Now well into its 10th anniversary year, the Mineral Products Association (MPA) is delighted to announce the appointment of three new members of its Executive team: Tony Jones as Director of Health & Safety, Neal Weston as Director of Regions to succeed Brian James at the end of the year and Dr. Robert McIlveen, Head of Public Affairs to succeed Jerry McLaughlin from the year-end.

Tony is an experienced SHEQ specialist having worked in the security, safety, oil & gas and mineral products industries. Tony spent several years working with major international oil companies throughout the Middle East and Africa and prior to that he spent 23 years in the British Armed Forces.

Robert has a first-class BA (Hons) degree in History & Politics from the University of Warwick and an MA in Politics and a PhD focused on political party organisation and campaigns, from the University of Sheffield. He was a Research Fellow in the Environment and Energy Unit at Policy Exchange, then Public Affairs Manager and European Affairs Specialist at Network Rail. Latterly he was UK Public Policy Manager at Royal Mail. He has extensive political campaigning experience at both national and local level.

Neal holds a BA (Hons) degree in History from the University of Liverpool and has spent much of his career working for membership and representative organisations in a variety of policy, communications, public affairs and stakeholder roles. His early career experience included working in the US Congress and for MPs and senior political figures in Westminster. Most recently, he was External Relations Manager at the Institution of Civil Engineers for five years and subsequently Head of Policy & Communications at the trade body Airlines UK for twelve years.

MPA has also appointed four new members to join its Council. Mike Hill has been Chief Executive of the Hills Group since 2008. Katherine Evans is the Head of Planning and a Senior Partner at the law firm TLT LLP. Joanne Garwood is the Managing Director of Aggregates and Asphalt at FM Conway and Jacqueline O’Donovan is the Managing Director of O’Donovan Waste Disposal.

MPA Chief Executive, Nigel Jackson, said: “I am delighted that Tony, Robert and Neal have joined MPA’s Executive team in this important year as our membership grows and the issues we are now dealing with increase and become more integrated and complex. Having already diversified and strengthened the MPA Board earlier this year we are also delighted that Mike, Katherine, Joanne and Jacqueline are joining our Council. Collectively they bring a wealth of additional commercial and industry experience to our Council which will ensure that we represent the interests of all our members large, medium and small more effectively across the mineral and waste resources agenda.”

Ends.