Mel Rowlands

Mel Rowlands joined Sonnedix in June 2023 as General Counsel.

Mel is responsible for all things legal, compliance, regulatory, and ESG related across the business The Legal and Compliance function business partners with Sonnedix colleagues and our various stakeholders to fuel the growth whilst also protecting Sonnedix long term value and reputation by ensuring appropriate management of legal risk. On SLT Mel leads on our ethical culture and values of always doing the right thing. She is also the Corporate Secretary to the Sonnedix Board of directors and supports our Chairman in that respect.

Mel holds a degree from Oxford University and has over 25 years of experience as a business lawyer. She qualified with a City law firm as a mergers and acquisitions specialist and has worked as an in house lawyer for many years. She has worked in both public and privately owned international businesses and has experience of multiple sectors including oil and gas and energy, industrial gases, semiconductors, aviation and medtec. She also has for many years led large international teams including legal, compliance, regulatory, hr, health & safety and government affairs.

Throughout her career Mel has been a member of executive teams leading change and has worked on a number of transformational projects such as public company mergers, demergers and listings. She is also experienced at working with public and private company Boards.

For the last ten years Mel has worked at Smiths Group – a FTSE100 technology group – where she held the role of Group General Counsel. She most recently led its response to the covid crisis coordinating across 5 business divisions whilst also supporting the UK government’s ventilator challenge. She also delivered the $2.7b sale of Smiths’ medical division whilst concurrently preparing it for demerger and a separate listing on the UK Stock Exchange.

Mel is proud to join Sonnedix and contribute, with her experience and her passion towards sustainability and the energy transition, to the company’s purpose of powering a bright future. She is also passionate about equity, diversity, inclusion, and social mobility and is looking forward to working with the rest of Sonnedix on its plans in this regard.