Simon’s interest and involvement in equality, diversity and inclusion stretches back some 25 years. Between 1980 and 1993 he served as a helicopter pilot in the Royal Navy, a period at which coming out as LGBT could have led to his dismissal or even his prosecution. for this reason Simon resigned his commission in 1993. Later that year he joined, and ultimately took a senior leadership role in, Rank Outsiders, a group which worked with Stonewall and others, to lobby both the Conservative and subsequent Labour Governments for a change in the law regarding LGBT military personnel. This campaigning ultimately led to the successful overturning of the military ban in 2000, an event which Simon proudly witnessed from the gallery of the House of Commons.

In the meantime, Simon attended university for four years before joining Transco (later to merge into National Grid) in 1997. He helped found National Grid’s LGBT employee network as well as leading on Inclusion and Diversity for Xoserve, a part-owned subsidiary of National Grid. At the beginning of 2010 Simon was appointed as National Grid’s UK Head of Inclusion and Diversity, a full-time role he held until the end of 2015. Simon has been a keynote speaker or panellist at numerous events and for organisations including Tomorrow’s Company, the Fabian Society, the Whitehall and Industry Group, Westminster Briefing, the 6th Annual Global Diversity & Inclusion Seminar in Barcelona and the inaugural Inclusive Leadership and Recruitment Masterclass as well as contributing to significant industry research such as Tomorrow’s Global Leaders. Simon also encouraged National Grid’s sponsorship of and ongoing involvement in the Lord Mayor of London’s Power of Diversity campaign under Dame Fiona Woolf. Simon was a founding Board member of the National Equality Standard. As well as working with National Grid’s leadership team, Simon has also provided advice and support to the leadership teams of a number of other organisations across a range of sectors, and has been a key contributor to the Royal Academy of Engineering’s campaign to increase diversity in both the engineering sector and in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) generally.