On Accelerating Net Zero Energy Innovation - a conversation with Guy Newey, Chief Executive Officer at Energy Systems Catapult

Hello, welcome and welcome back to Leaders in Conversation with me, Anni Townend. 

Today’s guest is Guy Newey, Chief Executive Officer at Energy Systems Catapult, and the title of our conversation is ‘On Accelerating Net Zero Energy Innovation’.

I have had the privilege of partnering with Guy and working with a group of Future Leaders at Energy Systems Catapult - a company committed to accelerating NET ZERO in the UK through supporting innovators to commercialise, and helping design and deliver the future energy system.

Together Guy and I delve into the people, places and experiences that have made him the person and leader he is today. 

Guy offers valuable insights into :

• Communication and what he has learnt about communicating across the wider team.
• Resilience, how managing your own energy is key, along with helping to manage that of the team.
• Getting comfortable with not knowing everything, and how the more senior you become as a leader the less you know.

Guy's Three Key Encouragements to Leaders looking to innovate and commercialise for Net Zero 

1. There is a huge market out there - net zero is an incredible opportunity (as well as an essential mission)
2. It is not unusual to feel imposter syndrome - in fact it is super common
3. Learn fast - be prepared to pivot quickly if something you thought was going to work does not work.

To connect, follow and find out more about Guy:

LinkedIn: Guy Newey

Website: https://es.catapult.org.uk/

Twitter/X: @guynewey

To contact Anni Townend:

Email me on anni@annitownend.com or visit my website www.annitownend.com, subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn.

About Guy Newey

Guy was appointed Chief Executive Officer at Energy Systems Catapult, the innovation business, in June 2022. Guy joined the Catapult in 2018 as Director of Strategy after being an energy and political adviser to two UK Government Secretaries of State; Greg Clark and Amber Rudd. In Government, he was involved in many key decisions, including closing the UK’s coal-fired power stations, greater independence for the electricity system operator, and as an architect of the Clean Growth Strategy.

Before joining Government, he was Head of Policy at the challenger energy supplier, OVO Energy and Head of Environment and Energy at the influential think tank, Policy Exchange. He was previously a journalist, including three years as a foreign correspondent in Hong Kong for the international newswire, AFP. He is a non-executive director with UK100, a charity campaigning for greater environmental action by local authorities. He lives in Enfield, with his wife and two children.

Transcript

Anni Townend: Hello, welcome, and welcome back to Leaders in Conversation with me, Anni Townend. Today's guest is Guy Newey, Chief Executive Officer at Energy Systems Catapult, and the title of our conversation is On Accelerating Net Zero Energy Innovation. Leaders in Conversation is the podcast in which I talk with leaders about their own life and leadership stories to encourage you to reflect on your values, beliefs, passion, and purpose, and inspire you to be even more confident and courageous in your own leadership.

If you're not already, please do subscribe, share, and review it. Thank you.

I've had the privilege of partnering with Guy and working with a group of future leaders at Energy Systems Catapult, a company committed to accelerating Net Zero in the UK through supporting innovators to commercialize, help design and deliver the future energy system.

Together, Guy and I delve into the people, places and experiences that have made him the person and the leader he is today. Guy offers valuable insights into communication and what he has learnt about communicating across the wider team. Resilience and how to manage your own energy being key, along with helping manage that of the team.

And finally getting comfortable with not knowing everything and how the more senior you become as a leader, the less you know. Welcome Guy. 

Guy Newey: Hi Anni. Nice to be here. 

Anni Townend: I'm very excited that you are here. I'm very much looking forward to exploring with you the first question, which is who are the people, places, and experiences that have shaped you in particular, your values and beliefs, your passion and your purpose and made you the brilliant leader that you are today.

Guy Newey: Thanks, Anni. A big, huge question to kick off with. I think the first place I'd talk about was when I was in Hong Kong. My original job was a journalist and I guess I still probably see myself as a journalist really and have lots of kind of journalistic skills despite me not having anything to do with it anymore but I was in Hong Kong between 2006 and 2009. Worked with this organization called AFP, Agence France, which is one of the big international news wires.

