Simon is Director of Energy Transition at CRU, which provides business intelligence on the metals and materials driving the global economy, including steel, aluminium and copper. He is responsible for spreading the word about the  technologies and materials that will drive decarbonisation, including solar power and lithium-ion batteries, and showing how they connect to CRU’s world of materials.

An electrical engineer, Simon began his career in the steel industry in his home town of Sheffield before spending several years in the US as a journalist, analyst, and latterly CEO of a software developer. In 2008 he made the switch into renewable energy as a co-founder of a solar cell technology startup, and two years later he co-founded a solar module factory design business.

In 2015, Simon founded Exawatt to forecast the cost and performance of technologies that deliver decarbonisation through electrification. These include solar power, batteries, electric vehicles, and power conversion and transmission. Exawatt was acquired by CRU in early 2023.