Family-owned utilities specialists Clancy have appointed Ronan Clancy to its executive board into a new position of executive director for strategy and business development.

Ronan’s appointment will support Clancy’s ongoing transition to a third generation of family leadership of the firm set up by his grandfather Michael Clancy in 1958. Ronan’s cousin, Matt Cannon, took over as chief executive in 2019 with his uncle Kevin Clancy as chairman. Ronan’s father Dermot was joint-chairman until he passed away in 2019.

The new role will see Ronan head up the company’s focus on new market opportunities, as it looks to deploy its engineering expertise within water and energy to support UK infrastructure investment.

Ronan has worked within the business since 2010 – progressing through a number of operational management roles within the company’s water frameworks and completing an MBA at Imperial College London in 2014, before taking on responsibility for future business.

In 2019 he moved to lead Clancy’s flagship alliance frameworks with Anglian Water, overseeing  the renewal of the business’ work with the water company into the new water asset management period, AMP7, as well as the successful expansion of the alliance into leak detection and the roll-out of one of the world’s largest smart metering programmes. Michael Cape has been appointed as the new framework director for Anglian Water. 

Matt Cannon, chief executive, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Ronan to join an executive board which has the benefit of expertise both from within and outside our family. His understanding of our industry, our business and our future vision has been shaped from working here for eleven years, but also from watching his father and uncle build the company that we know as Clancy today. 

“As an independent business, we have the ability to set our own ambitions for the future. We have given ourselves a series of key objectives for the next five years: to harness technology for the good of the planet, to reimagine how we work, to be smart investors, and to be an employer of choice within our sector. By looking at new growth opportunities that align with our existing specialisms, we see huge opportunity to achieve these goals in a way that is good for communities, the environment and our team.”

Over the last twelve months Clancy has achieved the successful renewal or extension of all its major frameworks in England in energy (UK Power Networks, Norther Powergrid) and water (Thames Water, Anglian Water, Southern Water, South East Water, Sutton & East Surrey Water), as well as continuing its work with Scottish Water ahead of the new asset management period SR21. 

Those renewals have helped deliver a secure £2bn order book which will support a strategy of targeted diversification – including pursuing capital projects for utility clients, as well as opportunities in adjacent infrastructure sectors.

Ronan Clancy said: “The ambition to build back better from the pandemic is driving huge infrastructure investment – from road and rail, to homes, to clean energy. All of those new projects will need new and expanded connections to be successful. I am incredibly excited by the opportunities that lie ahead for Clancy and am humbled to have been asked to join the executive board of this amazing business that Grandad started and Dad and Uncle Kevin built.

“The strength of our business, forward order book and the investment being seen in our sector brings the opportunity for us to pursue managed expansion. I wish that Dad was here to see it, but I know he would be proud of where we are today and just as excited about the future as me.”