Diana Mitchell leads Lightsource bp Australia and New Zealand’s environmental and social planning team. Lightsource bp is a global market leader in the development, acquisition and long-term management of large-scale solar projects and smart energy solutions.

Prior to joining Lightsource bp, she worked at the NSW Independent Planning Commission (IPC) as a Principal Planning Officer and the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) as a Senior Planning Officer in its Resource and Energy Assessments division, where she primarily worked on the assessment of State Significant Development (SSD) renewable energy developments and led the large-scale solar energy assessment team.

Before working for the IPC and DPIE, she worked for Ausgrid as Senior Environmental Officer – Planning in its environmental team. Her achievements with Ausgrid include managing the environmental aspects of infrastructure projects from development to commissioning, including new zone substations and transmission power lines. She also developed, implemented and maintained Ausgrid’s environmental training program and was responsible for its environmental planning policies and guidelines. She also had a role in building and maintaining Ausgrid’s Environmental Planning Website, Environmental Geographic Information System (GIS), Web GIS and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) worksheet.

Diana worked with the QLD Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (DEHP) as a Senior Environmental Officer in 2011 to 2012. While with DEHP she acted in the role of Principal Environmental Officer in the Energy Assessment Unit, in which she was primarily responsible for assessing and conditioning environmental approval applications for the petroleum and gas industry.

Diana started her career working for Environmental Resources Management (ERM) on its Site Investigation and Remediation team, based out of both its Sydney and Chicago offices. In this role she focused on field investigation, data analysis and reporting, gaining experience in human health risk assessment. She gained extensive knowledge in both the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA’s) Superfund Site Program and the Illinois EPA’s Site Remediation Program.