Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based CFO’ operating in the Energy space. If you think a CFO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Neil Perry
CFO of Solarcentury
Neil Perry is the CFO at Solarcentury.
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About Solarcentury: Solarcentury develops, constructs, owns and operates utility-scale solar and smart technology across Europe, Latin America and Africa.
Carol Borg
CFO of Lightsource Renewable Energy
Carol is an internationally experienced Chief Financial Officer with experience spanning across natural resources and renewable energy. Prior to joining Lightsource BP, Carol held various senior financial positions at Vestas Wind Systems (a global leader in wind energy) based in Australia, Denmark and Spain. During this time Carol supported a 10bnEUR turnover as a Regional Chief Finance Officer, leading over 80 finance professionals supporting the Southern Europe, Middle East, North Africa and Latin America region. Carol was responsible for financial management of the entire value chain including sales, manufacturing, construction and after sales service, including the penetration and entry of new markets. Carol holds a degree in Business (Accounting) from Victoria University in Australia, and is a Certified Practicing Accountant.
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About Lightsource Renewable Energy: Lightsource is a provider of ground and rooftop solar installations in the UK.
Tim Walder
CFO of ZapGo
An experienced CFO with an Electric Vehicle, National ID and Secure Smart Card background, Tim has worked as managing director or finance director with innovative engineering and manufacturing businesses helping to improve their productivity and performance. In addition to financial management he leads on the specification, design and build of our manufacturing facility at Harwell.
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About ZapGo: ZapGo offers carbon-ion cells, an ultra-fast charging, non-flammable, near-term alternative to lithium-ion batteries.
David Bryon
CFO of First Light Fusion
David Bryon currently works as Chief Financial Officer at First Light Fusion.
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About First Light Fusion: First Light Fusion is an energy company that focuses on researching energy generation by inertial confinement fusion.
Andy Agg
Group CFO of National Grid
Career and experience: Prior to joining National Grid in 2008, Andy served in a number of roles with PricewaterhouseCoopers, including a secondment to the United States. Since then, he has worked in a range of senior finance leadership roles, including Group Financial Controller, UK CFO and, most recently, Group Tax and Treasury Director. Andy is a Chartered Accountant and member of the ICAEW. Skills and competencies: Andy has a breadth of financial management experience combined with a deep understanding of the energy and utility sectors across the UK and US. The experience gained from his range of finance leadership roles across the Group, together with his previous international experience, leave Andy well placed to support the Board and the Executive Committee in the delivery of group strategy and performance.
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About National Grid: National Grid facilitates electricity and gas transmission system and focuses on delivering clean energy.
Trisha Miller
Chief Financial Officer of Sunamp
Trisha Miller serves as Chief Financial Officer of Sunamp Limited.
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About Sunamp: Sunamp is a company that provides industrial and residential heat battery storage systems.
Prash Patel
CFO of Nyobolt
Prash Patel is the Chief Financial Officer at Nyobolt.
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About Nyobolt: Nyobolt is a developer of high-power battery technology used to serve automotive applications.
Philipp Prince
Chief Financial Officer of Enecsys
Philipp has 18 years’ experience as a chartered accountant, having qualified with Stoy Hayward (now BDO LLP) in 1995. In 1997, Philipp moved into Corporate Finance, where he spent 16 years, becoming a partner in 2002; this included two years building BDO’s Government & Infrastructure team. During his time at BDO LLP, Philipp led over 50 capital market transactions, which raised, in aggregate, approximately £4 billion and the due diligence process on numerous M&A transactions. Philipp has an MA in Natural Sciences from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University. He is also a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales.
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About Enecsys: Enecsys manufactures grid-connected solar micro inverters and monitoring systems that offer a value proposition for solar PV systems.
Jonathan Lee
Chief Financial Officer of Pavegen
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About Pavegen: Pavegen is the global leader in harvesting energy and data from footfall.
Richard Preston
Chief Financial Officer of Ceres Power
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About Ceres Power: Ceres Power Holdings PLC is a world leading developer of low cost, next generation fuel cell technology.
