Ursula Bryan

Ursula Bryan is NGET’s Head of Engineering and Asset Management, a discipline she has championed for more than 20 years, and in which she is recognised as a thought leader.  

“Asset management helps build human and organisational capabilities to deliver bottom-line savings, manage risk and drive excellent performance,” she says. 

In her current role, Ursula is responsible for maximising the value of ET assets through their entire lifecycle by defining relevant policies and requirements, providing engineering expertise and technical assurance, encouraging innovation and leading performance. 

She has held a succession of asset management roles with particular emphasis on understanding asset and network performance and assessing risk. She established the ETO Long Term Strategy team and growth agenda and developed the first ETO Strategy document. She developed ETO’s successful maintenance compliance framework, contributed to the engineering framework, and led the development of the innovative T-pylon. 

In 2005, she led work that resulted in National Grid’s certification against the asset management standard BSI-PAS 55 – a first for a utility. 

She currently leads work on a monetised approach to risk as a way of priorising interventions. The regulator Ofgem is incorporating this approach into the methodologies of its Network Output Measures. 

A chartered mathematician, Ursula graduated with a BSc from the University of Southampton in1991 and joined National Grid the same year. 

Ursula is a Fellow of the Institute of Asset Management (IAM). She has been a member of the institute’s board since 2009, currently serves as its Deputy President and in summer 2019 starts a two-year term as President, encouraged by National Grid.  

Her term comes at a pivotal time for the IAM as it works toward the professionalisation of the discipline; among plans is the establishment of a register of professionals. 

She is also a member of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA).  

Ursula and her husband are keen walkers, a hobby which they pursue at home and abroad.