15 minutes with: Julianne Antrobus

Share a little about yourself, and your professional background.

From a young age, I remember watching Michael Palin’s TV show, "Around the World in 80 Days". In these remote places, the fragility and riskiness of the electricity supply stuck in my mind. Wires taped to ceilings, light bulbs flickering intermittently – with dripping water perilously close. It got me thinking: how does energy get to these places? And how can I help keep the lights on through accessible, sustainable, and affordable energy sources? I didn’t think I’d end up where I am today, but I had a feeling my career path would involve energy in some form. The path has been long and winding, and I’ve walked through every door that opened with no regrets, which has allowed me to work with some of the best.

My career to date has been a game of two halves… The first half being very technical and operational, and the second half commercial in business development and strategic growth. As a graduate, I worked for a nuclear fuel manufacturer, British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) – at the Springfields site in Preston, Lancashire. In my role as a radiation protection advisor, I looked after the people that manufactured nuclear fuel for the reactors that keep the lights on today. I had to make sure the plants were safe, operators were safe, and that we looked after the environment and society we operated within.

It was a really important part of my career because it gave me a deep understanding of the whole value chain of nuclear, from fuel manufacture right through to waste management and disposal. I stayed with BNFL for nearly a decade. Then, BNFL was separated to create an arms-length government body called the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. After my time at BNFL, I joined a nuclear decommissioning and clean-up company called Nuvia as their Marketing Director, which started the second half of my career. I stayed at Nuvia for four years, becoming their first female board member. This also coincided with having my first son, Oliver.

What led you to PA?

In 2010, a colleague from BNFL introduced me to the world of consulting and I joined Atkins as Strategy Director for their nuclear business. By 2020, I had grown the nuclear business to over 3,500 and we had become a global player. When you get that big, everything becomes incremental thereafter, and that’s when I realised that being on the journey of transformational growth is what really excited me. I wanted the next 10 to 15 years to be as brilliant as the last.

After attending an event led by PA’s Chief Innovation Officer Frazer Bennett, I started to get a sense of what PA looked and felt like in terms of being a global technology innovator. I was approached by PA, and when the conversation turned to my role in taking their nuclear business forward, I thought, wow, yes, absolutely. It all made such sense – bringing my 20 plus years’ experience to build and lead the team with PA’s support. Fast forward to today, and whilst still leading the firm’s global nuclear practice, I now lead PA’s Energy and Utilities practice in the UK.

How would you describe your work to somebody who didn’t know what consulting was?

My friends ask me this all the time. In a general sense, I help our clients realise their strategic ambitions, particularly in the context of the energy transition. Societally, we must move towards a better world, and that means meeting, and exceeding, our net zero targets. Our clients are becoming more aware of the role they play, and how to build sustainability and net zero into their future plans.

Given my experience in the sector, many of the clients I’ve worked with sit within nuclear. It’s a sector I’m genuinely passionate about because it plays a key part in building a balanced portfolio for the future. However, it’s not about one energy system at the expense of others. We need a world where energy is provided from nuclear, renewables, and new technology like carbon capture, including direct air capture. We need a blend of energy forms, and there’s a lot of opportunities and challenges underpinning this sustainable energy transition.

My work is about how we as PA respond to this challenge, while helping clients realise those ambitions in a complex geopolitical world.

Why would clients want to work with PA as opposed to another partner?

I joined PA in 2020, three weeks before lockdown. It was a risk, but I took it because I knew PA was committed to investing in nuclear. When I joined, we had a significant contract at Sellafield, and my job was to take PA into the market and grow the practice. I immediately saw three things that set us apart.

The first is outside-in thinking and experience gained from other highly regulated, highly asset intensive, or highly unionised organisations facing the same massive challenges – including regulated utilities, defence and security, and organisations across the public sector. These are all areas we have deep experience working in at PA. The second is how we draw on the great work we’ve done for clients like Network Rail and National Highways to release value at pace where cost is a key challenge. How do we release the value locked in assets, people, digital, and data transformations? The third is our ability to be a positive disruptor in the market, and a huge part of that is having innovation right at the heart of the work we do.

How would you say that your work has changed in the past few years?

The big change we’ve seen is client trust. As a relatively new entrant to the nuclear market, we had to bring something different. There was an element of taking it slow, being patient, and building relationships to give clients every confidence that we’d deliver what we said we would – and then some. We needed to make sure that the experience of working with PA was different.

Over the first two years, we continuously built up that client base. Today in nuclear, we work with those clients extensively across many, many projects. Close client relationships allow us to get involved in complex problems that call for multi-discipline, multi-year programmes of work, and our clients trust that we’ll deliver.

We’re now in a far stronger position to scale the practice and think about how nuclear plays into a bigger ecosystem within the energy transition.

How does ingenuity come into your work?

Bringing ingenuity to life feeds right back into our role as a disruptor. We’re first and foremost an innovation and technology consultancy – not just another professional services consultancy.

