The Company
Established in May 2011, our client is an exciting and innovative entrant into the energy market providing simple to understand tariffs and outstanding customer service. The new Energy group are part of a wider range of businesses with revenues of £1.2 billion
From their inception in May 2011 to entering the domestic supply market in 2012, the customer numbers continued to grow, rising from 165,000 on supply in 2013 to 213,000 at the end of 2014/15. Sales increased correspondingly by 43.4% to £228 million.
Challenge
The Midlands has a strong energy market with a cluster of Big 6 and smaller entrants in the Midlands (e.g Npower, E.on, British Gas, Extra Energy, Ovo Energy, Corona Energy). This newly formed company appointed Lord to work in partnership with them to source energy candidates with a Big 6 background. The challenge was to attract candidates to a start-up energy provider and convince them to move from an established household name to a start-up. Wider financial benefits of working for a larger energy supplier were not going to be available so this provided a further challenge in attracting candidates.
Lord partnered the client in the appointment of a number of key senior roles both on a retained and contingent basis, finding success where energy specific recruitment companies had not.
Method
Each assignment was tailored with a bespoke search strategy the first of which was to find an experienced and driven CFO who had a Big 6 background coupled with the gravitas and commercial approach to run and grow a start-up energy provider.
Through our existing network in the Energy sector we were able to approach senior candidates at both Npower and E.on Within 2 weeks we had presented a shortlist of 6 candidates that were subsequently interviewed, and after 3 candidates were then taken to a second stage, the final candidate was selected for a final meeting with the CEO and then successfully appointed.
Lord then worked with the incumbent CFO directly on a number of energy specific roles, and successfully recruited the following:
- Head of Risk
- Head of Hedging & Trading
- Interim Project Manager
- Head of Contract Management
- Head of Smart Metering
- Head of Customer Experience
- Commercial Finance Analyst
- Pricing Analyst
- Regulatory Advisor
The process for recruiting these roles was to conduct an extensive research project, identifying individuals in the Energy market. This involved mapping out the relevant candidates in all the Big 6 energy suppliers both in the Midlands and also across the UK .
Approaches were made with initial pre-screening and first interviews conducted by Lord. Shortlisted candidates were then met by the CFO and wider team. The most significant challenge in this process was to engage with individuals in the Big 6 who had the motivation to move to a start-up energy supplier. Then managing them through what could often be up to a six month notice period.
Results
Lord succeeded in securing a number of key appointments for our client across a range of very energy specific roles. This was from a limited candidate pool given the niche skill set required, and succeeding where other energy specific recruitment specialists had not.