Stuart Ashman
Chief Financial Officer of Argus Media group
Stuart Ashman is the Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary of the Argus Media group of companies. He joined Argus in 1999 having previously worked in accounting and finance roles in practice and banking in Australia and retail in the UK. Stuart was educated at the University of Tasmania and has been a member of the Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants for over 20 years.
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About Argus Media group: Argus Media group is a global energy and commodity price reporting agency.
Stephen Williams
Chief Financial Officer of Sonnedix
Stephen Williams is Sonnedix’s Chief Financial Officer and an Executive Vice President of the company. He joined Sonnedix in 2013 with over 20 years of experience growing innovative technology businesses in the UK and around the world. At Sonnedix, he has played a key role in developing the global finance team, as well as leading the London office through a period of massive growth and change. Prior to joining Sonnedix, he was a member of the Executive Leadership Team at Symbian—a joint venture set up by Psion, Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson—to develop a software platform for mobile phones. Joining at its inception in 1998 as EVP Finance and Operations, and later serving as CIO, Stephen helped grow the company to over 1,500 employees worldwide with a turnover exceeding £300M. In 2007, he joined former colleagues from Symbian to help establish AQA63336, a pioneering and highly successful text messaging Q&A service, which they grew from its infancy to six years of continuous profits before selling the business to a third party.
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About Sonnedix: Sonnedix Solar is a global power producer dedicated to produce low-carbon solar energy for the future.
Paul Hughes
Chief Financial Officer of Plan B Energy Storage
Paul Hughes has extensive expertise within the renewable energy, alternative fuels and biochemical sector. His career includes senior management roles in both start-ups and established energy companies. Paul has co-founded energy companies in Europe and North America, has led an energy company from start-up through to IPO.
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About Plan B Energy Storage: Plan B Energy Storage manufactures high power energy storage systems.
Tim Weller
CFO of Petrofac
Significant experience of the energy and utilities sectors and serving FTSE 250 CFO. An accountant by training, joined KPMG in 1985, rising to partnership in 1997 before joining Granada plc as director of financial control. Between 2002 and 2010, he gained significant further experience in the energy and utilities sectors holding CFO positions with Innogy (one of the UK’s leading integrated energy companies at the time), RWE Thames Water (the world’s third largest water and wastewater service company) and United Utilities Group PLC (a UK-based water and wastewater service company). He was Chief Financial Officer of Cable & Wireless Worldwide plc between 2010 and 2011. CFO of Petrofac Limited, the international oil and gas service provider and a non-executive director of the Carbon Trust.
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About G4S, Petrofac: Petrofac is a provider of oilfield services to the international oil and gas industry. It is registered in Jersey, with its main corporate
Andy Skelton
CFO of Drax Group
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About Drax Group: Drax Group is engaged in the electricity generation; electricity supply to business customers.
Luca Benedetto
Chief Financial Officer of Zenith Energy
Luca joined Zenith as Finance Director of the Company’s Italian subsidiary in 2013, and was subsequently appointed to the position of Group Financial Controller. He was appointed to the position of Chief Financial Officer of the Company in 2017. Luca Benedetto trained in Italy as a registered accountant with further education in IFRS accounting and consolidation at IPSOA Milan. He has more than twenty-five years of accounting, auditing and financial administration experience. He is a former Italian soldier and was deployed to Somalia as part of the Unified Task Force in Operation Restore Hope.
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About Zenith Energy: Zenith Energy is a Engineering Consultancy and Project Management company.
Thomas Berg
Chief Financial Officer of Seajacks
Thomas holds an MSc in Engineering Management from Stanford University. He has experience of various finance functions and was employed as Partner in Whitecliff from 2000 to 2005 and as an investment banker in Orkla Finans from 1995 to 2000.
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About Seajacks: Seajacks owns and operates self-propelled jack-up vessels that safely and efficiently install and maintain offshore wind farms worldwide.
