New Leadership Boost for Horizon

5 February 2018 - Horizon Nuclear Power has today announced the appointment of Gwen ParryJones OBE, one of the UK nuclear industrys most respected and experienced leaders, as its new Director, Nuclear Operations.

Gwen will have full responsibility for Horizons lead development, Wylfa Newydd on Anglesey, including site development and the growing team on the island. She will also play a key role in maintaining and boosting the crucial relationships with stakeholders locally, regionally and across Wales.

Gwen brings with her nearly 30 years of experience within the nuclear industry, including as Generation Development Director and Safety & Assurance Director at EDF Energy, as well as Station Director at Heysham 1 Nuclear Power Station, the first woman to hold this post. Her nuclear career started at the Wylfa Magnox station next door to Horizon's Wylfa Newydd site.

Originally from Anglesey, Gwen studied and worked there for several years before her career took her away from the island. In her new role she will move full time back to Anglesey, working alongside the local team, including 21 apprentices from the island and North Wales. She will start with Horizon at the beginning of April.

Duncan Hawthorne, Chief Executive at Horizon said: Gwen's appointment further boosts the exceptional team here at Horizon and points to our continued growth as an organisation. The skills and experience she brings will prove invaluable as we continue to make strong progress on Wylfa Newydd and as we ready Horizon to become a new leading nuclear operator. I look forward to working with her to deliver this crucial project and the benefits it brings.

Gwen said: For me this was an unmissable opportunity - the chance to join a growing and talented team, building a uniquely new kind of nuclear company, and delivering a transformative project on my home island. Wylfa Newydd will bring not only much needed clean, affordable, secure power for the UK, but also huge opportunities for three generations of people on and around Anglesey. To be a part of this will be truly exciting and I cant wait to get started.

Greg Evans, previously Operations Director at Horizon, has assumed a new role as Executive Director, Operations with additional leadership responsibilities across the programme and technical teams, as well as continuing to oversee the companys preparations for generation.

The appointment comes as Horizon continues to make strong progress on all aspects of its project, with its reactor technology, the ABWR, having cleared its Generic Design Assessment by the nuclear regulators at the end of last year, and preparations underway to submit its main planning permission in the first part of 2018.

For more information, please contact:

Ben Russell

Mobile: +44 (0) 7580 948 106

ben.russell@horizonnuclearpower.com

Notes to Editors:

About Horizon Nuclear Power

Horizon Nuclear Power was formed in 2009 to develop new nuclear power stations in the UK. It was acquired by Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501) of Japan in November 2012. The company is developing plans to build at least 5,400MW of new nuclear power generation plant at Wylfa on the Isle of Anglesey and Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire. Its power station sites will employ up to 850 people each once operational with construction workforces of up to 9,000.

About Gwen:

Originally from Anglesey, Gwen gained an Honours degree in Physics from Manchester University, before securing a Masters Degree from the University College of North Wales (now Prifysgol Bangor University) in Banking and Finance. She then started her career as a nuclear physicist at Wylfa Magnox station in 1989 before taking on the role of an operations engineer at the Site, one of the first women to do so in the UK nuclear civil sector.

Gwen then spent several years working her way up the nuclear generation business, including spending time in the US and Canada, returning to the UK to work in various technical and commercial roles. She subsequently secured the role of Plant Manager at Sizewell B Pressurised Water Reactor in Suffolk and then went on to become the Station Director at Heysham 1 Advanced Gas Reactor in Lancashire. She was the first woman in the UK to hold either of these roles and remains the only woman in the UK to have held the licensed role of Station Director.

Gwen then continued her career at Director level, holding the role of Safety and Assurance Director for EDF Energy, providing advice, regulation and oversight to coal, gas, renewable and nuclear generation assets. She then took the role of Generation Development Director for EDF Energy until December 2017. She also served as an Industry member on the Civil Nuclear Police Authority Board, advising the Civil Nuclear Constabulary.

She gained a Fellowship of the Institute of Physics and was honoured for her work in Science and Technology with an OBE in 2015.

LINK:	http://www.hitachi.eu/en-gb/press/new-leadership-boost-horizon...
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