Transport & Infrastructure Lunch 2023

Andy Burnham was elected as Mayor of Greater Manchester in May 2017.

Prior to this Andy was MP for Leigh from 2001. In government, Andy has held Ministerial positions at the Home Office, Department of Health and the Treasury. In 2008 he became Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, before returning to Health as Secretary of State in 2009.

In opposition, Andy has served as Shadow Education Secretary, Shadow Health Secretary and Shadow Home Secretary.

Andy lives in Leigh, Greater Manchester, with his wife and three children. He is a keen supporter of Everton FC.

Dame Sarah Storey has worked as a policy advocate for British Cycling with a particular focus on promoting road safety and access to cycling as transport for women and those with disabilities.

In 2019 she was appointed as Active Travel Commissioner for South Yorkshire, a role she held until May 2022 when she moved to Greater Manchester to become the region’s second Active Travel Commissioner.

Also a well-known athlete, Dame Sarah was crowned Britain’s Most Successful Paralympian following the delayed Tokyo 2020 Games.

Her appointment of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours, came after she topped the medal table with an impressive 4 gold at the London 2012 Games.

Lauren Pamma leads the Green Finance Institute’s Coalition for the Decarbonisation of Road Transport, which focuses on developing new financial products and solutions to unlock the capital required to accelerate the transition to zero emission mobility. Prior to joining the Green Finance Institute, Lauren’s career at Lloyds Banking Group spanned 16 years and saw her hold a number of finance, strategy and commercial roles, primarily within the asset finance division. Most recently she led the electrification agenda for Lex Autolease, identifying ways to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.

​Adam has been working within the transport sector in Greater Manchester for almost 20 years. He supports local authorities and transport bodies to deliver their transformational and challenging projects and has been involved in Northern Powerhouse Rail, Stockport Station redevelopment, Cheadle Station, HS2, Northern Hub, the redevelopment of Manchester Victoria, Metrolink upgrades, Altrincham Interchange and a whole host of other local projects.

He is the Chair of the pro-manchester’s Transport & Infrastructure Sector Group and leads a team of Project and Programme Management Advisory specialists within Mott MacDonald.

Andy Clarke is the Head of Corporate Affairs at Manchester Airport. As a member of the airport’s senior leadership team, he is responsible for ensuring corporate affairs activity meets the priorities of the airport. He focuses on crisis response, resilience, HS2/NPR and decarbonisation. He is the main interface between the airport and political and business leaders, focusing on developing strategic partnerships to further the airport’s goals. He is also Co-Chair of the MAG Disability Colleague Resource Group and a member of the Board of the Fragile X Society, a national disability charity.

Steve is co-founder and CEO of Creative Concern. An experienced strategist, writer and communications consultant, Steve specialises in ethical and sustainability issues, integrated campaigns, city strategies, brand development and creating strange installations out of trees, lights and beautiful type.

Recent projects include work with C40 cities, World Green Building Council, World Resources Institute, Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, Newcastle City Council, Plymouth City Council and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

Steve’s spent the last few years also helping to create a European network of partner agencies, called Do Not Smile – www.donotsmile.com

He is currently a board member of the Greater Manchester LEP, and was recently the interim chair of the Community Forest Trust and has previously chaired Manchester’s Climate Change Partnership. A long time ago he was Communications Director at Sustainability Northwest and Head of Campaigns at the Vegetarian Society of the UK.

Specialties: Particular areas of expertise include climate change, place making, city strategies, culture, sustainable transport, food issues and the natural environment.

Rosalind joined TfGM in 2022, having previously worked in transport policy roles for the Greater London Authority. Rosalind has a PhD in Air Pollution and Transport Policy from Imperial College London.  The Policy, Insight and Public Affairs team are responsible for supporting the organisation in the development and implementation of insight-led transport policy, as well influencing the broader policy agenda through engagement with political stakeholders.

Fran Wilkinson has recently joined TfGM in a newly created Director of Customer & Growth role to support the post covid recovery of public transport and the launch of the new Bee Network integrated transport system. Fran is new to the transport sector but has a wealth of experience in customer and growth primarily across retail, with eight years at Morrisons leading their Loyalty Card Scheme, the More Card and running their targeted marketing team. Fran has also worked at the RNLI, N Brown and Lakeland, focusing on customer experience and how to increase loyalty through better customer data and insight to support business decision making. Fran has a BA in Media Studies and a CIM Professional Diploma.