The rest of the 100 (in alphabetical order by company): Christophe Defert, Centrica
Christophe Defert has spent seven years at Anglo-American energy utility Centrica after completing his MBA from Wharton business school in 2010.
His move into ventures in February 2017 from being chief of staff to the CEO of Centrica’s US-based business, Direct Energy, came with a renewed push into corporate venture capital (CVC).
Sam Salisbury and Defert, directors of Centrica Innovations (CI), had scaled up a unique blend of corporate and impact venturing for the utility before being joined by Jonathan Tudor from BP Ventures in October.
Centrica launched CI in January 2017 and planned to invest £100m ($125m) in startups over the next five years. The unit will incorporate the £10m Ignite social impact fund it formed in 2014, and which won GCV’s corporate impact venturing award in 2016.
As Iain Conn, Centrica’s group chief executive, said for the GCV Powerlist 2017 awards: “The launch of Centrica Innovations is an important step in identifying and responding to the changing needs of our customers. The new venture will ensure innovation is embedded across our business and will allow us to invest in the technologies that can support our customers into the future. We are already investing £1.2bn to 2020 in our connected home and distributed energy and power businesses, helping residential and business customers take control of their energy and save money.”
Defert said: “A number of factors attracted me to CVC. First, working with entrepreneurs allowing and supporting them in growing their ideas.
“Second, using the resources of corporates and their access to customer to benefit the customers and the startups. And, third, because I believe that under the right corporate leadership and strategy, the collaboration between corporates and startups is necessary to benefit the customer.”
And Defert said being able to set up the unit internationally and make two investments in under 12 months “within a corporate that does not have a particularly innovative culture” were his biggest achievements.
These deals included an undisclosed amount into LO3 Energy, a US-based energy-focused blockchain service.
LO3 has a blockchain-based platform to enable peer-to-peer energy marketplaces and accelerate the transition to a distributed energy future after helping set up the world’s first blockchain-based microgrid and peer to peer energy transactions in Brooklyn, New York.
At the time, Defert said: “We look forward to working with LO3 on blockchain-based projects more broadly across Centrica, and the opportunity to provide our customers with more flexibility and control over how they buy and use their energy.”
He started his career as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch in London before joining the private equity firm TowerBrook Capital Partners where he focused on growth equity investments and leverage buyouts in a variety of industries.
Following his MBA from the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania, Defert joined Centrica, a FTSE 100 company, in the group M&A team and later leading the European gas origination team as part of Centrica Marketing and Trading.
In 2014, he moved to North America and its Direct Energy subsidiary. He was part of the M&A team where among other things, he led the acquisition of Panoramic Power, an energy management and intelligence company. Most recently, he was chief of staff to the CEO of Direct Energy.
Defert has a BA in Economics and International Affairs from Colorado College, a Finance graduate degree from the London School of Economics and his MBA.
Defert is married with three children, with whom he spends “all my spare time, enjoying travelling and any opportunity to get outdoors and particularly on skis from downhill skiing to water skiing”.
