Cambridge Water has appointed Elena Karpathakis to be its new Managing Director. 

Elena will join the business at the end of March, ready for the start of AMP 8, and will lead the business in delivering its 2025-2030 business plan, its largest ever investment period to date.

Cambridge Water is a clean water business that supplies high-quality drinking water to approximately 351,000 customers across the Cambridgeshire region.

Elena Karpathakis joins Cambridge Water, and parent Group South Staffordshire Plc, from British Gas where she held the position of Vice President – Field Services Director, leading the national field engineering unit, one of the UK's largest in-home services providers. 

Prior to this, she held a variety of operational and business planning leadership roles at Openreach, the nation’s largest wholesale broadband network, and BT Group, one of the world’s leading communications services companies.

Elena brings with her over twenty years of leadership experience in regulated and safety-critical environments. She specialises in both service and operational transformation, with a keen focus on customer experience, employee engagement and a robust safety culture.

Charley Maher, Group CEO at parent company South Staffordshire Plc said: "The successful delivery of Cambridge Water’s 2025-2030 business plan is imperative for our customers, the environment, and our investor; the next five years will bring some truly exciting investment for customers. We are excited to start putting our plans into action to secure future water supplies in an area characterised by population and housing growth, alongside protecting the region’s environment and keeping our customer bills amongst the lowest in the sector. Elena’s experience and skill set mean she is ideally placed to lead Cambridge Water, and I look forward to the future success ahead."

Elena Karpathakis added: "I’m delighted to be joining Cambridge Water at a time when the business, and sector, is starting out on its new five-year business planning period. I am looking forward to working with the whole team to deliver on our ambitions for our people, customers and the environment. There is lots of work to do to deliver our ambitious business plan, and I can’t wait to get started."