Octopus Energy, under the leadership of founder-CEO Greg Jackson, has transformed from an initial concept into Britain’s largest energy provider in just over a decade, now supplying 12 million homes across eight countries. The company operates with a distinctive management philosophy, notably foregoing a central human resources department, most employee bonuses, and a formal succession plan, according to an article by Semafor.

An Unconventional Leadership Style

Jackson, who left school at 16 to write video games, has built a 13,000-person company based on an underlying insight: the technologies of electrification can deliver significant cost savings if a new system is built. He emphasises building trust among the team to encourage focus on the company’s mission rather than individual advancement.

Octopus Energy operates without a central HR department, instead devolving people management responsibilities to individual teams, with legal staff intervening only when necessary. All employees are given equity in the private company, but bonuses are not paid outside of a few sales roles. The company also avoids setting divisional performance targets to prevent internal competition at the expense of overall company goals.

Jackson maintains a structured weekly rhythm. Mondays begin with a gathering of senior executives to review the previous week’s performance data, which he states helps maintain ‘pace and alignment’. Each week concludes with a ‘family dinner’, a Friday afternoon all-hands event, now livestreamed, to recap innovations, achievements, and challenges. Jackson notes these sessions help Octopus ‘start the week left-brain, end it right-brain’ and energise staff.

While broader discussions on effective leadership communication, such as those presented in a Financial Times article examining how bosses should engage with their teams, cover various strategies, Jackson likens his approach to the Apollo 13 mission control. As he explains, in any business, one must ‘choose your constraints, and then how you assemble the stuff you have to create the outcome you want’.

Scaling an Energy Empire

Beyond supplying energy to homes, Octopus Energy’s operations are extensive. It manages wind and solar farms from Scotland to South Korea, manufactures heat pumps, installs smart meters, and leases out 50,000 electric vehicles. The company also supplies its proprietary technology to utilities globally, forming what Jackson calls the ‘Octoverse’.

The company reported revenues of £13.7 billion last year and was valued at $9 billion at its last fundraising round. Jackson sees his core role as understanding customers and industry economics, setting the company’s vision, and building an expert, innovative team to achieve it. He uses a pilot analogy, stating that the view from the cockpit remains similar whether in a small Cessna or an Airbus A380, emphasising his desire to stay ‘in the cockpit, looking forward’ rather than becoming engrossed in internal complexities.

Jackson is also vigilant about ensuring headcount growth does not outpace new customer acquisition, a strategy to prevent diseconomies of scale and the spread of bureaucracy. He also expresses concern about maintaining connection with customers as their numbers reach into the millions. Furthermore, Octopus’s underlying technology platform, Kraken, which has an $8.7 billion valuation, is slated to spin out as a standalone company.