Philip Napier-Moore

Describe what the Mott Mac Life means to you in three words

Our business is teamwork, curiosity and driving outcomes.

Tell us about your specialism and why you chose it

I’ve always been interested in clean energy and its social outcomes – from a second-year University project on micro-hydropower in Nepal in 2002, to a first position with the UN Environment Programme on seed capital financing for clean energy enterprise development in developing countries. Those roles also underlined the value of a robust engineering background to making a real and sustainable impact.

How has your career progressed since joining?

In 2005 I started my career with Mott MacDonald as an energy advisor in our Brighton office in the UK. I wasn’t set on going into any particular branch of engineering, so it was beneficial to work on a variety of projects whilst in Brighton; including distribution network regulation, thermodynamic modelling, carbon capture and storage, bioenergy, solar, wind, and notably helping the government of Malta to decide on their energy policy, which included how they would deploy renewables.

In early 2008, I relocated to the Bangkok office for what was meant to be a two-year stint. However, more than fifteen years later on and I am still here! During my time in Bangkok, I’ve progressed through project manager, project principal, subsector lead, global practice lead, and I am now the energy sector lead for the Asia region.

What do you enjoy about working here?

I love working here because of the people, the projects, and the culture of technical excellence that bring these together. On the energy transition, little stands still for long, and we work on some of the world’s most complex, innovative clean energy schemes.

We’re trusted to do so by our clients because we can help solve their project development and engineering problems using a rare combination of collaboration, expertise and insights. Our success rests on the connections we each build with diverse colleagues, to effectively pool knowledge from across technical fields and geographies.

The ever-renewing challenge of successfully bringing the best of our capabilities together, with each new project, provides the incremental learnings that keep us at the forefront, and trains up our newer team members.

What are your career highlights and achievements?

The opportunity to lead Mott MacDonald’s global renewable energy practice was a truly special time – during which I founded our Renewable Energy Academy for training our next generation of engineers, running now multiple times per year since 2018. This role opened my eyes to the wider set of expertise we have, beyond my own early specialisms, and was a great foundation for further broadening my role as the regional energy sector lead for Asia, since 2022.

Looking back further, winning the Mott MacDonald Global Chairman’s Award in 2018 must also be up there. That was for my involvement in the group effort of getting our Asia renewables business moving.

Another important milestone in my career was being involved in the Mott MacDonald Global Emerging Leaders Programme. I hadn’t had any formal leadership training before, so it was a great experience learning the tools, exploring my leadership style and developing leadership capability. That same year I won the Chairman’s Award; I was up on stage in the annual general meeting talking about all I took away from the Emerging Leaders experience.