Power Moves: Mainstream Renewable Power CEO and more

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Power Moves: Mainstream Renewable Power CEO and more

Morten Henriksen has been appointed as group CEO of Mainstream Renewable Power, effective April 1 2025. Henriksen was previously working as CEO of Gassnova, the Norwegian state enterprise for carbon capture and storage. His previous experience spans executive management roles in the energy industry in Norway and internationally for companies including Arendals Fossekompani and Statkraft, […]

Morten Henriksen has been appointed as group CEO of Mainstream Renewable Power, effective April 1 2025.

Henriksen was previously working as CEO of Gassnova, the Norwegian state enterprise for carbon capture and storage.

His previous experience spans executive management roles in the energy industry in Norway and internationally for companies including Arendals Fossekompani and Statkraft, in addition to multiple board positions.

Current, CEO Mary Quaney will continue to support Mainstream and the transition in a senior advisor capacity before stepping down in the second half of 2025 to pursue other interests.

Mainstream chairman Kristian Røkke said: “We would like to express our gratitude to Mary for her leadership over the last five years. She has guided Mainstream’s global team with focus, resilience and integrity, navigating a period of industry-wide transformation.”

He added: “As we enter a new phase, Morten brings extensive experience and deep sector expertise to position Mainstream for growth. His leadership will be instrumental in executing the company’s strategy and driving Mainstream’s growth in the global energy market.”

Energean non-executive director Sayma Cox.

Sayma Cox will join the board of Energean as an independent non-executive director from 1 March 2025.

Cox will be part of the company’s audit & risk committee and the environment, safety and social responsibility committee.

As a highly accomplished energy executive with 27 years of global experience, Cox was most recently serving as CEO of North Sea Midstream Partners (NSMP), a position she left in December to pursue new ventures.

Chairwoman of Energean Karen Simon commented “Sayma’s extensive international oil and gas operating experience and CCS expertise, combined with her geopolitical understanding and executive experience will provide valuable strategic insights, which will help us build on our successes to date, driving a new phase of growth. We are excited that Sayma is part of the team and look forward to working with her.”

Buchan offshore wind technical and engineering director Brian Horne.

Brian Horne will take on the role of technical and engineering director for the Buchan offshore wind project from March.

He joins the team from leading industry consultancy Kent, where he was technical director for offshore wind, and replaces retiring Andrew Donaldson in the role,

In addition, Yohashini Chandramohan has been appointed to the new role of project engineer, having been part of the team responsible for the construction of Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm in the Firth of Forth.

And Kevin Brunton and Ed Unwin have joined the team as lead civil engineer and lead offshore engineer, respectively, after periods on secondment to the project.

In addition, the project is actively recruiting for a supply chain and procurement lead, project controls lead and a new position of stakeholder communications and policy lead.

Project director Clare Lavelle said: “As the Buchan offshore wind project moves towards consent submission and pushing forward to financial investment decision, we are strengthening our engineering and development teams to ensure we are fit for delivery.”

Buchan offshore wind is a 1GW floating offshore wind project to be based 75km to the northeast of Fraserburgh. The project is being developed as a joint venture between BayWa, Elicio, and BW Ideol.

Iain Torren, Wood interim chief financial officer.

Iain Torrens has come in as interim chief financial officer at Aberdeen services firm Wood following the unexpected departure of former CFO Arvind Balan.

Torrens will take on the position immediately after his predecessor resigned due to an “incorrect description of his professional qualifications in various statements in the public domain”.

The new finance chief will hold the position while the Aberdeen business hunts for a new CFO.

Altrad's UK, Ireland, Nordics & Poland board advisor Julie Nerney. — Altrad’s UK, Ireland, Nordics & Poland board advisor Julie Nerney.

Julie Nerney is set to join Altrad’s UK, Ireland, Nordics & Poland executive board as a board advisor in April 2025.

Nerney has held CEO, COO, and director-level roles. She has also delivered complex, high-profile programmes, including a leadership role in the transport operations for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Her strategic insight and leadership expertise will further strengthen Altrad’s executive team as it continues to drive growth and development.

