Celebrating 45 years at Welsh Water with Pete Perry, CEO for Welsh Water

[00:00:00] Piers Clark: Welcome to the Exec Exchange 15-minute podcast, in which a leader from the water sector shares a story to inspire, inform, and educate other water sector leaders from around the globe.
[00:00:10] Piers Clark: My name is Piers Clark and my guest today is Pete Perry from Welsh Water in the wonderful country of Wales, and we're gonna be talking about Pete's illustrious career as he now comes to the twilight part of his career.
[00:00:24] Piers Clark: Pete, it's wonderful to be with you.
[00:00:26] Pete Perry: Thank you Piers and real joy to be joining you and sharing my experience.
[00:00:31] Piers Clark: This is our special 70th episode and we're gonna be celebrating your career as you move on to new things, having spent a long time in the sector.
[00:00:39] Piers Clark: But before we get there, I want the audience to understand a bit more about Welsh Water. We have had a previous podcast with your colleague, Steve Wilson, but for those who didn't listen to it, can you just talk a little bit about who Welsh Water is, who you serve, and the unique structure of Welsh Water.
[00:00:57] Pete Perry: Yeah. Welsh Water is unique in the UK utility world because we are the only, not-for shareholder, not-for-profit organization. I'll come back to that, but just to give you our dimensions for a moment, we serve around 3 million people in Wales. We also serve the border counties of England that run up through Herefordshire, parts of Cheshire. We provide both water and wastewater services. We've got pretty big infrastructure of very rural operating area with most of the population on the South Wales coast.
[00:01:30] Pete Perry: So that's it in terms of dimension, but in terms of the business model, this business model was set up around 25 years ago, actually 2001. It came out of the debacle really of the Hyder group giving up it's trading and they were taken over. The group was split up. Two of my former colleagues as chief executives, Nigel Annette and Chris Jones set up the not-for-profit model.
[00:01:54] Pete Perry: But what's unique for us is that we have around 60 to 75 members. Now, these Glas members, they're not remunerated but they're chosen geographically and they're also chosen to represent the customer base and a range of other skills. So, we've got environmentalists, we've got small business owners, we've got big business owners, and we have people who might come to us from the third sector who represent community groups.
[00:02:21] Pete Perry: We try to get them spread across our operating area. As a level of governance, they hold the board to account. We get voted on every year in terms of whether they'll let us stay in post and that goes through our annual general meeting, which I describe as going into city A levels, because these are an interested bunch and the questions are pretty pretty challenging. So unique in that sense and and a very open and transparent governance process.
[00:02:49] Piers Clark: I love this idea. We all hear about citizen scientists. You've actually got citizen shareholders. It's just beautiful.
[00:02:55] Piers Clark: And, am I right in thinking the biggest city that you serve is Cardiff, which for listeners from outside the UK is famous because that's where 'Doctor Who' is filmed and based?
[00:03:06] Pete Perry: Yeah, Cardiff's at the center of the conurbation, if you imagine across the South Wales coast, we've got Newport in the East through Cardiff, down to Swansea, and that's where probably half the population is actually situated along the coast bounded by the main motorway into South Wales, the M4.
[00:03:23] Piers Clark: Brilliant. Now you have had 45 years in the water sector, 45 years in Welsh Water. You've seen it through all of its various guises. And the story we're going to celebrate today is that journey you've been on, what you've seen, what you've learned, and what wisdom you can share for those who will maybe be just joining the industry now and hopefully still there in another 45 years time.
[00:03:47] Piers Clark: So, let's go back to what had you done prior to joining Welsh Water and what role did you come into?
[00:03:53] Pete Perry: I joined Welsh Water pretty much from school and I joined as an apprentice. That apprenticeship covered design and that moved on to pipeline design. So, I came in literally as a school leaver became entirely fascinated with the industry. At that time it was all about providing drinking water through our local distribution system.
[00:04:13] Pete Perry: I had the wonderful experience of being up in reservoirs at the Brecken beacons, seeing where the water was impounded. And then seeing it flow through a pipework system down to that South Wales coast. And this just grabbed me in terms of fascination and of doing good.
[00:04:29] Pete Perry: Also very lucky to be working with people who instilled in me at that time, this is a public health service and the idea of getting water to hospitals, to society more generally grabbed me then and has never let go.
