Jenny Rourke

Background

About Jenny Rourke

Jenny is an experienced senior leader with a unique and successful track-record in senior leadership at two world-leading Intergovernmental Organisations: currently as Head of the Real-time Service and System Operations Division at the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT); previously as Head of the Production Services Section at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Jenny has a passion for meteorology, with 10 years as a Operational Meteorologist at the UK Met Office. She also has a connection to Education and Training, with experience as a Senior Trainer at the UK Met Office College and as a Trustee of the Royal Meteorological Society and Chair of their Education and Outreach Committee. Since October 2022 Jenny has been a member of the Senior Management Team at EUMETSAT, based in Germany. Jenny leads the Division of about 70 engineers, that operates EUMETSAT's Ground Segment, including second level system support, and to ensure provision of high quality real time products and services to Users. 2019-2022 Jenny was a member of the Senior Management Team at ECMWF as Head of Production Services Section, in the Forecast Department. She led the three teams responsible for the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) production process, from acquisition and pre-processing of observations, through running the model, to product generation and dissemination and archiving of the data. Jenny worked with colleagues to establish a Wellbeing Network at ECMWF. From 2015 to 2019 Jenny was a Deputy Chief Operational Meteorologist at the Met Office. This covered two Deputy positions: 1) Global Guidance Unit, where she provided forecasts and guidance for around the world, 2) Medium Range, where she provided guidance on UK weather from day two onwards. Previous to this, Jenny worked 50% of her time as a Senior Operational Meteorologist and 50% as a Senior Trainer in the Met Office College. As a Senior Operational Meteorologist she worked in both the Met Office Space weather Operations Centre and in the Emergency Monitoring and Response Centre, which responds to a wide range of emergencies, from Volcanic Ash, to large fires, to chemical or nuclear incidents. Previous to these roles, Jenny spent a year working with science teams to help with the development of a Hazard Impact Model, focusing on the impacts of wind on the transport network. She also spent one year working as coordinator for the Natural Hazards Partnership (NHP).