Simon has been General Counsel and Company Secretary of United Utilities since 2011 and has overall responsibility for any legal, governance and compliance issues affecting United Utilities. United Utilities has won or been shortlisted on numerous reporting rewards over the years, including at the PwC Building Public Trust Awards and CGI/ICSA. Simon also leads the legal and company secretariat functions.

Simon joined United Utilities in 2002 when United Utilities was a multi-national conglomerate with many utility interests at home (such as ownership of ENW, the regional electricity distribution business and operating contracts with NGN gas networks, Welsh Water and various Scottish Water PFIs) and abroad, including UU Australia, Manila Water, Tallinna Vesi (Estonia) and Sofyiska Voda (Bulgaria) amongst other activities. Now United Utilities is focussed on the core water and wastewater business in the North West of England and Simon proudly leads a team of over 35 lawyers and support staff providing that service.

With the team, Simon manages and supports regulatory issues and interactions, major litigation and contentious issues and UU’s largest ever capital programme. Recent successes include the ongoing defence of major third part funded litigation against the industry, the signing of a c£3bn direct procurement construction contract for the replacement of the Haweswater Aqueduct and, before that,  the sale of UU’s renewable energy business and the formation of UU’s business retail JV with Severn Trent, Water Plus.

Simon previously led the supply chain, commercial and procurement division during Covid and the IS Security (including cyber) function from 2019-2025, sponsoring the original United Supply Chain initiative that continues today. Simon is lucky to have had an interesting and varied career. Simon studied modern languages at Cambridge University prior to converting to law and then qualified into private practice at Osborne Clarke and then moved in-house to GKN, the aerospace and automotive industrial conglomerate where he spent 5 years, notably learning his trade on the Westland/ Agusta helicopter merger which was handled entirely in-house.

Since joining UU, he has been a non-executive director and then chairman of NASDAQ Baltic listed AS Tallinna Vesi in Estonia from 2012 and led its sale in 2021. He was also a director of JVs in India, Philippines and the Middle East and has lengthy experience (and the scars to show for it) dealing with multi-party class actions, international arbitration proceedings and other litigation in the UK, Bangkok, the US and Argentina.

Simon speaks Spanish and French and has huge experience in all matters regulated and privately financed infrastructure, having had legal oversight, directly influenced and participated in the transformation of United Utilities from the multi-national conglomerate it was into the core regulated UK water-focussed business that it now is.

Simon is also Chair of GC100, the Association of General Counsel and Company Secretaries of the FTSE 100 and co-leads its competition law and litigation workstreams.