We talk to UK CEO, Sunny Tiwana, about his exciting new role and responsibilities and explore what the future holds for Energy One’s European ETRM offering.
Congratulations on your new role, Sunny! Tell us about your journey to CEO – where did it all begin?
I have been part of the Energy One UK team (formerly Contigo Software Limited) for over 10 years, initially joining to help set up the support services for our products and clients. This quickly grew out; the first seven years were very much client focused, supporting their journey with our products in a dynamic market. This meant building out an enterprise-level support service operating on a 24/7 basis via cloud platform services, enabling the company to host all our client systems.
More recently I have been Chief Information Officer in the UK-based business, where I have taken responsibility for steering the organisation’s software delivery with operational team managers across the UK technology function. This includes Development, QA, IT support services and most importantly our Client services. As a company, we pride ourselves on building exceptional client relationships and understanding how our systems are used by our client base.
Having spent over 15 years working in IT and technology, and more recently the last five years combining this with the business and financial aspects across the organisation, I bring a great deal of confidence that I can carry the CEO torch from my predecessor Simon Wheeler, who is now European CEO at Energy One.
It is clear that you are dedicated to ensuring the business delivers the best possible software and service to customers. As CEO, what are your immediate priorities?
As a company, we understand that customers demand high quality ETRM products, providing accurate data that informs and supports their business especially through this recent volatile period. The key focus will be to ensure our reputation grows in strength and we continue to provide a strong application that remains agile with market demands.
As part of the Energy One Group, we truly have a strong presence and fantastic experience within our teams, both globally and across Europe, to aid the vison and ensure customers realise the true value of their systems, while also ensuring we adapt the software to meet their developing requirements.
We have a fantastic group of staff. One of our key objectives and visions across the group is to ensure that all our staff are provided with the right environment and tools to succeed. This helps our other key focus, which is to best support our customers and our product offering. We plan to continue investment in staff to develop and enhance their skills and grow our market knowledge using dedicated experts who are passionate about the energy industry.
What excites you most about being part of Energy One right now?
For me there are a few key drivers that really make me passionate about being part of Energy One:
- The Energy One Group has been fantastic for us here in the UK. As a company, we have been able to share knowledge globally and continue the organic growth of the organisation, sharing products, developing skills and expertise that is now focused as a global brand.
- The Product: I may have a biased view, but I firmly believe that our ETRM software and our service offering are the best in the market. The product enhancements over the years have been fantastic, our project track record is second-to-none and we are 100% committed to our clients. A key driver and motivator is working with clients to enhance their experience and ensure we all learn from one another.
- The People: For me I would not be in this position if it wasn’t for the people that are in the company. We have a strong, focused team that works collaboratively. This is really pushing the boundaries in delivering a strong product while maintaining strong working relationships. It has been tough over the past few years with the pandemic, but the team has really come together to show how software can be done correctly with amazing project delivery and group integrations.
Is there anything you’re particularly looking forward to over the next 6-12 months?
Yes – In terms of our products, we have been persevering as a team behind the scenes with moving our product and technology forward. There has been a strong focus on our technology with cloud hosting aspects to keep in line with market demands and changes in these technologies. This is now very much geared up for our product owner to drive the functional developments that we need to support these changes in market for the renewables push, PPAs and to further enhance existing products to provide even more flexibility.
Now that travel has begun to open up we are all super excited as a team to get back out on the road, to not only be more collaborative as the Energy One Group, but we’re also looking forward to meeting our existing clients and new clients in person.
In fact it was truly exciting to experience E-world recently after a two-year break. It was fantastic to meet the trading community once again and showcase our software suite. This year’s event held even more importance to me as I was representing as UK CEO while also converging together on one stand under the Energy One brand.
And finally…when you’re not being CEO, what do you enjoy doing?
I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel extensively since graduating and pre-pandemic. During the pandemic, this slowed down a fair amount, however over this period I became a parent. My focus is very much dedicated to family life now, which is in great balance and is a switch off point to my professional life. As the world is now starting to open back up, we are super keen as a family to get back out and start travelling again.