And we had this incredible office that overlooked Hong Kong Harbour, Victoria Harbour, which is one of the world's great views. And the truth is, for probably a third of the year, we couldn't really see out of the window, we couldn't see it at all. And largely that was because of the pollution that we were breathing in from Guangdong.

Guangdong is one of southern China's kind of very successful states since China revitalized its economy. And so you were breathing in this economic success. But it was creating environmental degradation. So that started forming the homework question, which has guided the rest of my career, which is, Can you have economic growth without destroying the planet? But that all started with Hong Kong. I got interested in writing about environment and energy issues. I realized I didn't understand it. And unlike lots of journalists, some of whom get quite comfortable with not understanding things and just carrying on I decided that I wanted to learn a lot more. The second big kind of time in my life, which was super influential. I came back into the UK and I did my master's at Imperial and with the full intent of going back into journalism and becoming an environment and energy correspondent and writing about it full time. A job came up working for a think tank called policy exchange in their environment and energy team.

And I was like, Oh, that sounds interesting. I was just coming out of university. I thought I'd give that a go and ended up being there for four years. And the reason I raised that is because that got me into, and understanding, the role of policy and how politics works. This was based in Westminster in the UK, which is where all the political power is.

And eventually this got me to a position where I became what's called a special advisor, which is a rather grand sounding title for a kind of political appointee. So after the 2015 election, Amber Rudd, who became the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change I knew she was going to be looking for a special advisor.

So I was, reasonably well placed and managed to get my CV into the right hands through relationships and it was my great fortune and probably one of the most important moments in my life that Amber took me on as a special advisor. And I became her political right hand policy person.

For those of you who don't know what special advisors are, your job is to give political advice to ministers, to try and keep them out of trouble, to try and work out whether policy is the right thing to do, and whether the political implications of a policy are the right thing to do. So I had a kind of crash course in power, really how political power works, how Whitehall works, how the relationships between politicians work, how you tell a good story out to the public, how you avoid any disasters, how you set strategy, all of those things.

I did that for three years in total. First for Amber, and then for Greg Clark, who took over the energy brief when some of the departments were merged on it was just the most extraordinary privilege to first of all, to be in the room and the one thing you really miss. I left government in 2018 is is being in the room feeling that you're part of the conversation where big decisions are made but also just understood lots of lessons, which are really important for me and in leadership in terms of the slightest casual word can be overinterpreted and, really ruined people's day and more junior levels in the organization.

The importance of clear strategy, prioritization, all of those things, such huge pressures on ministers times.

So first of all, Hong Kong, and then I guess Hong Kong started me on a road that led me to becoming a kind of government special advisor.

And then I decided to leave in 2018 cause I was just turning 40 and hadn't really run anything. If you're a journalist, you're basically a kind of lone wolf. And I've had small teams when I worked at think tanks and other areas, but I was like if I'm going to do something, I guess I had a realization that, yeah, you can get big stuff done in government and there's some things that I'm hugely proud that I was involved with closure of coal fired power stations in the UK, setting up an independent system operator, all of those things, which I was, a little part of making that happen.

I came to the view that my passion was about decarbonization and about accelerating that change. And I realized that I thought you could have a bigger impact if you're working for a company that is coming up with a new product or service, which just happens to be low carbon and which people love.

And I realized that's a better kind of route to change than even government and, I don't think I'm revealing any secrets when the British government in 2018 was not exactly focusing heavily on Net Zero. It was focusing particularly on how does it get itself out of the European Union?

I had this opportunity at the Energy Systems Catapult, which is where I am now. We are an organization which helps businesses small and large, but particularly small businesses grow. Helps them think about their products and services, test them, trial them, learn from real consumers and come up with things which are going to help contribute to this enormous challenge that we've got in Net Zero.

It'll be six years later on this year, which I think is extraordinary. It's probably the longest I've ever been in a job and took over as chief executive almost two years ago. 

Anni Townend: Amazing Guy. Thank you for being so open about the places and discovering your purpose. What are your values and beliefs that underpin your passion and purpose that guide you in your life and in your leadership?

Guy Newey: So the first thing to say is, my homework question for my life in many ways is Net Zero. So how do we decarbonize the energy system in particular? So intellectually, having that passion for the subject matter I work on it's really important.

