21 October 2025
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Laetitia Mace, Residential ASHP Portfolio Manager, Baxi, shares her journey from discovering heat pumps in 2012 to championing them as a clean alternative to fossil fuels, while stressing the need to inspire young people to join the industry.
Back in 2012, I was actually renovating my home when I first came across heat pumps. Who would have thought that this would spark a whole new career!
Back then, I was focused on refurbishing the existing heating system in the house we had just bought. The house is off the gas grid, so that pushed me to explore a whole series of options to arrive at the best solution to meet our needs. And that’s when I discovered heat pumps.
The technology itself might not be new, but at the time it wasn’t commonplace in the UK.
I remember struggling to find an installer who felt confident about installing a heat pump. They all kept recommending fossil fuel products – anything, it seemed, rather than a heat pump. I remember their concern that the technology wouldn’t work – and yet here we are, more than a decade later, and heat pumps are widely seen as a strong alternative to boilers. Ten years ago, people raised their eyebrows when they heard I’d decided to install a heat pump. Now, I’m bombarded with questions at my local pub about what it’s like to live with one! It’s not just my neighbours either: an increasing number of people across the country today consider them a real and viable alternative to fossil fuel.
My background is in Sales and Marketing, but I got into the heat pump industry because I am a passionate advocate of the technology and truly believe in its efficiency. I want to make a difference to the heating market, see more homeowners make the switch, and make sure that the heat pumps we at Baxi provide are a serious and simple alternative to boilers.
It’s the best job I could possibly have because work simply doesn’t feel like work.
What does your role involve?
As Baxi’s Residential ASHP Portfolio expert, my role involves planning, developing, launching and managing the residential air source heat pump (ASHP) solutions that Baxi launch onto the market.
A key part of my role is to ensure that the product development process follows our rigorous quality testing procedures and is compliant with all the latest regulations. As such, my job requires a good knowledge of the market as well as the related legislation. It’s also essential to understand who the customers are – from installers and merchants to property developers – while identifying precisely their needs and those of the homeowner or tenant end user.
In short, this means investigating and analysing the best products we can create that will follow the market trend and comply with legislation while developing a product that will fulfil all customer and end-user requirements. To help me in my role, I’m fortunate to have the support of a fantastic expert team of Baxi engineers.
As the overriding aim is to offer the best product for the market, we naturally involve our customers extensively in the product design process, seeking and evaluating their feedback on the various propositions we put forward.
Reliability and quality of our products is always at the forefront of what we do, while making it affordable for our customers. This means my focus is always on offering our customers the best value ASHP for their money. My role is also to follow the product through its life cycle. This means understanding how it performs and evolving it where possible to a next generation model if we see room for improvement. It is a role that requires working closely with most functions of the business and even closer with our end users and customers. Launching the product and receiving the feedback from our customers is hugely rewarding.
What do you see as the challenges facing the industry?
The way we heat our homes and buildings has to change if we are in the UK are to achieve our legally-binding net zero target by 2050. This energy transition, the move away from fossil fuel technologies to renewables is the biggest challenge the industry faces.
Unfortunately, not everyone embraces changes readily. For this reason, education is vitally important.
We need to upskill gas engineers so that they are able to design and install heat pump solutions. We have created a series of training courses to help installers do just that, available across the country in our training centres. Installers can enrol on our initial one-day product awareness course before progressing to our in-depth Installer Heat Pump course that covers design and application, installation, commissioning and fault finding.
We also need to educate homeowners on how heat pumps operate most efficiently.
As we know, heat pumps work differently to boilers. With boilers we are used to turning them on and off depending on the time of day and occupancy, and to having piping hot radiators. Heat pumps, in contrast, work better when run for longer periods, using a setback temperature control for when the house is unoccupied or at night. We need householders to understand that running the heating system at lower flow temperatures will still deliver an agreeably consistent temperature – even though the radiators aren’t scolding hot.
Space is another potential challenge: an air source heat pump solution typically requires more space than a traditional boiler as it needs a hot water cylinder inside the property, and sufficient space outside for the unit to extract the heat from the ambient air.
In the UK, space can be at a premium which can make finding a suitable location for the ASHP less straightforward. To help overcome this, Baxi is working hard to design products that are more compact as well as faster and easier to install, while still delivering the same high performance. Baxi’s new prewired, pre-plumbed cylinder is one such example.
Did you have any mentors or anyone in particular who inspired you?
Simon Sinek is someone that I like to listen to. Remembering the power of the ‘why’ is key to all we do.
I also have a mentor outside this industry: Fabio Ferrari. He taught me the value of empowerment and how, by offering support, you can transform an industry and inspire people to give their best. In an industry that is undergoing a radical transformation, this is hugely relevant.
What would you say to other women who are considering coming into the heat pump industry?
Come and join us! We need more women to join this industry, bringing their diverse skills and perspectives and helping fill the skills shortage across multiple disciplines from engineering to product management. As a member of the Construction Inclusion Coalition (CIC), created to improve equity, diversity and inclusion across the sector, Baxi is a committed advocate of encouraging more women into the industry. Our partnership with not-forprofit organisation Primary Engineer is just one example of how we are introducing young girls as well as boys to STEM in the classroom. In this way we hope to inspire an interest in the heating and heat pump industry from an early age.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I love to spend my free time looking after my children, tending my kitchen garden and cooking the produce, and helping my husband look after our bees. Whether I’m harvesting my own vegetables and the honey from our bees at home or harnessing renewable energy to deliver clean heating systems at work, sustainability is the common thread. For me, it’s all about living in balance with nature.
