Head of Strategic Initiatives, OVO
12 Month Fixed Term Contract, Maternity Cover
You’ll be eligible for an on-target bonus of 15%. We have one OVO bonus plan that focuses on the collective performance of our people to deliver our Plan Zero goal
More information about location
1+ day a week in office
Powering human progress with clean affordable energy for everyone
Posted today
Powering human progress with clean affordable energy for everyone
1001+ employees
Posted today
You’ll be eligible for an on-target bonus of 15%. We have one OVO bonus plan that focuses on the collective performance of our people to deliver our Plan Zero goal
More information about location
1+ day a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To lower carbon emissions to zero by 2035, helping our customers reduce theirs at the same time - we call this Plan Zero.
Role
Who you are
- Have 6–10 years of experience in scale ups; ideally a mix of operating roles, likely to also have spent time in VC, Growth Equity, Investment Banking, and/or Consulting
- Are financially fluent and analytically dangerous: Excel, SQL, dashboards, financial models
- Have led highly visible initiatives that have changed the trajectory of a company
- Understand what breaks at scale and how to fix it
- Are comfortable being dropped into messy problems with no playbook
- Know how to push and drive outcomes with empathy
- Thrive in ambiguity, move at pace, and own outcomes
What the job involves
- We’re hiring a Head of Strategic Initiatives: a strategic operator, execution obsessed, and a trusted partner throughout the organisation
- This is not a ‘deck builder’ role. You will identify, lead, and land some of the most important initiatives in the business; simplifying how we work, supercharging how we scale, and unlocking value through data, technology, and operational excellence
- You will need to know what good looks like, have a strong opinion on how world class technology-led businesses should operate, and the credibility to influence people across multiple levels of the organisation
- Lead business-critical, cross-functional projects, from idea to execution to outcomes
- Cut through complexity to redesign how the organisation operates: faster, leaner, better
- Build organisational momentum behind bold decisions and help turn strategy into reality
- Model impact, size opportunities, and get under the skin of what is really going on in the business
- Use data to influence, challenge, and guide decision-making, especially when the situation is uncomfortable or ambiguous
- Bring both commercial and customer lenses to every analysis, articulating P&L impact and customer value
- Champion scalable processes and high-performance ways of working
- Codify what great looks like by drawing on best practice from world-class consumer-facing technology companies
- Help shift the company mindset from reactive to proactive, from bloated to focused
- Be in the room, collaborating and influencing leaders throughout the organisation to shape what great looks like
- Build deep trust and credibility across Product, Technology, Commercial, Operations, Finance, and People teams
- Drive alignment without needing hierarchy, because your work and thinking speak for themselves
- Reporting to: Director, Strategic Initiatives
- Team: Strategic Initiatives
Salary benchmarks
Our take
On average, home energy represents 26% of our carbon footprint. Ovo Energy wants to bring this to zero by providing cheaper, greener and simpler energy to customers. It's analysing meter data to deliver easy, personalised actions, turning electric vehicles into power stations with clever chargers, and building energy-efficient heaters. For households, it's offering is organised into four different energy plans, that include interest rewards on energy credit balance.
In 2020, OVO completed the acquisition of SSE Energy Services' retail arm for £500 million, meaning that the challenger brand now has around 4 million customers in the UK.
While helping Ovo members halve their carbon footprints, the company is also working towards becoming a net zero carbon business by 2035. The challenges ahead for the company include encouraging consumer behaviour change, shifting towards subscription models for home energy use.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Meet the team
Kate Cottrell, Smart Meter Engineer
Our mission
Supporting our customers on the journey to zero carbon by delivering exceptional customer service and promoting energy efficiency.Insights
Company
Employee endorsements
Inspiring mission
"The mission to provide Green energy to all customers, and to enable all our customers to start on a journey towards zero carbon living is written in..."
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Jul 2023
$269.5m
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Feb 2019
$269.5m
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Total funding: $580.7m
Company benefits
- On-target bonus up to 15%. We have one OVO bonus plan that focuses on the collective performance of our people to deliver our Plan Zero goal
- Flex Pay: 9% on top of your salary - 4% of this is auto enrolled into your pension, and the remaining 5% is yours to do what you like with. You can use this to buy from our extensive range of flexible benefits, including our green benefits which we've put at the heart of our offering, add to your pension or even take it as cash
- 34 days of holiday (including bank holidays)
- For your health: With benefits like a healthcare cash plan or private medical insurance depending on your career level, critical illness cover, life assurance, health assessments, and more
- For your wellbeing: With gym membership, travel insurance, workplace ISA, will writing services, dental insurance, and more
- For your lifestyle: With extra holiday buying, discount dining, home & tech loans, and supporting your favourite charities with give-as-you-earn donations
- For your home: Get up to £400 towards any OVO Energy plan, plus great discounts on solar, smart thermostats and EV chargers
- For your commute: Nab a great deal on ultra-low emission car leasing, plus our cycle to work scheme and public transport season ticket loans
- For your belonging: To find better ways to support our people, we need to listen to each other’s experiences and find ways to build a truly inclusive and diverse workplace. As part of this, we have 8 Belonging Networks at OVO. Led by our people, for our people - so when you join OVO, you can play a part - big or small - with any of the Networks. It's up to you
Company HQ
Redcliffe, Bristol, UK
Leadership
David Buttress
(CEO)CEO of OVO, the UK’s 3rd largest energy supplier. Joined in May 2024.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at OVO
Alessandro Storer (Head of Inclusion & Belonging )
- We run inclusive training and unconscious bias workshops for employees and interviewers
- We provide mental health support, through different networks, having mental health first aiders within the business and running initiatives like our "wellbeing Wednesdays" to promote this.
- We have dedicated Early Years programmes with a focus on underrepresented groups, offering different training opportunities within the business.
- We invest in tools, like Textio, and focused I&D job boards to help us reduce bias in our job postings and recruitment activity.
- Commitment in improving diversity across our Tech Teams and working with companies to improve the tech ecosystem as a whole, specifically have committed to at least 30% Women in Tech at OVO by 2026
- We've signed up to numerous charters, like the Tech Talent Charter, Race at Work Charter and Trans in the City, to show our continuing commitment to improving I&D within OVO and the wider community
- Within OVO we have multiple belonging networks and communities set up, to offer support and forums for everybody
- Read more about our commitments to improving Diversity & Inclusion at OVO in our linked belonging report
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