policy and regulation. Prior to that he was the Chief Economist at The Crown Estate.

Richard has a first class degree in Economics and an MSc in Environmental Policy.

Our Managing Director EMEA, Manuel leads our activities in the region and helps developers, financial investors, utilities, energy off-takers and policy makers navigate the energy transition.

His experience at Aurora includes transaction and financing support, policy assessment, PPAs as well as launching new products and expanding Aurora’s coverage to new markets.

Manuel joined our team from McKinsey and Co. in Berlin, where he was a Project Manager.

Manuel holds a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Gottingen and University of California, Berkeley where he studied as a Fulbright scholar.

Oliver leads Aurora’s North American practice based out of our US headquarters in Austin, Texas.

Since joining Aurora in 2016, he has worked on a wide range of buy and sell-side transactions for renewables, storage, and conventional generation, both in the USA and Europe. Now he is responsible for running our North American business covering all US Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs), regulated markets, and Canada.

Oliver has a decade of experience working on the energy transition, including roles with the UK Government and World Bank. He holds an MSc in energy economics, policy and modelling from UCL, an MA from Harvard, and BA from Oxford with first class honors. He is a recipient of the Kennedy Scholarship.

As our Head of Business Infrastructure and Operations, Caroline leads the design, implementation, and ongoing enhancement of the company’s global operational activities and international expansion programme. With over 15 years’ experience and a strong track record as a dynamic business professional, she has successfully delivered major digital transformation projects for clients globally including utilities providers, the oil and gas industry, CPG, and pharmaceutical companies.

In her previous roles she was responsible for operations management at award-winning SAP consultancy EY AgilityWorks – developing and leading the company’s global business processes and client operations team.

Caroline is a qualified PRINCE2 practitioner and is currently studying for a Master of Business Administration at Warwick Business School.

Dan joined Aurora in 2021 as our Managing Director for the UK and Ireland. Dan leads all of our services to clients in these markets, including both advisory and subscription products.

He is a regular expert contributor to Government, Parliament and in the media, including recently as a member of the Committee on Climate Change’s Expert Group on Electricity Market Design. Previously, Dan was a director in the UK government with almost two decades’ experience, holding many roles in BEIS and the Cabinet Office, including latterly as the Director leading policy and analytical advice to government ministers on gas and electricity energy systems, market design, security and affordability.

Dan has an MBA from London Business School and degrees from Magdalen College Oxford and University College London.

Ana, our Head of Iberia and Latam, has over fifteen years of professional services experience with an extensive energy market modelling, forecasting, and advisory background across energy companies. She has consulting experience across the energy value chain gained through working on a wide range of projects, from energy retail market strategy for utilities to policy and regulation support for government.

Prior to joining Aurora, Ana worked at CRA where she focused on energy disputes and energy policy and regulatory work. Ana also worked at KPMG in the Power & Utilities Strategy team, as well as in the Commodity & Energy Risk Management team. Ana started her career with a US-based energy consulting firm specializing in wholesale electricity price forecasting, power plant dispatch and gross margin modelling, portfolio strategy, energy market advisory, and risk and uncertainty modelling for utilities, financial institutions, and infrastructure developers in the US, Latin America and Europe.

Ana holds an Energy MBA from Warwick University and a BSc. Economics from George Mason University.