Head of Regulatory Affairs Executive Search for a Scaling Utilities Infrastructure Business

PE backed Utility and Asset Management Case Study

As Utilities and Infrastructure businesses scale, regulatory capability can quickly become much more than a compliance requirement.

For one high-growth, investor-backed Utilities Infrastructure organisation, continued expansion across multiple regulated markets created the need for a senior leader capable of combining deep regulatory expertise with commercial judgement, stakeholder influence and an understanding of how policy change could affect the future direction of the business.

Douglas Jackson was retained to appoint a Head of Regulatory Affairs who could help ensure regulatory capability kept pace with the organisation’s growth ambitions.

Search at a Glance

Role: Head of Regulatory Affairs
Sector: Utilities & Infrastructure
Environment: High-growth, investor-backed business
Markets: Electricity, Gas, Water and Heat
Search Type: Retained Executive Search
Specialism: Regulation, Governance, Risk & Utilities Leadership

The Business Context

The organisation was an established independent Utilities Infrastructure business operating across a number of essential-services markets.

Its activities spanned Electricity, Gas, Water and Heat, creating relationships with multiple regulators, industry bodies and governance frameworks.

At the same time, the company was entering another stage of growth.

A change in ownership had brought additional investment and ambition to scale the organisation further.

That combination created an important leadership requirement.

As the business grew, regulatory complexity would grow with it.

The organisation therefore needed more than somebody capable of maintaining compliance.

It needed a leader able to understand how regulatory change could influence the business itself.

The Leadership Challenge

Following the departure of the existing Head of Regulation, the business needed to appoint a successor reporting into the Legal and Governance Director.

The remit covered relationships with external regulators and governance bodies across a number of Utilities markets.

The successful leader would need to ensure continued regulatory compliance while also monitoring and interpreting emerging policy change.

But the context of the appointment made the brief broader.

A growing, investor-backed organisation needs its specialist leadership functions to mature alongside the business.

Regulation therefore had to connect with:

• business growth
• governance
• risk
• investment
• operational decision-making
• external stakeholders
• future policy direction

The search was not simply about finding the strongest technical regulatory specialist.

It was about identifying somebody who could operate effectively in a business becoming larger, more complex and more strategically ambitious.

Defining the Brief Beyond the Job Title

A title such as Head of Regulatory Affairs can conceal significant differences between organisations.

The first stage of the assignment was therefore to understand the environment in which this individual would operate.

We considered:

• the breadth of Utilities markets covered by the organisation
• the different regulatory relationships involved
• the company’s growth trajectory
• the increased complexity accompanying scale
• the importance of external stakeholder credibility
• the need to anticipate rather than simply respond to policy change
• how Regulatory Affairs needed to interact with the wider leadership team

This allowed the search to move beyond a conventional assessment of regulatory experience.

The real question became:

Who could ensure regulatory capability developed at the same pace as the business?

Searching a Specialist Market

Senior regulatory capability across Utilities is naturally a specialist talent market.

The challenge becomes greater when the brief requires experience spanning several regulated environments alongside the leadership range needed within a scaling organisation.

Our Utilities practice was able to draw on established sector networks while also identifying individuals whose backgrounds could offer relevant transferable capability.

Candidates were assessed not simply against years of regulatory experience, but against their ability to:

• build trusted relationships with regulatory and industry stakeholders
• operate effectively across complex governance environments
• interpret emerging policy
• communicate regulatory implications clearly to senior leadership
• balance commercial ambition with appropriate governance and compliance
• work across organisational boundaries
• support the evolution of a rapidly growing business

Regulation as a Growth Capability

One of the most important distinctions within the search was recognising that regulation did not sit separately from growth.

In a business operating across multiple Utilities markets, regulatory decisions can directly influence:

investment → operations → commercial opportunity → risk → future growth

That means the regulatory leader needs to do more than understand the rules.

They need to help the organisation understand what those rules mean.

Where is change likely?

What risk needs to be anticipated?

Where could policy alter the economics of a particular activity?

What needs to evolve as the organisation grows?

And how should the Executive team respond?

In that environment, Regulatory Affairs becomes part of the organisation’s strategic capability.

The Outcome

The retained search successfully concluded with the appointment of a new Head of Regulatory Affairs, providing the business with the specialist senior capability required as it continued its next phase of growth.

The assignment demonstrates the value of approaching specialist leadership appointments in the context of the wider business rather than treating them as isolated functional hires.

The requirement was technically demanding.

But technical expertise alone was not enough.

The successful appointment needed to bring together:

regulatory credibility + stakeholder influence + judgement + organisational understanding + the ability to support growth.

What This Search Demonstrates

Specialist appointments can become business-critical appointments

As organisations scale, functions such as Regulation, Risk, Data, Technology and Governance can move from supporting activities to core components of sustainable growth.

Investor-backed growth changes the leadership requirement

Additional investment and ambition can expose capability gaps that were less visible at an earlier stage of the business.

The leadership team has to evolve accordingly.

Utilities experience needs context

Simply having worked within a regulated Utility does not automatically make somebody right for a multi-utility infrastructure environment.

The relevant question is which regulatory, stakeholder and leadership experiences will transfer successfully.

The brief should start with the business problem

The assignment may have been called Head of Regulatory Affairs.

The underlying challenge was:

How does this organisation make sure regulatory capability keeps pace with its growth?

That is the question that shaped the search.

The Leadership Signal

Scaling businesses frequently reach a point where the leadership capability that brought them to their current position is not necessarily the capability required for the next stage.

That does not apply only to CEOs, COOs or CFOs.

Specialist leadership can become equally important.

For investor-backed organisations operating within highly regulated environments, Regulatory Affairs can influence risk, investment, strategy and the organisation’s ability to execute its growth plan.

The strongest appointment therefore needs to understand both sides of the equation:

the regulation and the business it regulates.

Hiring Regulatory or Specialist Leadership Across Utilities?

Douglas Jackson works with Utilities, Energy, Water and Infrastructure organisations appointing senior leaders across Regulation, Operations, Customer, Commercial, Transformation, Technology, Data and wider Executive leadership.

Our retained search approach starts by understanding the business challenge behind the appointment — allowing us to identify leaders with the capability to support not only the role today, but the organisation’s next stage of growth.

Talk to Holly about your next Utilities leadership appointment →

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