Speaker.

David runs Envisager a water and wastewater management consultancy based three miles from where the Do Lectures are held. For 21 years, he has followed the business of water first as an equity analyst, then as a writer and now as an advisor of companies, governments and a number of dedicated funds. David is a data junkie, specialising in dissecting worthy reports by the United Nations, World Bank, OECD and anything worth downloading to try to disentangle politics from priorities in water finance and management. His big push now is to try and move the policy agenda forward towards how we can reconcile our water resources with the challenges of population growth, urbanisation and climate change. 

David advises the Pictet Water Fund (the world’s first and largest water fund), XPV Capital (a Toronto based water venture capital fund) and WHEB Ventures, a London VC CleanTech fund. He has written six books on water management and markets including the Pinsent Masons Water Yearbook (12th edition in preparation) and ‘Tapping Liquidity’ a look at how the world’s water future spending needs can be financed. 

David returned to west Wales eleven years ago with Polly and they have been restoring Trewindsor Farm as a home for their children, Bethan and Trystan and several horses, fish, chickens, dogs and cats. He enjoys the ‘3Rs’ (reading, writing and reminiscing), despairing at local politics, good food and fine wine and local gems from the Harbourmaster to Llys Meddyg.    

Being a voracious reader, Trewindsor’s bookcases are under constant assault, with shelves ranging from Central Asian culture to local history. David’s favourite authors alternate between Proust and Powell (novels that find the somethings in bitter-sweet nothings) to Hennesey and Kynaston (historians interested in human narratives rather than heroics). David likes the Institute of Welsh Affairs (iwa.org.uk) a place where politicians and academics engage rather than shout, the International Institute of Ladakh Studies (ladakhstudies.org) for the centrality of Central Asia, WaterAid (wateraid.org.uk) for doing, not talking and the Good Beach Guide (www.goodbeachguide.co.uk) for separating the sewage from seawater.