Mark Howells is the CCG Programme Director. He  is jointly appointed at Loughborough University and Imperial College, London. Previously at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden he set up their prestigious Energy Systems Analysis programme. He led the development of some of the world's premier open source energy, resource, and spatial electrification planning tools; published in several Nature Journals; coordinated the European Commission's think tank for Energy; is regularly used by the United Nations as a science-policy expert; and is a key contributor to UNDESA's 'Modelling Tools for Sustainable Development Policies' initiative. His work has contributed to efforts for NASA, IRENA, ABB, the World Bank, and others.

He sits on the advisory panels of leading US and European institutes. Prior to joining academia, Mark had an award winning career with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Mark's graduate and post-graduate studies were undertaken at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. While there he was an international research affiliate at Stanford's Program on Energy and Sustainable Development and represented the World Energy Council's student programme.