Born and raised in the region, he took office as Mayor in May 2022, elected on a platform of restoring the pride, purpose and prosperity of South Yorkshire. After graduating from Leeds University, Oliver began his career at Barnsley Council working on low carbon regeneration projects. Since then, he’s worked in Parliament, in the US Congress and with the charity BookTrust.  He was recently Chair of the Board at Sheffield Hallam Students’ Union and has worked a number of high-profile political campaigns, both within the region and abroad. During his time as Mayor, Oliver has been working to deliver his manifesto pledges, building on his promise to do politics differently, and to fight for a better deal for South Yorkshire. 

Rachael is Professor of Sustainable Chemical Engineering, Director of the South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre, Co-Director of the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, Co-Director of the UK Hub for Research Challenges in Hydrogen and Alternative Liquid Fuels and Academic Lead for Sustainability at the University of Sheffield. 

Rachael is a thought leader in sustainability, regularly engaging with policy makers, the media and the public. Her research expertise lies in development and analysis of sustainable processes and systems. She has a background in large scale hydrogen production and carbon dioxide utilisation and has more recently worked on the sustainability of Foundation Industry processes, plastics and packaging. Rachael leads projects that take an interdisciplinary, whole systems approach to developing routes to net zero and zero waste, combining insights from engineering, psychology, linguistics, sociology and the physical sciences. 

Kate has worked on adaptation to a changing climate as a researcher, research coordinator, facilitator, consultant, mentor, evaluator for over 27 years. From 2019-2023 Kate was a UK Research and Innovation champion for the Strategic Priority funded UK Climate Resilience Programme, based at the University of Leeds.  This involved working closely with academics, policy makers and practitioners to shape the £19m research programme to ensure outputs were relevant and usable.

Kate is now a Director at Climate Sense, a group that supports organisations to navigate the complex internal and external challenges of decision making for climate adaptation.  She is currently seconded part-time to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, supporting their Climate Evidence Team to assess the ongoing progress of the UK’s Third National Adaptation Programme.  Kate has a PhD from Sheffield Hallam University.  She lives in Sheffield.