The people shaping Beyond the Desert.

Founding Director

Dr Simon Le Blond CEng

Simon is a chartered engineer specialising in clean power systems with over 19 years’ experience in power system simulation, energy storage innovation and consultancy. Most recently he has led the development of EPOCH Open Source site decarbonisation software. He is widely published and cited in his field. He is a principal co-inventor of a proven digital twin / AI - based early cable fault localisation solution in electricity distribution networks. Simon retains strong links to academia, including 4 top STEM UK universities and a network of contacts across the energy sector. His diverse publications span optimisation of multi-domain local energy systems, borehole thermal storage, grid flexibility and continent-spanning DC mega grids.

Simon and his wife are currently acting site pastors for Vineyard Church Cardiff.

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Commercial Advisor

Michael Glanville

Michael has over 25 years’ cross‑sector experience, most extensively in the leisure, marine, infrastructure and property industries, alongside running his own business as a coach, advisor, non-executive director and M&A and business development, growth, and leadership consultant. He brings deep, practical knowledge of Operations, finance, IT, marketing, HR, infrastructure and corporate governance.

Before establishing his own advisory practice, where he supports businesses and senior leaders across technology, AI, property, overseas investment, automotive, marketing, PR and more, Michael spent much of his career in the private sector, most recently as CEO/MD, navigating a group of businesses through COVID and then pivoting elements of the core business to drive growth.

Sustainability has been a consistent focus throughout his career, having secured one of the UK’s first sustainability linked investment loans with a leading bank and developed one of the first comprehensive corporate ESG strategies targeting development in the built environment. Michael’s expertise aligns strongly with Beyond the Desert’s vision, bringing strategic, financial, commercial and customer‑experience capability to the Beyond the Desert team as an advisor / NED together with his track record of delivering complex products and infrastructure.

A Times Newspaper award‑winning leader, Michael now supports Beyond the Desert as it enters its next phase of growth and innovation.

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UX/UI Design

Mark McGuiness

Mark is a senior UX/UI Designer with 20+ years of delivering user-centred and intuitive digital experiences. He is passionate about delighting users and solving real-world problems, using a proven UX process. He has worked across many sectors spanning industry and education and the third sector, including Lloyds and Dyson. Mark has extensive experience across the entire UX/UI design lifecycle from user research, through to prototyping, testing, validation and user acceptance.

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Developer

Jon Warren

Jon is a software engineer with seven years of professional experience. At Elemental Power he was technical lead for the EPOCH decarbonisation tool, leading development of the core C++ simulation engine and supporting wider development.

Prior to this, he spent four years working for a computer vision and machine learning consultancy. He holds an integrated master’s in computer science from the University of Birmingham.

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Strategic Advisor

Dr Mike Brownnutt

Mike obtained his first Master’s degree (MSci in physics) and his PhD (in experimental quantum mechanics) from Imperial College London, UK. He then moved to the University of Innsbruck, Austria, where he wrote his habilitation on the experimental development of scalable architectures for quantum computers. He completed a second Master’s degree (MA in theology from the University of Chester, UK) considering how faith is understood by various parties when discussing Christianity and science. He spent eight years at the University of Hong Kong, serving as Associate Director of the Faith and Science Collaborative Research Forum, before taking up his current post as Course Director at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion in Cambridge. In his spare time, he is working on a PhD (with University of Birmingham) on non-Modern philosophy of science and religion.

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Thermal Power & International Development Advisor

Dr Jonathan Knapton

Jonathan is a thermal power specialist with a background in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Jonathan’s work has focused at the interface of industry and academia for over 11 years often working on experimental test rig design, designing and characterising prototype equipment. He has carried out varied roles with a major British Aero-Engine OEM, international space sector startups and SMEs in the aerospace sector in addition to working as a research fellow at the University of Sheffield and the University of Birmingham. Jonathan’s motivation for international development is based on his Christian faith and rooted in the belief that we should share knowledge, compassion and responsibility with those in Low to Middle Income Countries (LMICs) to help them up-skill, grow their own economies and develop their own resources in a sustainable manner. This passion has resulted in recent visits to the nation of Burundi, where he has lectured on sustainable power generation and regularly keeps in touch with friends living locally.

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