Ovo Energy has announced two senior appointments to its management team.
The medium-sized challenger brand has brought in former Hotels.com senior director of technology David Allison as its new technology director. He joins Rich Jones, who came in as product director from ASOS earlier this year.
Allison drove Hotels.com’s technology strategy and played a role in building up a “very sizeable” in-house technology group. He hired the first in-house engineering team for Hotels.com and led the development of the website’s first mobile app before leading key areas including infrastructure, data engineering and checkout.
During his time at ASOS, Jones was responsible for leading the brand’s product strategy to maximise customer experience. Prior to this, he led product at streaming service, Blinkbox and was creative director at the BBC, responsible for running a team of user interface and user experience designers for BBC iPlayer.
At Ovo he is now responsible for the development of product strategy and delivery on all the company’s brands, with a focus on energy.
Adrian Letts, retail chief executive of Ovo Energy, said: “We understand that innovation in tech plays an important part in helping us become more sustainable, and this has huge and exciting implications for Ovo and the industry.
“We’re confident that both David and Rich’s experience from the fashion and e-commerce industries will add an invaluable layer to the Ovo Energy team and customer experience.”
Thames Water
In other sector appointment news Thames Water has announced the appointment of two new members to its executive team, with both set to join the company in October.
Nicola Cocks joins on October 28 as regulation director designate and will work with Nick Fincham until his planned departure early next year. Cocks joins from KPMG and has 15 years’ experience of regulation in the power and utilities sector.
At KMPG she was a director of the power and utilities division, she provided UK clients with regulatory advice and analysis. Prior to this, Nicola worked for Ofgem for 10 years where she managed a price control review and a referral to the Competition and Markets Authority.
John Bentley joins on October 1 as capital delivery director. Bentley is a qualified engineer and has 30 years’ industry experience, the majority in senior positions at Severn Trent.
He has managed large and complex teams and contractors and led the strategy development and delivery of Severn Trent’s £1.5 billion AMP6 capital investment programme – among the largest in the industry.
Kiwi Power
Meanwhile energy technology company Kiwi Power has announced the appointment of Jay Zollener as its new chief executive.
Zollener takes over from Yuval Tamir, who has been the interim chief executive since late last year.
Zollener has more than 30 years’ experience in growing and managing energy businesses in the United States.
He will lead the company’s strategy to expand its global operations as a platform-as-a-service provider of distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS) to utilities, distribution system operators and aggregator partners internationally
Zollener joins from Edison Energy where he also served as chief executive.
Northern Ireland Renewables Industry Group (NIRIG)
Former Northern Ireland Green Party leader Steven Agnew has been announced as the new head of the Northern Ireland Renewables Industry Group (NIRIG).
Agnew is standing down from his position as a member of the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly (MLA) for North Down, which he has held since 2011. He served on the enterprise, investment and trade committee as well as the all-party group on renewable energy.
During his political career, Mr Agnew played a significant role in decarbonising Northern Ireland’s economy. He also introduced a law requiring children’s authorities to work better together, the Children’s Services Co-operation Act.
He was the leader of Green Party in Northern Ireland from 2011 to 2018.
Agnew said: “Northern Ireland is leading the way on renewable energy generation and we can do even more in the years ahead. I’m looking forward to the challenge of securing further green growth, jobs and investment – as well as low-cost electricity for consumers.”
NIRIG is a joint collaboration between the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA) and RenewableUK.