We take clients to the GITC and they have an ‘a ha’ moment. They realise that we can go far deeper. Let’s say, for example, we’ve got a challenge around helping a client to understand their steam distribution system and where the losses are across that system. When we can build a digital twin for that system within three weeks, that visualises how it works and the losses, they say, “wow, okay, now I get it.” That’s bringing ingenuity to life.

What are you most excited about in the energy transition right now?

The new government is running hard to set up both Great British Energy and Great British Nuclear, and the King’s Speech supported that. A boatload of action-orientated announcements have been made, so I’m super optimistic about the role the government will play in accelerating the energy transition. PA is at the heart of working with government clients, and the broader eco-system, to deliver against these actions. They have set up taskforces where our subject matter experts are working hand-in-glove to shape the future.

Nuclear has a key part to play through the announced target of 24 gigawatts of nuclear energy by 2030, and the set-up of Great British Nuclear to deliver that portfolio. We’ll need at least one or two more big projects, not including Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C. We’ve seen GE Hitachi, Rolls-Royce, and others submit tender responses for the small modular reactor competition. It’s really exciting, and we’ll see the determination of that later this year. We’ve got the next fleet of advanced nuclear technologies coming through, and then we’ve got nuclear fusion.

I have great optimism – I feel that this is the first time, seriously, that the stars have aligned for us to really make a difference in industry, government, and society. I love being in this sector because of the people I’ve worked with. Those individuals made sure we’re where we are today. They made sure those levers were embedded into the Energy Act 2006 building for the future and keeping the lights on. I feel privileged that I worked with people who had the foresight to make sure our generation can make it happen.

Which of your projects have you been most proud of?

We worked with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which oversees all of the nuclear sites in the UK, on a really intensive two-year programme of asset management transformation. This set the path for how legacy sites strengthen the performance of national critical infrastructure. We worked with a particularly forward-thinking client to bring outside-in thinking and learn from how other organisations look after asset portfolios, enabling the shift from reactive maintenance to predictive asset management in a digital world. With connected infrastructure, people on the shop floor can really understand the performance of their assets that need to be looked after today and tomorrow.

So, why am I proud of the project? Two reasons. Firstly, because we worked in partnership with Jacobs, bringing the best of Jacobs and PA to achieve the client’s ambitions. Multi-discipline asset management calls for multi-capabilities, and we had to bring in our digital team, data team, asset management capability, and benefits realisation team to take the client on that journey. Secondly, I’m proud because the client just got stuff done, with a really interactive and integrated team that was open to doing things differently and releasing value at pace. Most importantly, the NDA was delighted.

How did Jacobs and PA work together on that project and bring the best of each organisation to the work?

When I joined PA, we were working closely with the Jacobs team at Sellafield, which is probably the largest nuclear facility in Western Europe. Knowing that the NDA was going to release a tender for this opportunity, we partnered with Jacobs early on to think about our collaboration. Jacobs has huge delivery capability and we’ve got front-end strategic expertise, giving us the ability to take clients on a transformation journey and deliver long-lasting value. It really dovetailed well. We quickly found our sweet spot in developing the value proposition and taking it through to delivery. We’ve finished the project, but still work closely with the Jacobs team to find other opportunities to take to market together.

What advice would you give to somebody who wanted to follow a similar career path to you?

Seek out every opportunity. And I don’t say that flippantly. There’s not many times I’ve said no to opportunities – if it’s the right thing, at the right time, just go for it.

Building and nurturing a network throughout your career is so important. So, be thoughtful in the organisations you want to work and partner with. It’s critical to know your network well and seek out the organisations that allow you to fulfil your purpose. PA was bang on purpose for me in terms of bringing ingenuity to life, and unlocking the potential in our energy sector.

And, one vital aspect is to have fun. If you’re passionate about what you do and have fun, that’s a great recipe. There will be pockets in your career where you think this probably isn’t for me. Always remember you’re in control of that. You can make those choices – so make choices you’re passionate about.

What are your future goals, professionally or personally?

I’m looking at the impact and legacy I want to leave. It’s important for me that the nuclear practice we’ve built within PA is sustainable and continues to scale. I truly believe that the people working with and around me will take it into the next phase of growth, particularly as I move into an extended role across the UK energy and utilities portfolio. My team are incredible. I want to see them continue to grow and develop – this will fill me with great pride.

I want to continue to make sure that we’re the leading advisor in this energy transition, be it with public or private sector clients. I want clients to turn to us because we have such rich insight, and can make a material difference to the energy transition right now.

This year was a significant milestone for me, so my mantra for 2024 is to follow the call of the disco ball. I love dancing, and if it involves dancing, I’m there. It’s all about having fun along the way. Our team had a picnic in the park the other week, and we played lots of games. It was lovely and super competitive of course. Those impromptu moments help to create the space so we can get to know and look out for each other. Taking this time out is so important and creates the right environment for everyone to thrive.