New Head of Group Financial Planning and Analysis at ABP

Associated British Ports (ABP), the UK’s largest and best-connected ports operator, is pleased to announce the appointment of Bianca Simeone as its new Head of Group Financial Planning and Analysis.  

During her tenure at ABP, Ms Simeone has successfully supported the senior management team to set and deliver the Group’s business plan by enabling the right insights to drive business and financial decisions. Bianca has also played a key role in developing financial reporting, planning and analysis across the business. Prior to joining ABP, Bianca held a number of roles across mining, transport and other industries, including at Anglo American and Heathrow.

Mani Atwal, ABP Deputy Chief Financial Officer, commented: “I would like to congratulate Bianca on her promotion and look forward to continuing to work together in this strategically important role for ABP, which forms a key part of the finance function’s leadership team and provides expertise to our Group planning, reporting and business partnering to other functions.”

“Especially with the launch of our twin missions of Keeping Britain Trading and Enabling the Energy Transition, we need a laser-sharp focus on our goals to stay on track and navigate external challenges in an effective manner in order to achieve sustained business growth.”

ABP’s commitment to sustainability is reflected in its strategy, ‘Ready for Tomorrow’, which sets out the company’s plans to invest £2 billion in decarbonising its own operations by 2040 as well as enabling the wider UK energy transition through large-scale clean energy infrastructure projects.

In relation to her appointment, Bianca Simeone, ABP Head of Group Financial Planning and Analysis, commented: “I feel privileged to have witnessed how, over the past decade, ABP has transformed from a traditional port operator, focused on Keeping Britain Trading, into a business that is committed to Enabling the Energy Transition. I’m excited to see what comes next.”

“There are many talented colleagues I have worked with in my time at ABP and I look forward to continuing to lead financial planning and analysis so that we can build a future we can all be proud of.”

As the UK’s largest ports group, ABP provides strategic locations at the heart of the UK’s largest industrial hubs, as well as access to an industrial ecosystem including customers, suppliers and leading energy and logistics infrastructure, project development expertise and access to overseas markets and supply chains via world-class port infrastructure.

In the summer of 2024, ABP joined forces with Plug and Play Tech Center to announce the launch of its Energy Ventures Accelerator, a programme aimed at startups, innovators and investors tackling challenges in floating offshore wind, industrial decarbonisation, low carbon fuels or CCS. The programme is currently open for applications and particularly welcomes submissions from women, ethnic minority people and other underrepresented groups.

About ABP (www.abports.co.uk)

Associated British Ports (ABP) is the UK’s leading ports group, with a network of 21 ports around Great Britain handling around a quarter of the nation’s seaborne trade in goods. By facilitating trade and connecting British businesses and manufacturers to international markets, our ports act as important drivers of economic growth across the UK. Together with our customers, our ports handle over £150 billion of UK trade.

ABP is also a major and growing provider of green energy infrastructure – such as providing bases for offshore wind and infrastructure for the handling and storage of net zero commodities such as hydrogen and sequestrated carbon.

In fulfilling these vital trading and net zero roles for the UK, together with our customers, our ports contribute £15 billion+ to the UK economy and support 200,000+ jobs. The jobs we directly provide are around a third better rewarded and more productive than UK averages. These jobs are ‘beacon’ jobs in areas which, too often, are amongst the most deprived in the UK.

Find out more by downloading our sustainability strategy, ABP Ready for Tomorrow, which sets out our plan to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions from our own operations by 2040.

ABP in numbers:

• ~ 90 million tonnes of cargo handled each year
• 4,000 hectares of port estate owned
• 38% reduction in GHG emissions from 2014 – 2021
• 18 out of 21 ports have renewable energy generation projects
• > £55 million investment made in low emission and renewable energy generation technologies