Altrad CEO for the UK, Ireland, Nordics & Poland John Walsh said: “Julie’s wealth of experience, broad sector exposure, and passion for building high-performing, inclusive teams will bring fresh perspectives to our Executive Board. We look forward to her contributions and the positive impact she will make on our strategic direction.”

The French engineering giant has completed multiple acquisitions in recent years, recently adding 1,900 workers after buying Aberdeen-based Stork UK.

TAQA Well Completions UK area manager Rita Greiss.

Rita Greiss has been appointed at the UK area manager for TAQA Well Completions.

Greiss will lead the company’s UK operations and use her expertise to drive innovation, enhance operational efficiency, and deliver sustainable solutions.

Under her leadership, TAQA will continue to advance digitalisation, automation, and sustainability efforts, ensuring UK operators have access to innovative, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly solutions.

Greiss said: “With the industry evolving rapidly, I look forward to collaborating with clients and partners to implement smart, efficient, and environmentally responsible well completion solutions.”

Additionally, TAQA Well Completions is actively expanding its portfolio to support the energy transition, engaging in green projects across the UK and CEU.

Vice-president for well completions at TAQA Karianne Amundsen added: “Rita’s leadership will be invaluable as we strengthen our presence in the UK market. Her strategic vision and technical expertise align with our mission to provide high-performance solutions that enhance well integrity, optimise production and support the industry’s sustainability goals.”

Humber Marine and Renewables directors David Laister and Emma Lingard.

David Laister and Emma Lingard have been welcomed to the board of directors of regional trade organisation Humber Marine and Renewables.

The two will support the group’s strategic direction, bringing their communications acumen to the leadership team.

They were appointed following the departure of Graham Billany, and former chair Iain Butterworth from Humber Marine and Renewables.

In addition, the trade body is in the process of appointing a new chair, as well as a business development manager.

Laister said: “It is a pleasure to be involved in an organisation I’ve always had the utmost respect for, having supported the incredible events that bring key Humber businesses and industry leaders together.

“The devolution agenda playing out in 2025 underlines the importance of pan-Humber organisations to the business community, so I’m delighted to be on board.”

Lingard added: “The Humber region is at the forefront of the UK’s renewable energy revolution, and I’m excited to contribute my expertise to support its vision for sustainable growth and innovation.”

EnergyPathways non-executive director Stephen West.

Stephen West will step down as non-executive director at EnergyPathways to pursue other opportunities.

With the company aiming to appoint a replacement in due course, West will remain available to EnergyPathways as a consultant.

EnergyPathways non-executive chairman Mark Steeves said: “We wish Steve well with his future endeavours and thank him for his considerable contribution to the development of the company, most notably through the reverse takeover transaction through which the company secured its AIM admission in late 2023.

“We are also pleased to retain his expertise through his ongoing consultancy role. The board will appoint an appropriate replacement in due course.”

Baker Hughes group chief financial officer Ahmed Moghal.

Ahmed Moghal has been appointed as the group chief financial officer at Baker Hughes.

Moghal previously served as the CFO of the company’s industrial & energy technology (IET) business, having also held senior positions in various business and corporate roles.

He succeeds Nancy Buese, who, by mutual agreement with the company, ceased to serve as CFO effective immediately. She will move to a strategic adviser role and will depart the company on April 30, 2025.

Baker Hughes chairman and CEO Lorenzo Simonelli said that Moghal’s appointment “reflects the substantial progress Baker Hughes has made in executing our strategic transformation. Reflecting on the financial successes achieved during Horizon 1, we drove record results last year while taking key actions across the company to significantly expand margins.”

He added: “As we embark on this next phase of growth, it is crucial to have a CFO with deep-domain knowledge across both business segments, a track record of fostering collaboration and strong financial performance, and a comprehensive understanding of our growth strategy.

“As part of his previous roles in Baker Hughes, and as well as currently leading free cash flow efforts across the company, Moghal has developed unique insights into our business and broad portfolio that will ensure we efficiently allocate capital to drive profitable growth while remaining focused on continuous margin improvement.”

The American oilfield services group beat analysts expectations last year, when it saw an 8% increase in revenue and a 36% jump in adjusted net income.

