Former Covid vaccine boss joins Rolls-Royce with brief to scale-up mini-nuclear plant programme

The former boss of the Covid vaccine roll-out in the UK is set to help Rolls-Royce bring its mini-nuclear power plant plans forward.

Ruth Todd CBE will join Rolls-Royce SMR’s executive team as operations and supply chain director, with an immediate focus on the industrialisation and scale up of our small modular reactor (SMR).

Todd will begin her role on 30 September. In previous roles, she was chief commercial officer for the UK Government HS2 programme and, before that, the Covid-19 UK Vaccine Task Force, where she led the programme to deliver coronavirus vaccines for the UK.

Rolls-Royce SMR chief executive, Chris Cholerton, said: “I am delighted to welcome Ruth to the team at this important time. Much of our work in recent years has been on product development and securing contract certainty – as we make meaningful progress on both, our emphasis moves to the industrialisation and significant scale-up ahead of us.

“Ruth’s experience and expertise in complex infrastructure programmes will further strengthen our leadership team as we focus on de-risking the challenges ahead and implementing our industrialisation plan.”

Todd added: “We have an opportunity at Rolls-Royce SMR to transform power generation and provide clean, sustainable energy for generations to come. I am excited by the opportunity to bring my experience in infrastructure delivery to the business and support its future growth and success as we shift into a project delivery organisation at home and overseas.”