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McAuley currently works as chief of global strategy and corporate development with MWH Global based in the United States and will take on the new position from 9 September when he will also be appointed as executive director of Pennon Group.
A chartered civil engineer, McAuley brings extensive experience of developing and delivering large-scale, capital intensive infrastructure projects in both regulated and unregulated businesses.
Drummond said that McAuley would be leading Viridor on the next stage of its growth and continuing the development of the strategy he put in train.
“Viridor has secured an enviable pipeline of public private partnerships and a £1.5bn investment programme building green infrastructure to maximise recycling and energy generation from waste,” he said.
“The knowledge and experience Ian brings to the business, together with the talent and skills we already have within the company, will confirm Viridor’s position as one of the UK’s leading recycling, renewable energy and waste management companies.”
Drummond, who will take up the position of non-executive chairman at Viridor on retirement, will be a tough act to follow.
When he joined South West Water in 1992, Viridor (then Haul Waste) was his first acquisition for the water company and was only a medium-sized, regional waste disposal company in the Southwest.
Since then, Drummond has steered Viridor to become one of the UK’s leading waste and recycling businesses.
In the late 1990s, he oversaw the company’s development into a highly profitable landfill business but was quick to recognise the potential of recovery through recycling and energy-from-waste (EfW).
As a keen EfW advocate, Drummond was instrumental in Viridor’s decision to commit £1.5bn to support the technology’s take up. While the company’s current energy output stands at around 137MW, his ambition has been to push Viridor’s energy output beyond 300MW by 2015-2016.
Read our in-depth interview with outgoing Viridor chief executive Colin Drummond
Nick Warburton
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