Water companies in the digital age - to digitise or not to digitise

The Blue Thread team from RSK explores a crucial dilemma facing water companies today: to digitise or not to digitise. Dive into the details of digital transformation in the water sector and explore the important decisions companies need to make in the digital age.

Binnies Director of Asset Management, Chris Steele, shared his knowledge and expertise from working with water companies.

It was a opportunity to gain valuable insights and to contribute to the conversations shaping the future of the water industry in the digital era.

More about the speakers

Ruth Clarke, Head of Digital Water UK&I, Xylem

Ruth is a civil engineer with over 25 years’ experience of working with digital solutions within the water industry. She started her career as a consulting engineer undertaking river and coastal modelling studies, but has since been involved in many projects, from the delivery of flood and wastewater spill forecasting platforms through to smart water software as a service (SaaS) solutions. Ruth has recently re-joined Xylem as the Head of Digital, UK&I.

Christopher Steele, Asset Management Director, Binnies

Chris Steele is the director of asset management services at Binnies and brings 20 years of asset management experience across the regulated and non-regulated water, energy and waste sectors, with leading involvement within digital industry forums and working groups. Key to his current role has been a focus on expediting the use of digital solutions and technologies to enhance the physical asset life cycle aligned to the EU’s Sustainable Development Goals. This experience, combined with his passion for nurturing new ideas, has brought him to lead a diverse team of asset management professionals to meet the evolving challenges of asset-intensive organisations.

Thomas Allen, Head of Digital Water, RSK Centre For Sustainability Excellence

As the head of the digital water team at RSK’s Centre for Sustainability Excellence in Singapore, Tom is responsible for assessing his clients’ key challenges and driving digital transformation. With over 8 years of professional experience, he has played key roles in pioneering metering programmes for water utilities, gaining expertise in the entire smart metering life cycle. Tom’s responsibilities include strategic decision-making, implementing digital water software and technology and utilising data analytics to optimise processes such as water efficiency, customer-side leakage, network leakage and customer management. His foundation in business analysis, end-to-end smart meter implementation, project and data governance and analytics equips him to think strategically about long-term business objectives and successfully drive change in challenging environments.

Mark Smith, Director – Water Sector, RSK

Mark is a global water sector specialist and has worked extensively in the water, wastewater and biosolids industries throughout his career. A chemical engineer by profession, he is passionate about process engineering and innovation. As CEO of the Water Research Centre, he pioneered many different innovations within the sector and was responsible for driving its acquisition by RSK in August 2020. Since then, Mark has taken up the role of RSK Group Director for Water and is looking to work internationally with like-minded partners and associates to help them deliver the UN SDGs through deploying RSK’s unique abilities to get things done in difficult climates. Mark believes that we have the solutions to most of the world’s water problems; we now need to find the will to implement them.