The NI is delighted to announce its new President for the 2022-2023 years will be Jasbir Sidhu of Corporate Risk Associates Limited (CRA). His nomination was approved by the Board of Trustees at its December 2020 meeting and Jasbir has been involved in recent discussions on helping to get the NI through the planned recovery phase following the impact of Covid-19 on NI activities.
Jasbir will take over from the current President, Gwen Parry-Jones, in January 2022 and is keen to meet as many volunteers and members as possible during his year as President Elect.
Jasbir is one of the UK's leading Operational Risk Analysts, with over 30 years of experience developing quantified holistic risk/safety models taking the role of the human being into consideration. Jasbir cut his teeth developing models for the UK civil nuclear power generation industry. He founded CRA in 2000.
CRA is one of the largest integrated Risk, Safety, Operations, Regulation and Human Factors consultancies in the UK, with an enviable reputation for supplying high quality and value-for-money services to a broad range of safety-critical industries. CRA’s multidisciplinary capability skillsets include: Integrated Process Risk/Safety/Human Factors Modelling and Management. CRA’s specialists have supported projects in the Nuclear, Defence, Process, Transport and Business & Finance sectors.
In June 2020, CRA joined the Assystem family to greatly enhance the delivery of a wider set of services. Assystem is the 2nd largest nuclear engineering company in the world and provides an excellent bridge between British and French nuclear scientists and engineers.
Jasbir is passionate about sharing knowledge and considers it to be a strength - "…it inspires us all to learn more to improve our offering to the market place for the greater good of society at large". To realise this vision of "Thought Leadership in Risk and Safety Management", Jasbir founded the UK Risk and Safety Forum. The Risk and Safety Forum attracts presenters and delegates from around the world; all keen to discuss and share knowledge on Risk, Safety and Human Factors. Sharing knowledge is further enhanced by Jasbir lecturing at Imperial College London on Nuclear Risk Analysis. Jasbir also contributes to the development of technical documents for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Nuclear Safety.
Today, Jasbir uses his high hazard industries risk modelling skills to facilitate risk identification workshops. These workshops are invaluable in taking an organisation on a journey to develop a risk-aware culture. This information is then used to develop holistic risk models that simply present risk information to boardrooms so that they can understand their operational risks to aid capital investment decisions.
Jasbir has a BEng (Hons) in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Manchester and an MBA from the University of Surrey where his final year dissertation covered valuing different base-load power generators, Coal, Gas and Nuclear taking financial (real) options theory into consideration.
He started his career as a Safety Engineer at Electrowatt International (3 years) and followed this with seven years at WS Atkins where his final role was Principal Risk Consultant. In 2000 he set-up CRA which was the second company and first SME to join the NI’s Company Membership Scheme. CRA have worked hard to encourage and develop the next generation of nuclear scientists and engineers through interactions with schools and universities. Today, CRA’s workforce is 30% female, which is above the industry average.
CRA have long supported the NI’s events programme as delegates, speakers and sponsors.
Jasbir’s passion outside of the nuclear industry is classical music. In his spare time, he sings with various choirs including the BBC Symphony Chorus, always keen to sing at the BBC Last Night of the Proms!
Commenting on the appointment, current NI President Gwen Parry-Jones said, “I am extremely pleased to be welcoming Jas as the incoming future President. From my discussions with Jas, it is already clear that he will bring tremendous energy and insight into the role, and this will really help develop the NI into its next phase, responding to industry needs and supporting our members, the YGN and the branches.”
Jas commented “…I am very grateful to the NI for giving me this opportunity to develop nuclear professionalism in our industry both at home and internationally. The NI is positioned uniquely to bring graduates from many different technical disciplines to achieve the illustrious status of chartered or registered scientist/engineer/environmentalist whilst having a jolly good time on the way and beyond. The whole life cycle of everyone in nuclear needs to be catered for by the NI. I am greatly appreciative of having Gwen as my mentor this year and the support from all at the NI.”
NI CEO Sarah Beacock commented “Jas obviously has a very forward-thinking approach when it comes to staff and professionalism; he will be a valuable asset to the NI in ensuring we keep up to date with what the industry needs from the Institute. I look forward to working with him in expanding our reach and effectiveness to everyone who has chosen a career in the nuclear industry.”