Adnan Khan was appointed VP North America H1 Engineering in 2021. Adnan will be supporting engineering projects focused on improving safety, reliability, and production efficiency at the North American biomass facilities. Adnan brings over 25 years of international project, operations, and organizational leadership experience, both as a client and as a consultant, safely executing complex projects in forestry including pulp and paper and OSB, high tech environmental technologies including fuel cells and phosphate recovery, mining, chemicals, and oil and gas.
Prior to joining Pinnacle, Adnan served as General Manager and Division Manager at various consulting firms where he safely and efficiently implemented new and innovative technologies for the OSB and mining industries. He also served as Director of Automation for Ainsworth Engineered and was responsible for identifying and safely executing continuous improvement projects for multiple OSB facilities. Adnan holds a B. Eng. from the University of Victoria, Electrical Engineering specializing in Industrial Automation and Robotics, and a Diploma in Electronics Technology, Process Automation and Instrumentation, from the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
Contribution and experience
Kim is a Professional Engineer with over 25 years of broad international experience in the oil and gas, nuclear, hydropower, and mining sectors. Most recently, Kim was the Chief Operating Officer of the Cahill Group, one of Canada’s largest multi-disciplinary construction companies. Prior to joining the Cahill Group in 2013, Kim held a variety of progressive leadership roles from engineering design through to construction, commissioning, production operations and offshore field development with Petro-Canada (now Suncor Energy Inc.).
Kim is currently Board chair of Major Drilling International Inc. and a non-executive director of Pan American Silver Corp. Kim is also a founding member of Makwa-Cahill Limited Partnership, a nuclear qualified indigenous fabrication company. Kim is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, holds a Bachelor of Civil Engineering degree and an MBA. She also holds the Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP) designation & Diligent Climate Leadership certification. She is a graduate of the Rotman-Institute of Corporate Directors Education Program and was awarded her ICD.D designation.
Throughout her career, Kim has made significant engineering and project management contributions to complex major projects in the Canadian, Norwegian and UK energy sectors, bringing a wealth of strategy, operational leadership, and technical expertise to her roles. She has a deep appreciation and insight into the value of inclusive community partnerships particularly with indigenous groups and has held numerous volunteer leadership roles, including serving as Co-Chair of the 2025 Canada Games, Vice Chair of Memorial University’s Board of Regents, Vice Chair of the Marine Institute Advisory Committee, Chair of the Rhodes Scholarship selection committee and Chair of the St. John’s Board of Trade.
Appointment to the Board:
October 2021
Board Committees:
- Chair of the Remuneration Committee
External appointments:
- Major Drilling International Inc (Non-Executive Director)
- Pan American Silver Corp (Non-Executive Director)
Contribution and experience
Erika’s extensive experience, gained from over 30 years working in global organisations, enables the delivery of change and growth in complex, world-leading businesses. Her broad knowledge has been built serving various parts of the chemicals industry, across a range of sectors from plastics, petrochemicals, agriculture and pharma.
Erika previously served as Senior Vice President Chemical Intermediates and Oxyfuels at multi-national chemical company LyondellBasell. Erika was also previously Senior Vice President at BASF Corporation, where she led the North American Chemical Intermediates business. Erika held other senior executive roles with BASF, covering manufacturing and production, engineering, strategy, and commercial business management. Passionate about STEM and DEI, she actively supports community workforce development programs, as well as a range of diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Erika sits on a variety of College of Engineering Advisory Boards, including those for the University of Houston and the Georgia Institute of Technology. She serves as a Board Trustee for The Chatfield Edge, a scholarship foundation based in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is also a member of the Executive Leadership Council, a non-profit organization whose mission is to accelerate the development of black executives to C-Suite positions. Erika holds a BSc in chemical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an MBA from the University of Houston.
Appointment to the Board:
October 2021
Board Committees:
- Member of the Audit Committee
- Member of the Remuneration Committee
Penny joined Drax in 2018 as Chief Transformation Officer, ensuring best practice is applied across our transformation programmes and overseeing HR, Legal, Company Secretariat, Property and Facilities, Physical and Cyber Security as well as Strategy and M&A. In December 2023, Penny was appointed as the Group’s Interim Chief Operating Officer.
Penny has spent her entire 30+ year career in the energy industry in a variety of roles in a number of different companies, including time with Engie as Director of Asset Optimisation and Digital, GDF Suez as EVP Strategy & Communications and International Power Limited as Director of Global Resources.
She also held business development roles at National Power and BG Group, and financial and commercial roles with BP. Penny has lived in both the United Arab Emirates and Thailand during her career.
