The team at Conrad Energy combines industry experience and expertise with technical and commercial creativity. From fund specialists to corporate lawyers, engineers and planners, our people’s diverse backgrounds and skills make for a robust business which is able to scale both rapidly and responsibly.
Our team is increasing by 15-20% a year, consistently attracting new talent to grow with the business under the guidance of our senior leadership team.
The executive team
Damian Darragh
Chairman
Damian is a Fund Partner at I Squared Capital. He has a highly successful track record of private equity infrastructure investment including setting up and sponsoring IPPs. He has previously led the build out of three successful power generation companies in Infinis (UK), Everpower (USA) and RTR (Italy) through organic and buy-and-build growth strategies. He had a 20-year career with Terra Firma Capital Partners where he was latterly a Managing Director. He is also a non-executive director at the Energia Group (island of Ireland) and Lynher Energy.
Tony O’Carroll
Chief Executive Officer
Tony is an experienced operator and investor in the infrastructure, energy and industrial sectors. Until 2023, he led the European investment-operating team for Strategic Value Partners, serving on boards including Cory Riverside Energy, Pfleiderer, Vita and Kloeckner Pentaplast. Tony trained as a Barrister, began his career in Accenture, followed by a career in private equity across Bain & Co., TowerBrook and 3i Private Equity and 3i Infrastructure. He also serves on the board of Enva (an I Squared investment).
David Bates
Chief Financial Officer
David joined us in 2020 following the successful acquisition of Viridis Power. During his tenure as CFO at Viridis, he guided the business through the build out of 323MW of gas peaking plant and optimised the operation of an additional 220MW of STOR plant. David also led a number of capital raises and refinancings with multiple counterparties in the UK energy space. He is a Chartered Accountant, having initially qualified with KPMG.
Steve Conry
Chief Operating Officer
Steve has over 23 years’ experience developing, constructing and operating power generation, solar and storage projects. Having worked previously for Viridor, Cory Environmental and Alkane Energy, Steve has extensive experience on LFG, aerobic digestion, biomethane, coal mine methane and natural gas fuelled projects. He has successfully built out and operated in excess of 1GW of embedded power projects.
Tim Foster
Director of Energy for Business
Tim Foster joined Conrad Energy in 2021 to lead our supply and PPA business. As Director of ‘Energy for Business’, he is responsible for all our tailormade client facing energy solutions, from Match+ green supply through to on-site generation. Tim previously held positions at Sembcorp UK and Statkraft.
Rhys Kirk
Chief Technology Officer
Rhys is one of the UK’s foremost experts in OSIsoft/Aveva’s PI System – the enterprise-grade backbone of the country’s power infrastructure, and throughout his career has worked to solve energy and enterprise-level companies’ tech issues. Prior to setting up TGG, which Conrad Energy acquired in 2022, Rhys worked with Shell, Wipro Technologies, Centrica and Accenture.
Guy McConnell
Chief Marketing Officer
Guy has over 30 years of experience working in marketing. He started his career at Black Cat – an integrated marketing agency. Guy was part of the management team that sold the agency to WPP 10 years later. In 2004, he founded the UK’s first charity water brand – One – alongside 3 friends. The brand has gone on to raise £25m for clean water projects and permanently change the lives of over 4m people. In 2005, Guy set up the multi award-winning CRM agency, BURN, which he sold in 2020. He joined the team at Conrad Energy in 2023.
Steve Moody
Trading Director
Steve has over 12 years’ market experience, including seven years at ENGIE optimising the UK thermal and pumped storage fleet in merchant, balancing and ancillary service markets. He has a deep understanding of market design, charging methodology and the CUSC. His technical knowledge includes building optimisation programs across multiple markets and assets. Steve is qualified as a field archaeologist.
Lee Priestley
Adviser
Lee spent 18 years at Centrica working in Energy Marketing and Trading. During this time, he spent 10 years as a UK Power Trader and 6 years as Head of Power Origination. After leaving Centrica, Lee spent a year at National Grid as Head of Business Development.
Philip Silk
Development Director
Phil’s experience in energy includes a broad spectrum of projects, ranging from flexible generation, battery storage, solar, geothermal, gas storage and oil and gas, with significant experience on the development and delivery of projects. As our Development Director, he is responsible for driving the origination and development of new generation projects across various technologies. Phil holds an MSc from Oxford Brookes University.