Meet the Speakers

Paul Collins has over 20 years of experience with utility infrastructure. His early career focused on municipal, development and site servicing work in the private sector with Lathem Group, URS Cole Sherman and Delcan, with the latter company nominating him to coordinate utility work for the Toronto Transit Commission’s Toronto York Spadina Subway Extension. 

This was the start of Paul’s focus on coordinating utilities in support of transit project delivery. For the next 11 years Paul worked on various aspects of utility coordination and transit implementation. He joined Metrolinx in 2016, ultimately becoming the Director of Utilities for the Capital Projects Group, the position he holds today. Paul has been instrumental in improving utility coordination specifically related to transit project delivery and is dedicated to connecting our communities.

Alon Gat joined EY’s Supply Chain and Operations Consulting to lead the development and delivery of the Metrolinx OUC (Office of Utility Coordination) to maximize value of public infrastructure investment by orchestrating the interactions within the program and its partners. 

Alon was most recently a Senior Principal at Capgemini UK PLC where he designed and delivered an operations centre for Thames Water. Focused on delivering operational asset and data lifecycle management, utility coordination, end to end traceability and case management, Alon helped Thames Water successfully deliver one of its most ambitious infrastructure transformations in its entire history. Prior to this recent appointment, Alon served as the Capgemini Global Utilities Operations Lead. He led and delivered a number of specific energy, gas and water deployment, transformation and operations initiatives globally including Hydro One, Toronto Hydro, SoCal Gas (US), EDF Energy (UK), Centrica (UK), Fortum (Nordics), PUB (Singapore), Enel (Italy, Spain and Brazil) and DCC (UK). 

Scott Paterson is currently the Business Development Manager for TULLOCH Mapping, responsible for nurturing new clients and applications for TULLOCH’s municipal and transportation sectors.  Scott has over 30 years’ experience in surveying and mapping, remote sensing imaging and GIS sectors.  For the past 17 years Scott has be involved with airborne and mobile LiDAR applications.

Gord Renyolds joined Infrastructure Ontario, a Crown agency of the Province that supports the government’s initiatives to modernize and maximize the value of public infrastructure, to lead the interactions with the utilities industry. He most recently was COO at NRStor, Canada’s leading energy storage developer, where he led the restructuring and refinancing of the business along with the development of innovative and complex power projects with governments, utilities and indigenous partners. Before NRStor, Gord was with Spark Power, an integrated energy service company, where he started as a founding member of the Advisory Board and later took on the role of COO and EVP of Corporate Development, leading a number of corporate initiatives that propelled the business forward towards its corporate objectives, including a number of acquisitions and a public markets listing (TSX:SPG).

Gord was previously at IBM Canada as an Executive in their Utility Practice and maintains a role at the MaRS Advanced Energy Centre as well as helps several related organizations with transformation initiatives. Shortly after market open in Ontario and as the industry began its digital transformation, Gord transitioned from a technical field role at a utility and joined Capgemini/E&Y where he rose to become the Managing Director of the Canadian Utilities Practice and the Global innovation leader for the Power & Utility sector.

In these roles, Gord has assisted many Power and Utility companies by being deeply involved in many critical business initiatives. He has spent most of his 20+ year career servicing the Power and Utility industry in a variety of capacities ranging from field and back-office operations, project and strategy development, and business transformation, to post-merger integration and restructuring. Specifically, he has led significant initiatives with Hydro One, BC Hydro, Toronto Hydro, Enbridge Gas Distribution, National Grid and Sempra/SDG&E (US), EDF Energy (UK), SP AusNet (AUS), among others. Through this varied experience, including working in the field as a Powerline Technician, in government, as an industry advocate and on boards, Gord has an appreciation of the issues facing the industry and has gained insights into leading performance bringing practical advice in the areas of executive leadership, corporate development, indigenous relations, operations, strategy, technology integration and business transformation.