Appointment to the Executive Committee:
Hillary has extensive experience heading up legal teams in the energy sector, having previously served in similar roles for ENGIE and International Power. She has acted as General Counsel for businesses located in the UK, US, Africa, Turkey and Continental Europe. During her career she has also advised on M&A transactions, power generation development and financing, and disputes.
Appointment to the Executive Committee:
As Drax expands its global presence and identifies international opportunities the role of our commercial teams becomes even more important. Maximising the value of the biomass and renewable power produced from the Drax portfolio is achieved through three key functions; the Biomass Sales and Customer Logistics function which manages the supply of our Biomass products to our large customers across Europe and Asia, the Trading and Optimisation function which trades and manages the fuel and power commodity in the UK energy markets, and the Customers business which supplies renewable energy and decarbonisation services to our large portfolio of business customers in the UK.
These three areas come together under Paul’s leadership and are aligned to deliver the Drax purpose and ambition, to be carbon negative by 2030, and enabling a zero-carbon, lower cost energy future. Together, they support a renewable energy system and support businesses to achieve their commercial and sustainability goals through the use of Biomass and renewable energy services. Biomass Sales to third parties is an important function in this as we seek new markets and opportunities for bioenergy and sustainable biomass globally.
Paul joined Drax as Chief Operating Officer, Haven Power, in May 2017, bringing extensive experience of the energy sector, across trading and retail over a 20+year career.
Appointment to the Executive Committee:
Matt White is Executive Vice President with Drax, where he leads the Pellet business. At the beginning of 2020, Matt joined Drax from Rockwater Energy, where he was Director, Manufacturing & Engineering. Matt’s 30+ year career has been in manufacturing management helping organizations grow and adapt to change, while increasing safety and efficiency by developing high-performing teams. Matt holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and has worked in a number of sectors including Air Products and Chemicals, and Solvay.
Appointment to the Executive Committee:
Forest Research works for and with UK government departments and devolved administrations, forestry and land management stakeholders, environmental NGO’s, the European Union and internationally.
Forest Research’s objectives include:
- Providing evidence and expertise to inform the development and delivery of UK and European forestry related policies
- Providing innovative applied research, development, monitoring, scientific services, forestry data services and professional training to UK, European and international forestry stakeholders
- Facilitating knowledge exchange directly, and/or in partnership with others, to UK, European and international audiences
- Working in partnership with others to promote the development and uptake of tree and forest science expertise
Forest Research’s work is founded on the principle that research and evidence are central to informed policy-making and sustainable land management practices. Its priorities are to provide the science and evidence to: protect its trees and forests; enhance forest ecosystem resilience and service provision; ensure sustainable management and adaptation of its forests to climate change; effect knowledge exchange and; grow its business.
Forest Research has joined Drax’s Independent Advisory Board on Sustainable Biomass as an ex-officio observer, in which Robert Matthews is currently in position. This means it participates fully in the activities of the board but plays no role in shaping recommendations to Drax.
John Beddington started his studies initially at the LSE where he took a BSc and MSc. He then moved to Edinburgh to do a PhD in what was then the rather new discipline of Mathematical Ecology. His academic career was initially at York University and subsequently at Imperial College. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2001 and appointed CMG in 2004.
He was from 2008 until 2013 the Government Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA) reporting directly to the Prime Minister. As GCSA, he was responsible for increasing the scientific capacity across Whitehall by encouraging all major departments of state to recruit a Chief Scientific Adviser.
During his time as GCSA he set up the Scientific Advisory Group in Emergencies (SAGE) that reported to the COBRA committee. He ran the Foresight Team that reported on such varied issues as Food Security, Climate Change Threats and High Speed Financial Trading and was responsible for reviews on inter alia Nuclear Energy, High Speed Computing in Climate Science and the Scientific Contribution to National Security.
A specialist in the application of economics and biology to problems in the management of renewable resources, John has also advised other national governments and international bodies including the Australian, New Zealand and US Governments, the European Commission, the United Nations Environment Programme and Food and Agriculture Organisation.
He was awarded a Knighthood in 2010 and in June 2014 received The Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese Government.
Currently, John is Senior Fellow at the Oxford Martin School and Professor of Natural Resource Management at Oxford University. Amongst other activities he also chairs the Boards of Rothamsted Research and the Systemic Risk Institute at the LSE and is President of London Zoo. He was a former Non-Executive Director of the Met Office and a Trustee of the Natural History Museum. Note: John Beddington does not have a website.
