Ovo Energy has appointed three new roles to its executive retail team, including a chief operating officer (COO) responsible for integrating the retail arm of SSE into the company.
New COO Raman Bhatia was previously head of digital bank for HSBC Retail Banking and Wealth Management in the UK and Europe. Bhatia headed up the deployment of various digital platforms and products during his time there. Prior to that Bhatia worked in consumer tech as VP at HouseTrip and director of strategy at Expedia for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
He said: “A better customer experience, digital solutions and new technology is what Ovo is famous for. This is an incredible moment for me to join. I’m really looking forward to working with the teams on a journey to zero carbon living.”
Also joining Ovo’s executive team is Bill Castell as chief financial officer and Charlotte Eaton as chief people officer.
Castell, former acting CFO at Virgin Media, will also be Ovo Group Controller, meaning he will provide support to group CFO Vincent Casey on wider Ovo business.
Prior to his time at Virgin Media, the former army officer held a number of senior finance and operational leadership roles at Barclays, most recently as CFO of Barclays Corporate Bank.
He also qualified as an accountant with Deloitte and was a mergers and acquisitions investment banker with Goldman Sachs.
Castell said: “The recent acquisition of SSE provides the scaled opportunity for the team to bring even more leading technology, products and services to all of our customers’ homes.”
Meanwhile Charlotte Eaton was previously VP of people at technology company Arm.
During her time at Arm, Eaton managed a number of business transformation projects and developed a particular expertise in mergers and acquisitions.
Before joining Arm, she was HR director at HJ Heinz (now part of Kraft Heinz) after starting her career as a HR business partner at Barclays Bank.