We’re delighted to welcome Oliver Blackwood to ENSEK as our new Chief Technology Officer. Oliver joins us from Centrica, where he was Vice President of Engineering, and brings over a decade of experience in building and scaling SaaS engineering teams. He has led the development of large-scale software products and is passionate about harnessing technology to drive meaningful change. Oliver arrives at a pivotal moment in our journey, and his expertise in engineering strategy and innovation will be instrumental as ENSEK accelerates its next phase of growth.
Oliver Blackwood: A few things made ENSEK stand out to me. First, the fundamentals of the energy sector and ENSEK’s mission are incredibly compelling. Energy is critical infrastructure, and enabling suppliers to operate more efficiently and serve consumers better through technology has a real impact on millions of people. The industry is undergoing a massive transformation towards cleaner, smarter energy, and ENSEK is right at the heart of that. As someone who’s passionate about the green energy transition, the opportunity to build software that helps drive that transition was a huge draw — it's the kind of meaningful challenge that excites me.
Second, the opportunity at ENSEK is all about building and innovating. My background is in software engineering, and I love creating products that truly make a difference for users. I was keen to return to a space where I could be more hands-on in shaping and building products from the ground up. ENSEK offers the chance to develop a cutting-edge platform and ecosystem of products with significant potential to grow. The idea of being able to shape a product that can change outcomes for energy suppliers and end consumers — and not just implement off-the-shelf tools — really attracted me.
Third, the people and culture at ENSEK drew me in. Even before I joined, I could tell that the team here is enthusiastic and mission-driven. In my conversations with leadership and others, I met people who genuinely want to do the right thing for our customers and for the energy transition. That kind of passion is contagious. It’s important for me to work with teams that care about what they’re building and about each other. ENSEK has a strong sense of purpose, and I knew I’d be joining a community of people eager to make a positive impact.
Oliver Blackwood: The timing couldn’t be better — we’re at a real turning point in ENSEK’s journey. Over the last couple of years, ENSEK has built a world-class billing and energy management platform and proved its capabilities with a major customer in the UK. That was a huge achievement and it gives us a solid foundation. Now, what’s exciting is how we evolve from that foundation to a much broader vision.
ENSEK is transitioning from serving a single market to expanding internationally and across the energy sector. We have the backing and momentum to take what we’ve built and scale it to support a wider range of customers and markets. For me, stepping into the CTO role now means I get to help shape and accelerate this next chapter.
I’m excited because it plays to our strengths and my experience. We’re essentially gearing up to go from a successful single-market solution to a global, multi-product platform. That means tackling new challenges — like supporting more large-scale customers at once, entering new markets, and adding new capabilities like flexible energy management or demand-side solutions. Those are complex, interesting problems to solve, which is exactly what motivates me. It’s not about maintaining the status quo; it’s about leading a transformation. In many ways, it feels like a reboot of the organisation for growth — a once-in-a-career opportunity. The chance to guide ENSEK through this pivotal phase — strengthening what we have and launching what comes next — is incredibly exciting to me.
Oliver Blackwood: My role has two main focus areas. The first is enhancing our internal platform and team maturity. A big part of my job is to ensure that our engineering organisation and technology platform are ready to scale. As we continue to embed product-led principles across the business, we’re refining how we work to support that ambition. I’ll be focusing on modernising our engineering practices and development processes — things like improving collaboration, encouraging greater ownership within teams, and aligning our work to clear objectives and outcomes. This also means evolving our organisational structure and investing in the right talent and skills. In the next 6–12 months, a lot of my attention will be on operational excellence: making sure that as we take on new projects and customers, we can deliver consistently and confidently.
The second focus area is technology strategy and product innovation. I’m working closely with the executive team to shape our long-term technology roadmap — where we want to be in 3, 5, or 10 years, and how we get there. ENSEK’s broader goal is to accelerate the digital energy transition, and technology is central to that. So part of my role is identifying what new products or capabilities we should be developing to support that mission. While our core billing platform (Ignition) remains foundational, we see opportunities to expand into areas like customer engagement, smart energy management, and flexibility services. My job is to help prioritise these opportunities and ensure we have the technical capability to deliver.
In practical terms, this means ensuring our platform can support international growth, adapt to different regulatory environments, and scale efficiently. It also means exploring how emerging technologies — like AI and automation — can enhance our offering. Whether it’s improving software development, streamlining operations, or unlocking new insights through data, we’re focused on technology that delivers real value to our customers and supports ENSEK’s growth.
Oliver Blackwood: From the outset, it’s been clear to me that ENSEK has a strong foundation — both in its people and its platform. There’s a core of incredibly committed, passionate experts here who believe in what we’re doing. That’s a huge asset — having a team that cares and is willing to go the extra mile. It means we can move quickly once we point that energy in the right direction. We’ve already delivered a complex solution for a major Tier 1 supplier, which tells me that the underlying technology and knowledge in the company are solid. Not every scale-up can say they’ve successfully onboarded a large enterprise customer — ENSEK has, and that’s something we should be confident about.
I’ve also recognised opportunities to simplify and modernise how we operate. As with many fast-growing businesses, we’ve built up layers of process and complexity over time. Now, we have a real opportunity to streamline how we work, adopt more agile and progressive practices, and empower our teams to move faster and more effectively. I’m keen to build on the strong foundation I’ve found — our skilled people, proven solutions, and collective expertise — and unlock even more potential by removing friction and enabling innovation.
Oliver Blackwood: There’s a tremendous opportunity to use technology and data more strategically to drive ENSEK forward. One key area is automation — by reducing repetitive tasks and manual processes, we can free up our teams to focus on higher-value work. Whether it’s in our software deployment pipeline, testing, or operational workflows, automation will help us move faster and improve quality.
Data is another major opportunity. ENSEK sits on a wealth of energy data and operational insights. We’re looking at how we can turn that data into actionable intelligence — through better analytics, real-time reporting, and data science. By making data more accessible across the organisation, we can empower teams to make faster, more informed decisions and drive innovation that directly benefits our customers.
We’re also modernising our platform architecture to support modularity and scalability. This will allow us to develop and deploy new capabilities more quickly, integrate new technologies more easily, and support a growing portfolio of energy SaaS products. It’s all about creating a technology foundation that enables us to respond to customer needs with speed and precision.
Oliver Blackwood: Emerging technologies like AI and automation will play a key role in ENSEK’s future — but we’ll approach them with a clear focus on value and impact. AI is already helping us in targeted areas, such as analysing large datasets from smart meters or customer interactions to uncover insights that can improve service and efficiency. We’re also exploring AI-assisted development tools that can support our engineers in writing and testing code more effectively.
Looking ahead, we see potential for AI to take on more complex tasks, especially as we train models on our specific codebase and domain. But our approach is always to use technology to empower people — not replace them. Whether it’s automation that removes manual steps or AI that enhances decision-making, the goal is to make life easier for our teams and our customers.
We’re also keeping a close eye on the growing ecosystem of connected energy devices — from electric vehicles to home batteries and smart appliances. Integrating with connected energy technologies — from EVs to smart home devices — will be essential as we help suppliers and consumers navigate the energy transition. As a cloud-native platform, we’ll continue to leverage cloud technologies to stay agile and scalable, while maintaining the flexibility to adapt as the landscape evolves.
In short, we’re committed to using emerging technologies not for their own sake, but to deliver smarter, cleaner, and more user-focused energy solutions. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be in this space, and I’m looking forward to what we can achieve together.