We've been involved in work, well, delving to the bottom of personal motivations. And for me, it's Responsibility. That's the word that I keep coming back to. I was lucky enough to be born with a brain that enabled me to get some stuff done.

I had very supportive mom who push me in lots of ways. I was put in an environment where I could thrive. And my kind of reflection of that is not that every bit of success I've ever had is because I've deserved it. And because I've worked hard and things like that I'm very much a believer that the environment gives you those opportunities, both, being in a country that's successful and, being part of institutions, which are successful.

And I think, that comes with a bit of a responsibility, right? If you've had, lots of chances in life, then you should be trying to do things which, tackle the biggest problems. And that's why I'm hooked on climate change because there's nothing more important or urgent to try and address.

And it's one of the most difficult challenges. Net zero is the homework question and responsibility is the emotional driver for me.

If I wasn't doing this, I'd be working on another difficult problem.

Anni Townend: It's great hearing that the value that is dear to you is one of responsibility and that, because you are a thinker and someone who can solve problems, that you have applied your thinking and your problem solving to innovating and making a difference to net zero and to our most urgent pressing issue of all times, along with many others, which I'm sure, like you say, you would be involved in if you weren't involved in net zero. And in terms of your beliefs about people and their development, if your core value is one of responsibility. What's your belief about people and their development, particularly from within a leadership context where leadership is about not only growing the business and economic growth, but also growing people.

And I asked that in part because of your commitment to growing future leaders at Catapult and our partnership in doing that.

Guy Newey: First of all, we're trying to create an environment where people are doing the best work of their career. The kind of people who join the catapult and we're about 280 people now, and the vast majority, almost exclusively people join the catapult because they're passionate about the mission, which makes it a wonderful starting point in terms of a team, right? And so it's something that we really test at interviews.

And what you want to then try and do is first of all, give them really interesting work to work on. And thinking about how we're going to decarbonize people's homes, the flexible digitalized energy system we're working towards, all of those tools. So you want to give them interesting problems to work on because otherwise, you'll end up stifling passion.

And in an ideal world, and this is something that leaders I know struggle with the whole time. I certainly struggle with it. Give them the space to learn and develop within those roles.

So there is more opportunity, but there's not the kind of levels of opportunity you're going to get in terms of variety and promotions that you're going to get in a giant professional services firm or a big engineering company or anything like that. But it also means that people are going to have to try some other stuff, so they're going to have to be comfortable saying I'm doing this today.

We also try and be as flexible as possible for people. It's one of the key attractors for working at the catapult. It's one of the things that we have learned post lockdown is, really trying to think hard about what's the right type of work for people to be in the office environment for, we've got a lovely office in Birmingham in the center of the UK.

What's the right environment where they can work from home, or work remotely, all of those questions. And like loads of companies we are learning and making mistakes. But it's something that we think is very important because innovation, which is what we are about, we're about helping innovators.  And creativity comes from a lot of false starts But it comes after people have tried things. And again, it's trying to create an environment where people can do that and they're comfortable saying, I didn't get this right. I didn't get this exactly as I wanted to, let's try and get it better. And the crucial thing is whether you can learn from that as both an individual as an organization.

Anni Townend: Brilliant Guy and I would love to move into the things that you've learned by way of key insights and learnings along the way I know one of them is communication. 

Guy Newey: It's been a wonderfully rich kind of set of insights that I've had over the last two years since I took my first CEO job. So the first thing I'd say is about communication. And I said, I was a journalist to start with, and I still see myself as a journalist.

And I guess journalists' great skill apart from eliciting information out of people is getting to the heart of what's important. And so that's always the skill you practice over and over again What is the thing that really matters? And I think that is one of the things that i've transferred across from being a journalist or try to when i'm being a chief executive is right: What's the heart of this? What is actually going on here? What's the actual crucial strategic insight and what's the message that I want to give to my team or externally out to the business? What is the intro that I need to say, whether this town hall or, or a show and tell or a piece of written communication or all of those things.

That is one thing that is a skill that I feel really is getting to the nub of an issue is something that any leader needs to work really hard on. I would also say the insight I've probably gleaned is people aren't paying attention to everything you're saying.

