Mississauga, ON: March 14, 2025– Candu Energy Inc., an AtkinsRéalis company, is today announcing the expansion of the Nuclear sector’s senior leadership team with the addition of industry leaders to sharpen focus on project delivery. All changes have taken effect.
In 2024, AtkinsRéalis’ global Nuclear sector backlog, and workload, increased to record levels driven largely by bookings from Candu Energy. The first sales of CANDU® reactors in Romania since 2007 were announced in 2024. Candu Energy has also set a goal to build at least 50 new CANDU reactors in the next few decades. This is in addition to opportunities for 19 CANDU reactor life extension projects over a decade.
In preparation for this unprecedented demand, Candu Energy Inc. has aggressively expanded its workforce, hiring 750 new employees last year with recruitment expected to continue at pace into 2025. The Company also issued over $1.3 billion in purchase orders to the CANDU supply chain in 2024.
In line with its 2025–2027 strategic plan, “Delivering Excellence, Driving Growth”, a top priority of AtkinsRéalis beyond adding new CANDU reactor sales and refurbishment projects to its Nuclear sector backlog, is to continue delivering Excellence — one of the Company’s five core values — in its execution of work already under contract to customers in Canada and around the world.
With this focus on delivery, the following changes to Candu Energy Inc.’s organizational structure have been made:
- Alexander (Sandy) Taylor returns to AtkinsRéalis as President & CEO of Candu Energy Inc. A highly respected industry veteran who was responsible for Candu Energy Inc. from 2014-2022, Sandy has remained active as a Special Advisor to the Company’s Nuclear sector since stepping back from his full-time role three years ago. During that time, he has played a key role in the negotiations for AtkinsRéalis’ contract with Ontario Power Generation for the Pickering CANDU Life Extension project, as well as the Government of Canada’s loan toward the development of the CANDU MONARK™ announced earlier this month. In his new capacity, Sandy will have overall responsibility for all Candu Energy Inc. activities, maintaining a particular focus on execution to deliver safe and high-quality work, both on time and on budget.
- Dietmar Reiner joins as Senior Vice-President, Candu Canada. Dietmar, who until 2021 was Chief Project Officer and SVP – Enterprise Projects at Ontario Power Generation, will oversee Candu Energy’s Canadian nuclear projects. This includes the Darlington and Pickering CANDU life-extensions, as well as the Darlington New Nuclear Project to deliver the G7’s first grid-scale SMR. His role will also include overseeing the CANDU MONARK development program.
- Gary Rose takes on the newly created role of Executive Vice-President, Candu International. Gary will oversee all international CANDU reactor projects, leveraging his deep relationships with our international customers. This includes the life extension of the Cernavoda Unit 1 CANDU reactor, the new builds of Cernavoda’s Unit 3 & 4 CANDU reactors, as well as Candu Energy Inc.’s ongoing work on CANDU units at the Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant in China, and the Wolsong units in South Korea. Gary will also be responsible for CANDU OEM/Reactor Services for the global CANDU reactor fleet, including reactors in Canada and Argentina.
“This is a crucial time for the business to execute on the extensive range of global projects at the level of excellence that we have always delivered to our customers,” said Joe St. Julian, President, Nuclear, AtkinsRéalis. “These additions to our leadership team will enable us to scale up faster, ensure appropriate executive oversight on all our projects, and position us for future opportunities. I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Dietmar, a ‘welcome back’ to Sandy, and continued success to Gary in his new role.”
About AtkinsRéalis
Created by the integration of long-standing organizations dating back to 1911, AtkinsRéalis is a world-class engineering services and nuclear company dedicated to engineering a better future for our planet and its people. We create sustainable solutions that connect people, data and technology to transform the world's infrastructure and energy systems. We deploy global capabilities locally to our clients and deliver unique end-to-end services across the whole life cycle of an asset including consulting, advisory & environmental services, intelligent networks & cybersecurity, design & engineering, procurement, project & construction management, operations & maintenance, decommissioning and capital. The breadth and depth of our capabilities are delivered to clients in strategic sectors such as Engineering Services, Nuclear and Capital. News and information are available at www.atkinsrealis.com or follow us on LinkedIn.
About AtkinsRéalis’ Nuclear Sector
AtkinsRéalis has over 70 years of global nuclear expertise, delivering nuclear technology products and full-service solutions to nuclear utilities around the world. AtkinsRéalis is the steward of CANDU® nuclear technology, operating on four continents, and provides advisory and engineering services to other nuclear developers. With an innovative technology portfolio, including access to over 500 patented solutions, AtkinsRéalis solves technically complex challenges across the whole nuclear lifecycle from design and new build through asset management and from life extension and late life management through decommissioning and waste management. AtkinsRéalis operates and manages government nuclear research sites, transforming ageing infrastructure and safely managing legacy nuclear waste. AtkinsRéalis’ CANDU technology also allows for the co-production of medical radioisotopes for cancer detection and treatment. The company also supports cancer treatment through its partnership with TerraPower to extract isotopes from legacy nuclear material. Learn more on our Nuclear market page.
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