[00:04:41] Piers Clark: And despite what you see in the media it's still 99% of the people I meet in the water sector are driven by that same desire to be stewards of the environment to serve their local communities.
[00:04:52] Piers Clark: Alright. Walk me quickly through the various roles you did culminating in the role you now hold.
[00:04:58] Pete Perry: Sure. It is worth mentioning I did leave Welsh Water to work for United Utilities for about five years.
[00:05:05] Piers Clark: I also worked for United Utilities briefly. That's very good of you to flag that up. United Utilities still operate part of Wales so I'm going to stick with my original statement that you've had 45 years working in the water sector.
[00:05:19] Pete Perry: Yeah. Having joined the industry as an apprentice, I very quickly looked to grab as many opportunities as I could to learn more.
[00:05:27] Pete Perry: Privatization came along in the late 1980s. I moved from drinking water to wastewater without a choice. I thought this was a fascinating part of our business.
[00:05:37] Pete Perry: I went through an ascending list of roles picking up operational management in the main and enjoyed every bit of it. I ran wastewater treatment works. I run water treatment works, but probably the biggest break I had was when Welsh Water actually bought the local electricity company, SWALEC, in the late nineties and I became network manager for water and electricity across most of Wales, which was absolutely fascinating.
[00:06:02] Pete Perry: And after that, when Glas Cymru came along and bought the business, the whole operational business was outsourced to United Utilities. So I worked in their commercial business for around five years, various operating contracts, running treatment works through PFIs, private finance initiatives.
[00:06:20] Pete Perry: And then back in 2006, came back to Welsh Water as Operations Director from there to Managing Director, Chief Operating Officer, and finally Chief Executive back in April 2020.
[00:06:32] Piers Clark: What I love is you grabbed every opportunity that came along. You never said no to anything. And I've known you for 30 years and it's been wonderful to have that relationship with you.
[00:06:42] Piers Clark: Now, I wanna talk about some of the things you are proud of and some of the things you wish had gone better. Let's start with the things you're proud of what are the achievements you look back and think, " I'm glad that's my legacy"?
[00:06:54] Pete Perry: A couple of things I'm really proud of. Number one is our health and safety record. If I go back over the last 15 years, we were just an average company in terms of health and safety, but this year we've topped out as first place in the water UK league table for injuries to our directly employed colleagues. And I think it's easy to overlook that this can be a dangerous industry. On average one person a year killed in the UK water industry. The fact that our performance has improved over that time correspondingly, is something I'm hugely proud of.
[00:07:26] Pete Perry: Also, very proud of response to incidents. We all, I think, globally are seeing the impact of climate change. And in the last 10 years particularly, we have been really tested as the company on the western seaboard of the UK, we often get the Atlantic storms that can cause some significant flood damage. And to see our people respond literally in all winds and weathers at all times of the day and night has been hugely sort of proud for me to be part of that.
[00:07:53] Pete Perry: The other thing I think we've done a lot on is dam safety, having a 120 impounding reservoirs, one of the highest numbers of any water company in the UK, to have implemented something we call portfolio risk assessment that ranks those dams. We're building, as I speak, the largest spillway of any dam in Europe, up at a place called Celyn in North Wales.
[00:08:14] Pete Perry: Those would be the three highlights for me and I think underpinning it all is probably just bringing people through, seeing people start their career. In 40 odd years, I've seen some of those come through the door as I did, and are doing equally, if not better than I did at respective stages in their career.
[00:08:29] Piers Clark: Wonderful. And what about regrets? Anything you wish you'd done better, quicker, differently?
[00:08:36] Pete Perry: I think in terms of regrets, I'm not the best networker I must say. I tend to be pretty focused on the job in hand. When my career was starting, God, there wasn't even email, nevermind internet and AI, which is now wonderful.
[00:08:48] Pete Perry: And I guess perhaps being a little bit more tech savvy, I think taking a little bit more interest in some of the opportunities that may have come along a bit sooner than I actually did.
[00:08:58] Pete Perry: Those would be the regrets, but not too many of them.
[00:09:01] Piers Clark: It can be lonely at the top because you are so geographically distant from similar water industry colleagues because that's the nature of the industry. It's very geographically separated.
