Alistair is a director with twenty-five years’ experience encompassing scientific research, technical consulting, policy as well as time as an educator. As a consultant, Alistair has provided advice to a full range of public and private sector clients across the UK, including government departments, banks and institutional investors, local authorities and regional agencies, and developers.
After leaving university Alistair’s career began as a scientific research officer at the British Geological Survey involved in projects funded by NERC, Environment Agency as well as a consortium of European Nuclear Industry Regulators. This comprised work to understand chemistry and fluid flow through engineered and natural materials used for the disposal of domestic and nuclear waste.
Alistair moved into consultancy with Cambell Reith in 1998 working on environmental assessment, regeneration, and engineering projects. This included contributions to spatial planning and regeneration projects for MOD, housing associations and regional development agencies. Alistair began to study economics part time at Birkbeck, and his work interests took him to three different environmental, economic, and engineering consultancies based in the UK, including URS (now AECOM), PACEC (now RSM UK) and Entec (now AMEC/Wood).
During a ten-year period, Alistair was responsible for managing and delivering projects including M&A and environmental due diligence, economic evaluation/appraisal, economic development, urban regeneration, environmental assessment, sustainable procurement and assessment, engagement, planning, social and economic impact assessment, strategy formation, and feasibility studies.
Alistair’s technical background in science, engineering, and economics along with planning provided a strong understanding of fundamental issues associated with sustainable development. From 2009-10 Alistair was seconded to Defra as a policy and economic analyst to support the government’s sustainable procurement team assess the impact and inform procurement policy.
Alistair set up Kovia Consulting in 2021, part of the Kovia group of companies, to provide consulting advice on projects covering his knowledge, skills, and experience.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kovia-ltd/