Graham Forbes
Chief Financial Officer of Ithaca Energy
Graham joined Ithaca in March 2010 bringing to the company over 20 years of oil and gas experience in the UK and in Africa. Having initially worked as a Chartered Accountant for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Graham moved to ExxonMobil where over 5 years he worked on a variety of operational and acquisition based projects for the company. In 2002, he moved to First Oil Group Limited as Finance Director for the group. In 2007 Graham took up the position of Chief Director for First Oil Limited where over 3 years he grew the profitability of the company and led it to be the UK’s largest privately owned E&P company.
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About Ithaca Energy: A North Sea oil and gas operator focused on the delivery of lower risk growth through the appraisal and development of UK
Francisco Martínez-Davis
Chief Financial Officer of Atlantica Yield
Francisco Martinez-Davis has more than 24 years of experience in senior finance positions both in the United States and Spain. He has served as Chief Financial Officer of several large industrial companies. Most recently, he has been Chief Financial Officer for the company responsible for the management and operation of the metropolitan rail service of the city of Madrid where he was also member of the Executive Committee. He has also worked as CFO for a retailer and as Deputy General Manager in Finance and Treasury for Telefonica Moviles. Prior to that, he worked for different investment banks in New York City and London for more than 10 years, including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and BNP Paribas. Francisco Martinez-Davis holds a Bachelor of Science, cum laude, in Business Administration from Villanova University in Philadelphia and an MBA from The Wharton School.
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About Atlantica Yield: Atlantica is a total return sustainable infrastructure company.
John Martyn
Chief Financial Officer of Telensa
John has over 20 years’ experience as a Chartered Accountant working in a number of high growth technology companies and multi-national companies, both in the UK and abroad. He was the CFO of Geneva Technology Ltd when it merged with Convergys Inc in April 2001, after which he became CFO for Convergys EMEA. Since leaving Convergys, John has developed a career as a non-executive director and interim CFO with a wide range of VC backed and privately owned companies, providing both operational and strategic support.
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About Telensa: Telensa makes wireless smart city control systems, including the worlds most deployed smart streetlight solution.
Liam Hickey
Chief Financial Officer of Azuri Technologies
Liam is a qualified Chartered Accountant, who has worked with private investors and financial institutions in a number of countries across East and West Africa, to help raise funding and create structured financial instruments to support the development of sustainable, private sector enterprises. He has held several senior commercial and operational finance positions across Europe, the US and the Caribbean, in multinational companies including Bertelsmann, Ericsson & Digicel.
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About Azuri Technologies: Azuri brings affordable solar power to off-grid rural africans.
Fraser Welham
Chief Financial Officer of Invinity Energy Systems Plc
Fraser Welham is the chief financial officer at RedT. He was previously at the Green Investment Group (formerly the Green Investment Bank) where he was managing director of finance. He also served as a group CFO at Element Power and group FD at Shanks Group Plc.
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About Invinity Energy Systems Plc: Invinity Energy Systems Plc is a company which has created a method by which electrical energy can be stored in liquid form.
Panos Benos
Chief Financial Officer of Energean Oil & Gas
Mr. Benos has extensive experience of working on international projects in the oil & gas sector, both in banking and industry, with a long track record of upstream financings in emerging markets. He joined Energean from Standard Chartered Bank, where he worked as a Director in their London Oil & Gas team to deliver a number of significant projects and acquisitions in Africa, Asia and Middle East. Mr. Benos previously worked for ConocoPhillips, where he held positions in European Treasury, North Sea Economics and International Downstream, with a focus on the North Sea, Central Europe and Middle East business. Mr. Benos began his career with Royal Bank of Scotland. He is a Chartered Accountant (ICAS) and holds an MSc in Shipping, Trade & Finance from Cass Business School.
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About Energean Oil & Gas: Energean is an independent E&P company focused on the Eastern Mediterranean region.
Keith Reid
CFO of Infinis Energy
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About Infinis Energy: Infinis is one of the UK’s leading generators of renewable power.
Ian Lindsay
Chief Financial Officer of Active Tree Services
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About Active Tree Services: Active Tree Services provide forestry services on a contract or fee basis.
Patrick Sinclair
Chief Financial Officer of 3T Energy Group
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About 3T Energy Group: 3T Energy Group is to harness the power of technology to transform training and enhance performance.
