Muhammad Ahsen

I'm a Chartered Engineer with more than fifteen years leading safety-critical energy and infrastructure delivery, from hands-on control system design through to engineering authority for £450m or more of green hydrogen capital programmes. I've directed a £320m four-project portfolio at the same time, holding one technical standard across every project rather than letting quality drift between them, and I report at Board, investor and regulator level. The foundation underneath that is unusually broad.

Six years delivering capital projects for Diageo's distilleries and maltings, end to end from malt intake to spirit tanker loading. Fiscal metering and safety systems for the UK's Oil Fuel Depots on behalf of the MoD, Thanckes, Garelochhead and Loch Striven among them. Three years inside the Ministry of Defence holding enterprise engineering authority for a major armoured vehicle programme under statutory governance.

Functional safety, IEC 61508 and 61511, and OT cybersecurity run through all of it, built into the baseline from day one rather than retrofitted once something goes wrong.

Head of Engineering at N-Gen Energy Solutions (2025-01 – 2026-07)

Engineering authority for a 50/50 JV flagship green hydrogen programme, accountable for the technical case stakeholders were asked to trust.

• Ran technical design, EPC engagement and supplier due diligence, determining which risks the investment case had to answer before capital could commit.
• Commissioned Binnies to build a full ISO55001 Asset Management framework for N-Gen's hydrogen projects, worked through all 40 subjects with their consultants over 8 months, and approved the completed framework.
• Built functional safety and OT cybersecurity into the engineering baseline from the first phase, and established the engineering function and competence framework from the ground up.
• Advised the Project Directors directly on technical risk exposure, readiness and delivery confidence.

Head of Engineering at Green Cat Hydrogen Ltd (2024-01 – 2025-12)

Engineering authority across a £320m four-project greenfield hydrogen portfolio, all running at the same time.

• Chaired design reviews and stage-gates across every EPC, OEM and consultant relationship, holding technical standards and assurance discipline consistent across all four projects.
• Set Pre-FEED and FEED engineering strategy, supplier selection and technical due diligence, including OEM assessment across European and Asian electrolyser, compression and refuelling supply chains.
• Built the engineering assurance and approval framework the portfolio used to decide which projects advanced, and on what basis.
• Secured public funding through structured technical and economic submissions aligned to UK market and investor requirements.

Senior Engineering Manager (promoted from Engineering Manager) at UK Ministry of Defence (2021-01 – 2024-12)

Enterprise engineering authority for a major armoured vehicle programme within Defence Equipment and Support, under statutory, security-classified governance.

• Embedded Def Stan 00-55/00-56 and IEC 61508 functional safety principles into enterprise engineering governance, owning technical baselines and configuration control across concurrent programmes.
• Acted as software domain technical authority: application risk identification, root-cause analysis, trials evidence reviews and standardising software integration across suppliers.
• Liaised with British Army stakeholders on user validation trials across 16 domains, made evidence-based recommendations to approval panels and supported ministerial-level production decisions.

Project Engineer at Swinton Technology (2019-01 – 2021-12)

Engineering and commercial accountability for safety-critical control, automation and fiscal metering systems across UK Oil Fuel Depots, delivered for the Oil and Pipelines Agency on behalf of the MoD. Site projects of £1.1m to £3.2m at Thanckes, Garelochhead, Loch Striven and Thanckes Jetty.

• Designed and tested BPCS and SIS including a six-panel Automated Overfill Protection System and multi-host control architectures, with interfaces to tank gauging, pipe leak detection and deluge systems.
• Programmed fiscal metering of oil including ENTIS CIU 888, import and export movement logging to government reporting standards, and leakage, movement and level alarm design.
• Led FAT, IFAT and SAT throughout, chaired HAZOP studies, and carried out COMAH-based hazard assessment and an HSE-reported competence review under IEC 61508.
• Rolled out cybersecurity hardening, backup and whitelisting architecture recognised as best practice and applied across six sites.

Project Engineer / Project Manager, Diageo Account at Au Automation (2013-01 – 2019-12)

Main project engineer and later project manager on the Diageo account, delivering 12+ capital projects across distilleries and maltings, end to end from malt intake to spirit loading. 23 industrial projects in total, plant sizes 450 to 6,100 I/O, budgets £70k to £14.3m.

• Automated and instrumented wash and spirit stills, spirit handling, mash house and worts room processes at sites including Glenlossie, Clynelish, Linkwood and Brora, with CAPEX and OPEX ownership throughout.
• Designed the Glenlossie water and energy efficiency upgrade across three production sites and 1,500+ devices, saving 95 cubic metres of water, 3,100 kWh of gas and 28 production hours weekly.
• Replaced software interlocks with hardwired Preventa safety interlocks and an earth-proving permissive for spirit tanker loading, approved and rolled out across 12 sites and recognised as best practice, with a Director's commendation.
• Led a team of six engineers, ran FAT and SAT programmes including a fully virtual FAT during COVID, and trained site operations and maintenance teams.

Technical Support Engineer at FirstGroup plc (2011-01 – 2013-12)

Engineering support within regulated rail operations: asset reliability, KPI-driven performance improvement and root-cause investigation across safety-critical systems.

MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development – University of Cambridge

BEng (Hons) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering – University of Hertfordshire

Executive Education – Harvard Business School