Simon Virley

Biography

Simon Virley was appointed Director General for the Markets and Infrastructure Group at the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) in September 2009. In this role he leads government’s work on energy markets and infrastructure issues.

Previously, Simon was acting Director General for the National Climate Change & Consumer Support Group in DECC and Chief Executive of the Office for Renewable Energy Deployment.

Simon is an economist by background and spent most of the 1990s at HM Treasury, where he lead work on ‘green’ taxes. Between 2000 and 2003 he was Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, dealing with economic affairs. He then lead the cross-departmental work on better regulation as Director of the Better Regulation Executive between 2003 and 2005 before a secondment at KPMG where he was Director of Corporate finance, advising on the financing of energy and other major infrastructure projects.

He has a number of published economic articles to his name. He is married with two sons.