MPA appoints new members to executive team and council

The UK 2897 Mineral Products Association (MPA) has appointed three new members to its executive team and four new members to its council.

Tony Jones becomes director of health & safety, Neal Weston is the new director of regions to succeed Brian James at the end of the year, and Dr. Robert McIlveen succeeds Jerry McLaughlin from the year-end as head of public affairs.

Tony Jones is an experienced SHEQ specialist having worked in the security, safety, oil & gas and mineral products industries. He spent several years working with major international oil companies throughout the Middle East and Africa and prior to that he spent 23 years in the British Armed Forces.

Robert McIlveen has a first-class BA (Hons) degree in History & Politics from the University of Warwick and an MA in Politics and a PhD focused on political party organisation and campaigns, from the University of Sheffield. He was a research fellow in the environment and energy unit at Policy Exchange, then public affairs manager and European affairs specialist at 2898 Network Rail. Latterly he was UK public policy manager at Royal Mail. He has extensive political campaigning experience at both national and local level.

Neal Weston holds a BA (Hons) degree in History from the University of Liverpool and has spent much of his career working for membership and representative organisations in a variety of policy, communications, public affairs and stakeholder roles. His early career experience included working in the US Congress and for MPs and senior political figures in Westminster. Most recently, he was external relations manager at the Institution of Civil Engineers for five years and subsequently head of policy & communications at the trade body Airlines UK for twelve years.

MPA has also appointed four new members to join its Council. Mike Hill has been chief executive of the Hills Group since 2008. Katherine Evans is the head of planning and a senior partner at the law firm TLT. Joanne Garwood is the managing director of aggregates and asphalt at FM 2949 Conway and Jacqui O’Donovan is the CEO of O’Donovan Waste Disposal. 

MPA chief executive, Nigel Jackson, said: “I am delighted that Tony, Robert and Neal have joined MPA’s executive team in this important year as our membership grows and the issues we are now dealing with increase and become more integrated and complex. Having already diversified and strengthened the MPA Board earlier this year we are also delighted that Mike, Katherine, Joanne and Jacqui are joining our Council. Collectively they bring a wealth of additional commercial and industry experience to our