Tony Williams
Zurich, Switzerland
Dr. Tony Williams has 40 years of technical and executive experience in nuclear fuel design, manufacturing, management, and economics. For most of his career, he was responsible for the commercial and technical fuel cycle management of three of the four operating nuclear power reactors in Switzerland.
He became head of the nuclear fuel business unit for the Swiss utility Axpo Power AG in 2004, the company responsible for the general and fuel management of the two Beznau PWR units and the Leibstadt BWR.
His responsibilities comprised uranium, enrichment and fabrication procurement; core and fuel design; interim on- and off-site storage; cask procurement and transport, as well as some aspects of final disposal.
He was a member of the general management boards of NPP Leibstadt and of the Division of Nuclear Energy of Axpo Power AG. He was also a board member of ZWILAG AG, the company responsible for interim dry fuel storage and waste conditioning in Switzerland.
He was an elected member and later chairman of the World Nuclear Fuel Market, an industry group dedicated to the promotion of business in the field of nuclear fuel.
In addition to his commercial responsibilities, he was a guest lecturer at the Technical University of Zürich and has made countless presentations at conferences, meetings, and schools.
More recently, he was a leading member of a technology monitoring task force in Axpo, set up to track and evaluate the international developments in nuclear technology, including large, small modular and micro reactor types.
Before engaging with Axpo, he managed a research program at the Swiss Federal Research Institute (PSI) investigating fuel and core issues related to pebble-bed modular reactors and before this worked as a reactor physicist for the British commercial nuclear industry.
In addition to a diploma in Business Management, Dr. Williams has an honors degree in Physics from Durham University (1981) as well as a master’s and doctorate degree in experimental neutron spectrometry from Birmingham University (1984).
In April 2024, Dr. Williams retired from Axpo, but will continue to pursue international consulting activities, and has affiliations with NAC International and Transmutex.
Areas of Expertise
- Contract development
- Contract portfolio analysis
- Fuel Design & Manufacture
- Fuel fabrication procurement
- Fuel Management
- Government Policy evaluation and impacts
- New fuel design reviews / LTA's / Accident Tolerant Fuel
- Operation & Performance
- Purchasing/marketing strategies
- Repository and recycling economics
- RFP and bid evaluations
- Security of supply studies