So if you're doing a town hall and you're speaking for 45 minutes, it may be that not everyone takes in every aspect of the salient details. So repeating messages relentlessly until people are bored of it. That is the moment where people will actually be paying attention. And people are busy, they'll be juggling potentially a few different projects. You have to find different mediums for communicating.

And I think one thing I have learned is that it's very rare that anyone says, I think you're over communicating. 

Anni Townend: The other thing that you and I have spoken about is energy and the importance of not only honing in and focusing, but also of managing your own energy and staying resilient.

How do you do that as chief executive officer of the catapult? 

Guy Newey: This is definitely a work in progress. It's the hardest thing and I think one good insight that I got from one of my many conversations is, and this is a big difference in any other role I've been in.

I like work. I like the subject that I'm involved in. I really have a good responsibility. I always put in a shift. Actually, the advice that I got when I was becoming a chief exec is remember you're there for the crises because things will go wrong.

And the insight was make sure you've got enough energy for that crisis that's coming. And if you know you're in a period of low energy. Because you've been busy or there's been other things, make sure you're building in some time to replenish the battery. And that was a really important insight.

I'm not sure I always manage it because there's always something and your kind of skill as a leader is also the judgment. Is this, it's constantly on that two by two matrix. Is it urgent? Is it essential? And taking calls about actually, I'm not going to worry about that too much.

I'm gonna let somebody else worry about that because I'm saving a bit of energy for going forward. That's really your kind of how your judgment and energy goes forward. I'm very lucky. I've got, a wonderfully supportive family. I've got my two kids 12 and nine, so they are absolutely not interested in the slightest about what I'm working on. And that gives you a really good kind of perspective. I've got a wife who works away in a different sector. So it's not wrapped up in the every day of energy politics or climate issues.

And, it gives me a fantastic, solid base on which to work. So I'm very mindful of managing my energy.

Anni Townend: It's a constant managing, isn't it? Managing our own energy and then helping others to manage theirs. And what's your final insight that you have come to as a senior leader, which makes being a senior leader perhaps different from other roles in an organization and in particular being chief executive?

Guy Newey: So as you get more senior, the amount of stuff you don't know And when I was a special advisor, ministers get every night, they get what's called the ministerial box. One of these vast pile of papers every night, and as a special advisor, you've got that typically two days before the minister.

So you're trying to get ahead, see whether there are political risks about anything, write notes to the minister saying, I support this recommendation, or I think this would be absolutely ludicrous if we decided to do that, and your political career will be over. I remember thinking it's just a relentless amount of paper and at that time, I read all of it. Absolutely everything, because my job was to worry on behalf of my ministers 

I think the best insight I've developed through working on my own leadership is realizing across the whole business, there's a set of skills which you need to know enough about that you can ask the right question, but you don't have to be an expert in.

You've got to know enough about how the finances work. You've got to know enough about HR. You've got to know enough about how the I. T. function works. But my kind of nervousness was, I've got to master all of this stuff. And especially in our area, there's kind of people who are deep experts in different areas of the energy system. And I would class myself as pretty solid policy person and pretty good comms person. And that's it really. But the insight was you can't expect to know all of that.

You build a team that can fill in those gaps. And this is why founders, by the way, are heroes. Cause to start off with, you've got to be doing all this stuff. When I was at OVO, Energy Stephen Fitzpatrick, who's the founder there, as he'd been building up the business, he'd done everything.

He'd done bad debt collection. He'd done industry flows. He'd done times on the phones dealing with difficult customers, But you just got to get comfortable with the idea that you can't know everything. And again, best piece of advice. I got Peter Bantz, who's the founder of origami energy, which is really interesting kind of digital flexible energy provider. He said ‘recognize the thing that you will default to without any challenges, because you're just interested in it, and you'll do it’.

And for me, that's energy policy. I love energy policy. I'll sit, if I've got an idle, two hours on a Saturday afternoon, I will read. Appendix C of the consultation about the review of electricity market arrangements, right? That's just me. I just love it. I love being in the debate on Twitter about it.

