Restructure of WPS Board & Senior Management Team

Wilson Power Solutions is delighted to announce the appointment of a new board member and two members of the senior management team. The restructure comes as a response to the rapid growth the business has seen over the past few years bringing with it not only an increase in sales and production capacities but also a bigger scale of contracts and projects.

Earlier this month, Wilson Power Solutions was pleased to appoint Ed Smithies as Sales and Commercial Director, a promotion from his previous role as a Head of Sales and Marketing over the past four years with the company. This is a new role within the board team in addition to the Managing Director, Technical Director, and Financial Director. Ed Smithies will be looking after four areas of the business: contracts, sales, marketing, and tendering functions. Ed’s key focus will be the creation of a cohesive, customer-focused ‘front end’ structure suitable for Wilson Power Solutions to deliver on our mission to provide technology-leading power solutions to influence and advance decarbonisation, whilst ensuring excellence throughout every customer journey.

A new position was created within the management team for a Head of Group Marketing and Sustainability. Ayah Alfawaris was promoted in July 2023 to this new role after spending over four years as an Energy Policy, Marketing and Business Development Manager with Wilson Power Solutions. In her new post, Alfawaris will drive the company’s sustainability strategy to further understand and activate the role Wilson Power Solutions play as a manufacturer to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2035. Two focus areas will be ESG and Carbon Management across the supply chain to develop plans to reduce and/or offset our carbon emissions and to help our customers realise the full LCA picture for their sustainability targets and commitments. In addition to the sustainability piece, Alfawaris will expand the marketing team and its functions within the UK and bring Wilson Power Solutions India under the same umbrella.

With the new restructure and the promotion of Ed Smithies, the Head of Sales role will be filled by Greig Jones who will start officially in August 2023. Greig Jones has worked with Wilson Power Solutions for over 3.5 years as a Southern Sales Manager looking after the sales team in the South. Given Jones’ firsthand experience as a regional sales manager and after the tremendous growth of sales in Wales and the South of England, the promotion comes as a recognition of his efforts and as a suitable position for him to manage the sales team and support their needs nationwide. Greig will be working closely with tendering, marketing, and contracts to communicate customers’ needs and introduce efficiencies and improvements in our offer where possible.

Wilson Power Solutions Managing Director, Erika Wilson said “I wish Ed, Ayah, and Greig all the success in their new roles. These are exciting times for our business as we expand our operations to respond to the growth in the market. We have a pivotal role to play as a manufacturer towards Net Zero and we are determined to continue as a market leader in that arena. The restructure of the senior management team and the addition of a new board member will allow for improved focus and increased support to our teams internally and our stakeholders externally.”

About Ed Smithies

Ed started his career in 1989 as an electrical craft apprentice with Yorkshire Switchgear. On completion of his apprenticeship, he worked on the Ringmaster Range line and test departments before joining the contracts team for four years, managing bulk and standard contracts, and eventually overseeing the London Electricity MV automation upgrade contract as a senior contracts engineer. Ed went on to work within UK sales for Schneider Electric & ABB before taking an international role back with Schneider Electric as Zone Export Manager for the Asia / Pacific region. Ed has had a varied career working within marketing, and general management for an electronics company and before joining Wilson Power Solutions was the Commercial Manager for Schneider Electric LV in Scarborough managing the tendering and contracts teams. Ed’s experience over his 34-year career has given him a wealth of knowledge from across the industry including LV & MV Switchgear and transformers and is deeply invested in team development and business growth through customer service excellence.

About Ayah Alfawaris

Ayah started her career in 2006 studying BEng in Electrical & Computer Engineering in her home country, Jordan. Upon graduation, Ayah worked in the Solar Photovoltaics industry being one of the early engineers in that field in Jordan, Kuwait & UAE. Working in this emerging sector until 2016 allowed Ayah to have great exposure to and influence legislation, raising awareness, finding commercial viability and involving different stakeholders to expand renewables in the region. Ayah finished MSc in Sustainability & Business from the University of Leeds in 2017 after receiving a full sponsorship. She then started her career in the UK working in the capacity market for two years before joining Wilson Power Solutions in 2019. In addition to her active career, Ayah has always volunteered with many international organisations such as the UN, AIESEC, World Economic Forum, One Young World and others. She has delivered public speeches in four different continents focusing on international development, women in STEM and sustainability, areas she has always been passionate about. This has given Ayah a seat at the table with major global leaders such as Richard Branson, Kofi Annan, Desmond Tutu and Bill Clinton. Ayah received an international accolade as “Young Energy Professional of the Year”, a prestigious award from the Association of Energy Engineers in Washington D.C.

About Greig Jones

Coming from a family that has worked in the power industry for over eight decades combined, Greig started his career in 1998 as an apprentice with then Hawker Siddeley Switchgear, the old South Wales Switchgear which is now Brush. Greig then continued to work for Hawker Siddeley Switchgear until 2012 in various roles from design, sales and marketing to aftersales tendering & commercial management. Greig then moved to work for Schneider Electric as a Regional Sales Engineer looking after rail and DNOs including WPD (now NG). In the seven years spent at SE, Greig managed to build a great reputation as a salesperson in the industry. In 2019, Grieg joined Wilson Power Solutions to look after sales of transformers in Wales and the South of England growing the sales exponentially and adding another team member to respond to the growth. Throughout his career, Greig looked after customers from Australia, MENA, North & South America and Europe.