Head of Sales, Octopus Energy Group
B2B, Octopus Electric Vehicles
More information about location
2 days a week in office
The UK's most awarded energy supplier
Job no longer available
The UK's most awarded energy supplier
1001+ employees
Job no longer available
More information about location
2 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To make a big green dent in the universe by building a truly sustainable energy system globally.
Role
Who you are
- To be a passionate, energetic and positive leader who has a history of building and leading successful sales teams within a high performing, high growth sales B2B environment, including both Enterprise and SME
- Experience of managing managers in a fast paced sales environment
- Strong analytical and strategic thinking abilities, with a data-driven approach to decision-making
- To be comfortable getting stuck in - attending and leading pitches, navigating complex customer requirements and writing and reviewing bids. This is a ‘hands on’ leadership role
- Experience of large complex bid and procurement processes in both public and private sector
- Although not essential, experience of working with HR teams and in particular employee benefits would be advantageous
- To be super organised and efficient; a completer-finisher
- To have a ruthless focus on the customer
- To be a problem solver who remains calm under pressure
- To have tenacity and resilience to allow you to thrive working in a scale-up business
- To thrive working in start-ups / scale-ups
- To be available to be in our London office for a minimum of two days a week, a day a week in our Weybridge site would also be a bonus
- No prior experience of working within EVs or leasing is required
What the job involves
- We’re expanding our Growth Leadership Team and looking for an outstanding sales leader to run our B2B Business Development teams, reporting into the Chief Commercial Officer
- You will lead our teams of Business Development sales people who support businesses of all shapes and sizes in making the decision to join our Salary Sacrifice scheme
- The Business Development teams work with employers of all sizes in the UK from small SMEs to large complex blue chip organisations
- Often our primary contact is with the HR and Finance functions within businesses along with the wider leadership teams
- Today there are around 40 Business Development and Onboarding team members split across four direct report team managers. This has the potential to increase in line with our ambitious growth plans
- Lead, inspire, nurture and motivate a commercially focused B2B Sales team - hiring, development, coaching, performance management etc
- Create and deliver the strategy that ensures we identify and pursue growth with employers, closing opportunities to achieve targets
- Work closely with our Salary Sacrifice product owner to ensure our proposition remains ahead of the market and continues to evolve, along with building bespoke solutions for our really large customers
- Work alongside our Customer Success teams to ensure a smooth transition from prospect to customer and with the team to grow our customers
- With the partnerships team develop strong relationships with key introductory partners
- Try new things and experiment - we encourage making mistakes and failures along the way
- Act as a point of escalation when needed for customers
- Work closely with other leaders across the business and the Senior Leadership team to create a smooth experience across the journey and build a culture that supports customers and our team
Salary benchmarks
Our take
According to Octopus, the energy industry in the UK is ruled by a handful of complacent companies peddling fossil fuels, pricing trickery, and poor customer service. Aiming to disrupt the status quo with sustainable energy, Octopus entered the market in 2016 and now supplies energy to millions of homes in a number of countries. Octopus has made a name for itself in energy circles largely because of its “Kraken” technology platform, which it claims is able to reroute energy from renewable sources around a network far more efficiently than competitors.
Octopus further differentiates itself through its aspiration to make everything as easy as possible for consumers, from the simplicity of their bills and the fact that customers are not locked into a contract, so they can leave at any time, to offering customer service over email and social media at times that suit customers. It aims to make the eco‐friendly choice the easy choice, so all of its tariffs use 100% green electricity, while being cheaper than competitors' non-green tariffs.
Its continually creating innovative new products too. For example, Octopus Tracker, where prices change daily to guarantee you get the market rate; Agile, where the price changes every half hour to enable you to benefit from cheap electricity when the sun shines, the wind blows, and the networks are under-utilised. One of the current challenges the company faces is that its products are more complex than its competitors, given that it uses 1000x more data than traditional energy companies. Because of this, it's exploring ways to explain to customers exactly how their products work.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Dec 2023
$800m
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Jul 2022
$225m
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Total funding: $2.6bn
Company benefits
- Equity Option Scheme
- Pension Scheme: We'll pay 5%. You can decide what you contribute, starting from 3%
- Money Coach: You may want to think about financial planning. The company has an arrangement with Octopus Money Coach . They offer the opportunity to talk with a professional coach
- Holidays: We're all grown ups, so we don't count your holidays here. We work hard and so we know you need to play hard as well (within reason of course)
- Flexible working: We're passionate about a genuine work-life balance here and we don't pay people to watch a clock. Need to catch that school nativity or work from home? That's cool
- Free Breakfast + other stuff: ice lollies if you're lucky)! Weekly on a Friday we all get together (this happens virtually too) for company updates and drinks - we call it Family Dinner
- Tech: We want to get the best out of our people and get that everyone is slightly different. Have a certain tech requirement? We’ll do our best to get it
- Car Salary Sacrifice: Browse the wide selection of electric vehicles and get a sample quote under our workplace salary sacrifice scheme. If approved, the monthly leasing costs are taken directly from your gross salary each month meaning you're saving on paying some tax
- Cycle to Work Scheme: The Cycle to Work Scheme is a cost effective way to “buy” a bike up to a value of £2.5K, which hopefully is enough for a decent commuting bike, even an electric one. This extends to the cost of accessories and safety equipment as well as the bike
- Season Ticket Loan: Commuting to the office on the regs? If you travel more than twice a week, it’s worthwhile getting an annual ticket. With our Season Ticket Loan, you can spread out the cost over 10 months. It’s quick and easy to sort. Once approved and ordered, your season ticket will be posted to you within 5 days or so
- Maternity leave: 16 weeks full pay + 8 weeks half pay + 15 weeks statutory maternity pay
- Paternity leave: 12 weeks full pay
- Private Medical Insurance: Say goodbye to long waiting lists! For anyone who wants some additional peace of mind when it comes to their health, we offer Private Healthcare Insurance at different levels of cover. The monthly costs are taken directly from your gross salary and spread across 12 months. You even save on National Insurance
- Gym & Yoga: You can get up to 25% discount on gym memberships and we have 45 minute live yoga classes open to all Octopus staff twice a week!
- Headspace: Need some calm in your life? We have 'Octopus Headspace Licences' available
- Eye Test: Free eye test vouchers for all colleagues who use Visual Display Units (VDU). Long spells of VDU work can often be visually demanding and can lead to tired eyes, discomfort, temporary short sightedness and headaches
Company HQ
Soho, London, UK
Articles
Leadership
Greg Jackson
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously an Adviser at Ashcombe Advisers for 9 years and a Non-Executive Director at Zopa for 7 years.
James Eddison
(CTO)Previously CEO at Claripoint for 7 years and CTO at Tangent Labs also for 7 years.
Stuart Jackson
(Co-Founder & CFO)Previously a Director of "Foundation" Business Unit at Barclaycard for 2 years and Chief of Staff, Secured Lending SBU at Barclays also for 2 years.
People progressing
Joined as Marketing Assistant, being promoted to Marketing Executive after 6 months and again to Junior Product and Marketing Manager after 7 months. After 8 months they became a full Product and Marketing Manager.
Joined as Senior Talent Partner, being promoted to Talent Manager after 1 year and again to Head of Talent Acquisition after 8 months.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Octopus Energy Group
- Unconscious Bias workshops for interviewers and hiring managers
- Octopus Energy Equality Foundation
- Partnership with the Saracens High School - inspiring future generations - https://www.saracens.com/powering-futures-together-saracens-high-school-octopus-energy/
- Octopus Energy Internships - https://octopus.energy/blog/ada-lovelace-tech-internship/
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