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Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Self-driving tractors might be the path to self-driving cars. John Deere has revealed a new line of autonomous machines and tech across agriculture, construction and commercial landscaping. The Moline, Illinois-based John Deere has been in business for 187 years, yet it’s been a regular as a non-tech company showing off technology at the big tech trade show in Las Vegas and is back at CES 2025 with more autonomous tractors and other vehicles. This is not something we usually cover, but John Deere has a lot of data that is interesting in the big picture of tech. The message from the company is that there aren’t enough skilled farm laborers to do the work that its customers need. It’s been a challenge for most of the last two decades, said Jahmy Hindman, CTO at John Deere, in a briefing. Much of the tech will come this fall and after that. He noted that the average farmer in the U.S. is over 58 and works 12 to 18 hours a day to grow food for us. And he said the American Farm Bureau Federation estimates there are roughly 2.4 million farm jobs that need to be filled annually; and the agricultural work force continues to shrink. (This is my hint to the anti-immigration crowd). John Deere’s autonomous 9RX Tractor. Farmers can oversee it using an app. While each of these industries experiences their own set of challenges, a commonality across all is skilled labor availability. In construction, about 80% percent of contractors struggle to find skilled labor. And in commercial landscaping, 86% of landscaping business owners can’t find labor to fill open positions, he said. “They have to figure out how to do

2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More 2025 is poised to be a pivotal year for enterprise AI. The past year has seen rapid innovation, and this year will see the same. This has made it more critical than ever to revisit your AI strategy to stay competitive and create value for your customers. From scaling AI agents to optimizing costs, here are the five critical areas enterprises should prioritize for their AI strategy this year. 1. Agents: the next generation of automation AI agents are no longer theoretical. In 2025, they’re indispensable tools for enterprises looking to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions. Unlike traditional software, agents powered by large language models (LLMs) can make nuanced decisions, navigate complex multi-step tasks, and integrate seamlessly with tools and APIs. At the start of 2024, agents were not ready for prime time, making frustrating mistakes like hallucinating URLs. They started getting better as frontier large language models themselves improved. “Let me put it this way,” said Sam Witteveen, cofounder of Red Dragon, a company that develops agents for companies, and that recently reviewed the 48 agents it built last year. “Interestingly, the ones that we built at the start of the year, a lot of those worked way better at the end of the year just because the models got better.” Witteveen shared this in the video podcast we filmed to discuss these five big trends in detail. Models are getting better and hallucinating less, and they’re also being trained to do agentic tasks. Another feature that the model providers are researching is a way to use the LLM as a judge, and as models get cheaper (something we’ll cover below), companies can use three or more models to

OpenAI’s red teaming innovations define new essentials for security leaders in the AI era

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More OpenAI has taken a more aggressive approach to red teaming than its AI competitors, demonstrating its security teams’ advanced capabilities in two areas: multi-step reinforcement and external red teaming. OpenAI recently released two papers that set a new competitive standard for improving the quality, reliability and safety of AI models in these two techniques and more. The first paper, “OpenAI’s Approach to External Red Teaming for AI Models and Systems,” reports that specialized teams outside the company have proven effective in uncovering vulnerabilities that might otherwise have made it into a released model because in-house testing techniques may have missed them. In the second paper, “Diverse and Effective Red Teaming with Auto-Generated Rewards and Multi-Step Reinforcement Learning,” OpenAI introduces an automated framework that relies on iterative reinforcement learning to generate a broad spectrum of novel, wide-ranging attacks. Going all-in on red teaming pays practical, competitive dividends It’s encouraging to see competitive intensity in red teaming growing among AI companies. When Anthropic released its AI red team guidelines in June of last year, it joined AI providers including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and even the U.S.’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which all had released red teaming frameworks. Investing heavily in red teaming yields tangible benefits for security leaders in any organization. OpenAI’s paper on external red teaming provides a detailed analysis of how the company strives to create specialized external teams that include cybersecurity and subject matter experts. The goal is to see if knowledgeable external teams can defeat models’ security perimeters and find gaps in their security, biases and controls that prompt-based testing couldn’t find. What makes OpenAI’s recent papers noteworthy is how well they define using human-in-the-middle

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