Narec - Narec is increasingly recognised as the national centre for the UK dedicated to accelerating the deployment and grid integration of renewable energy and low carbon generation technologies, utilising offshore wind, wave, tidal, solar PV and thermal power.

Ruth Thompson OBE, holds a range of non-executive director posts, including the regional development agency One North East ,Northern Ireland Water Limited, NHS NE Strategic Health Authority, the National Renewable Energy Centre (Narec) and Northumbria University. She is Chair of National Energy Action. Ruth is a former Group Corporate Affairs Director of National Grid plc, which included dealing with UK and EU public policy and communications across the UK and USA.

She is a graduate in Law from both Durham and  Northumbria universities with a Master’s degree in Commercial law, and post graduate Diploma in Accountancy and Finance. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the Energy Institute.

Having initially qualified and practiced as a solicitor, she has held a number of national and regional senior management roles, both strategic and operational, in the energy industry. She was a Director with Transco plc, pivotal in the transformation of the UK gas industry, and as Director of its northern networks she remains the only woman to have led gas distribution networks in GB.

She chaired and was instrumental in setting up the North East Employer’s Coalition, which developed and supported initiatives to offer employment and opportunities to long term unemployed people. She was awarded an OBE in 2002 for services to New Deal.

With One North East, she chairs the Agency’s Corporate Resources Committee and is a member of the Audit Committee, the Science and Industry Council and the Energy Leadership Council, and is a Director of Enterprise Development North East Ltd.