June 2026 | SuSu 2026: Opening Keynote with Dr Jo Jolly & Dr Hugo Minney
Project Managers as Planet Stewards: The Evergreen Mindset – Dr Jo Jolly
This session invites project professionals to step beyond delivery and act as stewards of long-term environmental and societal value. Using core PMI concepts—such as value delivery, stakeholder engagement, governance, and risk management—it explores how many project failures stem from unaddressed root causes and short-term thinking.
Through the Evergreen Mindset, we’ll shift from managing symptoms (like delays and cost overruns) to tackling deeper systemic issues, while embedding sustainability, ethical decision-making, and benefits realisation into everyday project choices.
Attendees will be invited to rethink their agency as leaders, using practical examples to demonstrate how every project decision is an opportunity to create lasting, regenerative value. The session concludes with a clear call to action: to make braver, more conscious choices that deliver lasting, positive impact for people and the planet.
The Weight of the Cloud: What AI-Datacenters ask from Project Manager – Dr Hugo Minney
The “Cloud” is bolted to a building site somewhere. New article: does AI earn its weight?
Data centres drew 415 TWh in 2024, growing 17% a year — yet AI is also discovering battery materials, cutting building energy by 20%, even optimising its own cooling.
Which side of the ledger wins? It depends on governance — which makes it a project management question.
My new piece (link in comments) covers: why efficiency gains are NOT sustainability gains (Jevons strikes again)
- designing data centres as “material banks”
- an unlikely synergy between SMR nuclear and Tier 4 security
- and why your 20-watt brain still embarrasses a 200-megawatt cluster.
About the Speakers
Dr Jo Jolly is Director for Natural Assets, Environment and Innovation at Ofwat. Jo has worked for over 20 years in infrastructure delivery, most significantly in the successful delivery of the Environment Agency’s £2.6bn 6-year flood risk management programme. Prior to joining Ofwat, Jo was Head of Project Futures at the Infrastructure and Projects Authority in the Cabinet Office. Her team led the implementation of the Transforming Infrastructure Performance programme, championing a much-needed change in mindset and practice across the construction sector to unlock the best value for the economy, the environment, and society. Jo is championing the use of data analytics in this transformation, including as a founding member of the Project Data Analytics Task Force.
Dr Hugo Minney is an accomplished chair and executive director, bringing curiosity, dynamism and decades of experience including with Cap Gemini. Minney’s strategic change work, based on solid benefits management, has changed the law to keep families together; reduced A&E (Emergency Room) visits by 1 million; improved health and well-being across a region; and saved £10 million in 12 weeks for an electricity distributor in UK. He has led organisations and alliances of organisations, and steered implementation of challenging strategy in complex situations, especially where employees, the public and other stakeholder engagement is vital. Minney is a Committee Member for bsi (British Standards Institute) where he chairs the panel on BS202002 Guide to benefits management in portfolios, programmes and projects, Chartered Manager (CMgr) with a Level 7 Diploma in Leadership and Strategic Management, Chartered Project Professional (ChPP), Change Professional (MChMI), MSP and PRINCE2 qualified and has a PhD in Protein Chemistry (Durham University). Minney specialises in putting a number on difficult benefits (such as sustainability and regeneration, best quality publicly funded healthcare, community development, employee health and wellbeing), and using this to motivate both team members and end-users by reporting what we are achieving together. If your CSR doesn’t show up on the bottom line, you’re doing it wrong!
Recording
Dr Jo Jolly's Presentation
Dr Hugo Minney's Presentation
Claim your PDUs!
PDU Code Jo Jolly's PDU Code: 013733N9VE 0.25 Power Skills, 0.25 Ways of Working
Hugo Minney's PDU Code: 01374X298V 0.25 Business Acumen, 0.25 Ways of Working