I would happily that would be my entire time doing that. Much to the frustration of the brilliant policy team at Energy Systems Catapult have to put up with me interjecting the whole time. So know your thing.

Then identify one area that you really want to focus and learn about within that expertise. So for me, it's about, really trying to understand the journey that scaling up businesses and small businesses are going on. I was lucky enough to work at OVO when it was growing and really seeing that excitement, but I haven't been a founder myself.

So I tour around as many companies as I can, understand motivations of founders, what they're trying to do. One thing that you do without anyone asking, one thing that you're really going to work on, and then everything else leave to your team or employ people to do, 

Because that's all you're going to manage. And that was certainly a journey that I've been on in the last few years.. There are people in this business who know more about this stuff than me and let them get on with it, create the environment where they can thrive and go from there.

Anni Townend: Thank you so much. You've really shared a lot about your passion and your purpose and where it came from, your values and your beliefs and your insights along the way. Thank you very much. Finally, what are your three encouragements for leaders looking to innovate and commercialize for net zero.

Guy Newey: The first thing to say is whenever you're talking to an innovator first question is there an actual market for what you're offering? And the good news is in net zero, it's massive, right? We're talking about the total transformation of the UK and global economy, energy economy, which is absolutely trillions of dollars opportunity.

So there is a big market And that's everything from nuclear innovation to heat pumps to digital flexibility. So rest assured that kind of opening when you're looking for investors of how big the market is, it's huge. And it's also really important, which is great for motivating your teams.

The second thing, I talked about how I got around to CEOs and other leaders and got advice. Almost all of them very quickly talked about imposter syndrome. They talked about the fact that you feel that you don't have the set of skills required, that you are not up to this job, that the job's too huge that all the kind of, all your weaknesses are magnified.

It's unusual not to feel that. Loads of people do. The ones who don't are probably ones you should be worried about. And it's a really common thing. So get with it. It's a struggle, but everyone is struggling. It's not unusual.

And I felt some comfort in that. 

And the third thing is just, learn fast. The companies that are successful tend to be able to pivot from their kind of original hypothesis, their original business plan really quickly and be ruthless about that. If something that you thought was going to work is obviously not working, change and do something else.

That's really hard. You might have employed people in a particular area. You might have won investment off the back of it. Learning fast, being prepared to pivot quickly is absolutely essential. 

Anni Townend: Amazing, Guy. Thank you. And one final question, what's the conversation and with whom you're going to have, our having had this conversation?

Guy Newey: Doing things like this is really important because you're communicating a best version of yourself in some ways, and so you think to yourself, Oh, does my diary going forward reflect exactly what I'm aspiring to be? The thing for me, which has reminded me of this is I need to get on the road.

Again and go and visit a load more companies. There is so many people trying great stuff in net zero. Every conversation I have with them, I've come away super energized people are doing it for different motivations. Obviously, people are trying to make money. People are trying to save the world.

I think looking at my diary for the next six months and thinking, am I really giving myself some time with some of the brilliant companies that the team of the catapult support and using the kind of platform that I've got to highlight them.

I think that's my message to my better version of myself. 

Anni Townend: That's fantastic. You're going to get on the road and go and have some more conversations, which is really important. And for those people who are listening, Guy, what's the best way that they can get in touch with you, to have a conversation?

Guy Newey: As I mentioned earlier, I spend probably too much time on Twitter. So that's always a good way. I'm spending more time on LinkedIn as well. Guy Newey on both of those things. Or, get onto the Treasure Trove, which is the Catapult website. And there's loads of great information and great opportunities to work with us there. 

Anni Townend: Guy, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing something of yourself, your best version of yourself, and also sharing some of the insights along the way and your key encouragements to leaders. 

To listen to other leaders in conversation with me, Anni Townend, do go to my website, annitownend.com. A big thank you, not only to you Guy, but to my support team at the Conscious Marketing Group and to Coco O'Brien for the wonderful intro and outro music and production of the podcast

 To contact me please do email me on anni@annitownend.com. Visit my website, subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn. I look forward to connecting with you. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Guy for sharing.

Guy Newey: Brilliant. Thanks, Anni. It's been wonderful. Thank you. 

Anni Townend: Thank you very much. Bye for now.