An executive with the U.K. government-owned organization that manages the Sellafield nuclear site has been promoted to chief executive.
Martin Chown began his new role on Feb. 1, according to a press release from the U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. He succeeds Paul Foster, who stepped down in January after four years on the job.
Chown joined Sellafield Ltd. in March 2016, most recently serving as deputy chief executive and supply chain director. “It’s an honour to become the Chief Executive of one of the most important companies in Britain,” he said in the release. “We’re responsible for some of the most significant and exciting environmental and engineering challenges anywhere in the world.”
Sellafield Ltd. manages nuclear fuel reprocessing and cleanup at the Cumbria complex that supported the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons and power programs, including through production of plutonium. The company in April 2016 became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the nondepartmental, executive agency that heads remediation of the nation’s nuclear complex.
All reprocessing at Sellafield is scheduled to stop this year, the NDA noted in its draft business plan for April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2023. The agency expects to spend nearly £2.2 billion on Sellafield operations in the 2020-2021 budget year, with £1.1 billion of that on decommissioning and cleanup. The Sellafield total is well over half of the £3.4 billion to be spent across the NDA complex.
Chown’s first job at Sellafield Ltd. was as supply chain director. He was elevated to deputy chief executive in September 2019. He previously spent over three years as procurement and supply chain director for Balfour Beatty Construction Services U.K. and in other senior positions in government and the private sector.
