Our People

Fokhrul Islam

Chief Executive Officer

Fokhrul Islam is the Chief Executive Officer of Global Procurement Group and Northern Gas and Power. He is a leader who delivers outstanding results and inspires his team to achieve the very highest in standards.

Fu (to friends and colleagues) has shown exceptional drive and determination to get Global Procurement Group to where it is today – a major global energy specialist, approaching 800 heads across three continents.

Fu possessed a deep sense of self-belief in his ability to develop a successful sales business to support himself and his family. Inspired by Tony Kern’s thesis on professionalism and human performance in the sales industry: ‘Going Pro’, he spent roughly ten years learning as much as he possibly could about sales and business, spending time in telecoms sales with BT Corporate and business energy procurement with the former Utilitywise.

Fu encapsulates the very essence of the entrepreneurial spirit. Through a combination of dedicated focus and creativity, he taught himself many of the processes involved in building a successful business, starting that process from his bedroom in South Shields, near Newcastle upon Tyne, in 2012.

He built up a customer base which he managed through devising his own in-house internal CRM system. These foundations for growth gave the business a very effective model of scalability, which he successfully took to France and the USA. His ability to understand the impact of technology in the energy industry led him to develop a team of engineers, technicians and software specialists in Malta and India, which evolved into the 100-strong energy hub that is ClearVUE Systems today.

The results of his hard work and passion speak for themselves. Over the last four years to 2019/20, Global Procurement Group has quadrupled turnover to more than £67m and recorded 116.63% profit increase over the last three years.

In 2019, Fu was named the North’s Rising Star in the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards. And in 2020, he scooped the major accolade – Britain’s Most Ambitious Business Leader, as compiled by The Telegraph newspaper and Lloyd’s LDC. He has a 99% approval rating from former employees on highly-respected Glassdoor.

Leah Barrett

Global Operations Director

Leah Barrett is Global Operations Director at Global Procurement Group. She combines entrepreneurial flair, business acumen and a dynamic approach to all elements of the Global Procurement Group and Northern Gas and Power’s Services department. With particular expertise in building leadership presence, and a wealth of operational experience in the energy industry, Leah delivers exceptionally rigorous compliance standards across the business portfolio. Through coaching, training and its strategic implementation, she impacts at a senior level influencing the whole business.

Leah provides expert guidance for the Service and Operations team – the largest standalone team in the Northern Gas and Power network. Her department were highly commended nationally at the Energy Efficiency Awards 2018 for Quality Management, Compliance and Training. Leah’s dedication, industry knowledge and determination to succeed has enabled her to develop her sales career successfully. At just 27 years old, she was made Global Operations Director at Global Procurement Group, having started as a Team Manager just a few years prior. Leah was nominated for Inspiring Female Leader in the North East Chamber’s Business Awards 2020 and won the Utilities Female Leader of the Year 2021 in the CEOToday awards.

Martin Nicholson

Business Development Director

Martin Nicholson is the group’s Business Development Director. Martin is a consummate leader, working to identify new opportunities and markets for new technological developments and innovations.

Martin provides an outstanding strategic overview of all elements of the business, and has a vast knowledge of the energy industry. He builds strong partner relationships and is hugely knowledgeable and versatile – with the agility to move from web development to SEO. Martin works across new technological concepts and new market channels, right through to data storage and security.

He has been instrumental to the successful development and launch of the company’s new price comparison engine – BusinessEnergyQuotes.com, as well as the company’s ClearVUE Energy Management systems. His unbounded enthusiasm and experience brings an extra dimension to all he does within the business.

Mark Leeming

Global Sales Director

Mark Leeming is the company’s Global Sales Director and has been with the business for three and a half years. He is integral to the efficient communication across GPG’s whole sales environment, streamlining performance and ensuring the business maintains its competitive advantage. Mark has worked in sales for roughly 20 years and been in senior management roles since 2002. In 2009 he took an underperforming regional Orange franchise to the top five in the country. At former Utilitywise he achieved £9.2m revenue in 12 months, progressing to a senior Operations position, before joining GPG in February 2017. For GPG last year he exceeded his £19m sales target, by £5.5m.
He drives high-performing sales teams, supporting the successful growth of their customer base. He is a highly respected and personable professional, dedicated and driven, with an excellent relationship-building mentality, whether with colleagues, suppliers or wider industry influencers.

Paul Barrett

Director of Customer Service

Paul Barrett is the Director of Customer Service at Northern Gas and Power. With a career spanning 23 years, Paul has operated at a strategic level performing senior management roles across the public, private and third sectors. Paul possesses a track record of exceptional achievement in performance management and customer service, having operated across the globe to deliver the highest level of customer service within the police service, locally based charities and within international corporations. He recently joined Northern Gas and Power and quickly developed a Customer Service Department, which blends market leading energy management solutions with an exceptional and experienced team.

Latif Faiyaz

Head of Flexible Purchasing

Latif is our Head of Flexible Purchasing & Energy Strategy. Latif has a wealth of experience from within the energy industry, with experience in developing carbon projects and trading carbon internationally at Alfa Energy. Latif has also worked at Engie and Orsted, implementing the integration of energy service offerings into supply contracts. His experience is varied too. He’s worked ‘on the other side of the fence’ as an Energy Manager for the NHS, before returning back to energy trading for LG Energy and Yorkshire Energy.

With Northern Gas and Power, Latif heads our Flexible Purchasing department of Energy Traders, Analysts and Bid Managers, converting some of our 31 TWhs of energy under management into flexible contracts.

Scott High

People Director (UK)

Scott High, People Director (UK), is responsible for the colleague life-cycle, including Employer Brand, Recruitment, HR, Learning & Development, Employee Engagement, Internal Communications and Health & Safety. He is an integral part of the senior director level team inputting daily in the direction of the business.

He has years of experience in the  people engagement and talent acquisition space and is an accomplished leader who has a collaborative work ethic driving his teams forward to achieve excellence at all levels.

Ralph Attard

Chief Technology Officer

Ralph Attard is based in Malta and is Chief Technology Officer across the group. He holds a Masters Degree in Software Engineering, an MBA in IT Management, and various industry certifications. As an educator and public speaker, Ralph covers server infrastructure, software development, data platforms, enterprise architecture, management, and IT operations. His 17 years of hands-on and leading positions on building fully-integrated and high-performance systems takes our platforms to the next level.

He has been with Northern Gas and Power and ClearVUE Systems for two years, driving the software development for the roll out of the proprietary systems.

David Summerhayes

Director of Legal Services

David spearheads our growing legal team, strengthening the legal department in terms of personnel and expertise.

David Summerhayes is Director of Legal Services for Northern Gas and Power. He has extensive knowledge in commercial law, having represented multinational corporations, FTSE 100 companies, and fast-growing SMEs, occupying senior positions at global and national law firms, including Partner with Sintons LLP.