Industry Experience
Chief Economist
Enoda
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
2023-Present
Responsible for macroeconomic and microeconomic research on electrical grid stability and balancing costs, causal econometric analysis on energy and macroeconomic policy goals. Leads design of proprietary market design enabling agents to algorithmically optimize using machine learning based on their individual positions in the network and optimize the network as a whole.
Director, Economics
Grant Thornton
London, United Kingdom
2022-2023
Head of Energy Economics consulting practice on all parts of UK energy supply chain, from generation to networks to retail supply. Also involved in disputes and regulatory projects on telecoms, water, and machine learning algorithms in the UK/Ireland.
Principal, Financial Economics
Oxera
London, United Kingdom / Paris, France
2019-2022
Numerous litigation and arbitration cases across multiple sectors and named expert in several. Managed regulatory projects in electricity, gas, telecoms, water, transportation, and corporate reporting in UK. Managed the response by energy transmission companies to RIIO-2 (Ofgem) and PR-19 (Ofwat) in front of the CMA, Also involved in regulatory projects in France, Finland, Germany, and Belgium, amongst others. Head of Paris office 2020-2022.
Board of Directors,
Chair - Risk Management Committee
OneAZ
Phoenix, United States
2017-Present
Non-executive director for $4 billion regulated financial institution in the United States. Chairman of Risk Management committee, responsible for regulatory risk, interest rate risk, audit risk, etc., since 2019.
Trustee
Society for Technoeconomics
Edinburgh, Scotland
2023-Present
Founding trustee for research institute at the frontier of economics, engineering, and energy. Founding managing editor of associated academic journal, Journal of Technoeconomics.
Senior Associate/Associate - Audit
PwC
Atlanta, United States
2004-2007
Acting as team lead auditing international, Fortune 500 companies. Experience auditing foreign exchange and interest rate edges/derivatives. Using computer-based statistical techniques to audit certain areas of the financial statements. Assisting clients in implementation/testing of controls for Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. Researching current US accounting pronouncements, as well as international standards, and testing compliance.
Project Experience
Arbitration and litigation
Named testifying expert in Finnish competition court in dispute between Gasum OY and Finnish energy regulator.
Developed utility-theory-based framework for damages in climate litigation.
Economics expert in international arbitration between Colombia government and global coal mining firm.
Named expert in international arbitration between global fast food franchisor and its largest UK franchisee.
Named expert and project lead in litigation between French auto manufacturer and a large supplier in French competition court.
Finance expert in international arbitration between global bank and European pension fund.
Finance expert for litigation between international air services company and a national air carrier.
Economics expert for IP/patent dispute between two international medical device companies.
Regulatory and economic support including price controls, tariff design, and regulatory cost of capital.
Advising the ENA’s response to CMA's provisional PR19 findings on cost of equity (CoE) and regulatory cost of capital (WACC).
This response analysed investment incentives, the use of market-to-asset (MAR) ratios, and the calculation of WACC/CAPM parameters.
Advising the ENA in its response to Ofgem’s draft determination for RIIO-2. Project lead for WACC.
Advising two UK energy networks in its appeal to the CMA on Ofgem’s final determinations for RIIO-2. Project lead for WACC.
Submitted multiple technical econometrics studies in the context of the RIIO-2 price control, including the appropriate use of Monte Carlo simulation, distributional assumptions around CAPM parameters, and stability of regression coefficients.
Led valuation of National Grid’s WPD acquisition in the context of RIIO-2 CMA appeal.
Advisor to Elenia (Finland) in its submission to the Finnish Energy Authority’s academic experts’ proposed price control.
Advisor to Sibelga (Belgium) in its submission to Brugel regarding the 2025-29 Belgian price control regime.
Advisor to ORES in its submission to CWaPE regarding the 2024-2028 Belgian (Wallonia) price control regime.
Advisor to BT calculating relative risk between legacy assets and high-speed fibre to inform on future asset beta wedges.
International thought leadership
Dr Williams’s academic research has been profiled by Harvard Law School and Columbia Law School, in Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, Les Echos, and has been published in multiple top-tier academic journals.
He has also presented before the US Federal Trade Commission and U.S. defence analysts.
Other project experience
Econometrics expert on study for European Contact Group (ECG) quantifying the potential impact of a unified corporate governance framework (Sarbanes-Oxley) in the EU.
Finance expert for State Aid application for international auto manufacturer.
Valuation of a financial start-up firm in the context of raising money from venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) funds.
Valuation of a tech start-up firm in the context of raising money from venture capital(VC) and
private equity (PE) funds.
Valuation and performance analysis of the City of Atlanta (US) pension fund.
Developed framework for data valuation for use in disputes and competition cases.