[00:09:11] Piers Clark: Now, the industry has changed hugely since you joined. You've seen the industry go from privatization, from nationalized industry through privatization in 1989 and through to where we are now. So the 35 years since privatization was installed. Tell me what's your takeaway from that?
[00:09:28] Pete Perry: Having been around in the nationalized days, there was no funding. So I'm a big fan actually of privatization. I think, it's necessary. It provides a very clean route for this industry to receive the right level of funding that it needs.
[00:09:43] Pete Perry: I think where we need to go back to now is engagement with our customers. Clearly in the UK, wastewater and sewage has become a huge issue since COVID, where people are reconnecting with their local environments, and the industry has come under some criticism really in terms of sewage spills. But I have to say, I think the industry is responding to that.
[00:10:04] Pete Perry: The industry in 2025 isn't what we saw back around 2020. The challenges are coming at us thick and fast. I've already mentioned climate change and that isn't gonna give up anytime soon. We've just had the worst drought in England or the UK I believe, for the last 140 years. The last one we had was only three years ago.
[00:10:23] Pete Perry: And I think the industry is well equipped now, it's much more forward looking in terms of innovation. I see more knowledge sharing these days than I've ever seen. So in my mind, reengagement with our customers, making sure customers come with us is significant. Following the review by John Cunliff, I think what we've gotta do now is work with governments, work with regulators, and get the best deal for our customers in the environment from the changes that are being proposed, which on the face of it look incredibly encouraging.
[00:10:53] Piers Clark: A key point you made just there was around public perception. And actually in the last few years, in particular since COVID, we've seen a change in how the public hold the leaders of water companies to account, which wasn't how it was 10 years ago.
[00:11:09] Piers Clark: Have you experienced a change in how the public are holding you to account as Chief Exec of Welsh Water?
[00:11:14] Pete Perry: Yeah, I've absolutely seen a change in the way the public now hold us to account. We live in the world of instant communications. We live in the world of social media and we see things like chief executive remuneration which is publicly available in many companies.
[00:11:30] Pete Perry: I think what I've tried to do with that is respond personally, making sure that if I do get challenged whether it's in a public meeting or whether it's by the media or somebody sending me an email, I will do my best to respond.
[00:11:43] Pete Perry: We can't fix everything, but if we can be seen to be taking the public sentiment seriously and trying to fix as much as we can with the resources we have, being open, being transparent that's the way to approach this.
[00:11:55] Piers Clark: Wonderful. Now Pete, 45 years, when is it you leave and what is it you're going to be doing?
[00:12:02] Pete Perry: I'm handing over the reigns to Roch Cheroux who joined us from Sydney Water in early January. I'm still gonna be on the Welsh Water books until the end of March, what always happens to people at the end of their career, they get onto special projects.
[00:12:15] Pete Perry: And after that I've got a couple of irons in the fire, two of them are with the industry. Another is totally separate, so that'll keep the mine ticking over the gray matter.
[00:12:24] Pete Perry: And Mrs. Perry has got lots of plans for me. Bit of travel, I think we'll certainly make up for the holidays that I've had disturbed in the last few years, and time with grandchildren. Those will be my main preoccupations.
[00:12:36] Piers Clark: The one thing you can never be is on holiday when you are the senior role in a water company, whether it's sunny outside or it's pouring with rain, you are worried about what's going on and you never get to rest.
[00:12:48] Piers Clark: Alright. The last question I'm gonna ask you, is what advice would you give someone entering the water sector today who may still be doing this job in 45 years from now?
[00:12:59] Piers Clark: Good Lord, that seems like a long way away.
[00:13:01] Pete Perry: This is a fantastic career, but what I would say, don't be put off by all the noise. This is still a fantastic industry with great camaraderie, great opportunities, and it's such a worthwhile industry to be involved in.
[00:13:16] Pete Perry: All we do in the main is good in terms of public health, good in terms of the environment. We operate irrespective of where we are in the world, I think we're all in our unique geographies with our unique challenges but this is a force for good and I would encourage people to join wholeheartedly.
[00:13:31] Piers Clark: You have been listening to the Exec Exchange with me Piers Clark, and my guest today has been Pete Perry, the Chief Executive at Welsh Water, and we've been reflecting on 45 years in the sector.
[00:13:45] Piers Clark: Hope you can join us next time. Thank you.