A Word of Thanks

It’s been an amazing journey over the past 13 years.  While the pendulum of my focus must now swing to family and my personal life, I will forever be very proud of what has been achieved in ElectroRoute.

Saying goodbye is bittersweet, but it does afford an opportunity to acknowledge successes to date and wish everyone the best for the exciting chapters ahead.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve found myself reflecting a lot on the extraordinary challenges and achievements along the path of building ElectroRoute, from literally a set of ideas discussed for hours over kitchen and barroom tables in 2010 to what we have today.

The current range of activity of our pan-European trading company is wonderful.  A full end-to-end trading platform capable of scheduling electricity in a matter of minutes to trading natural gas many years ahead.  We’re shipping Biomethane through pipelines right across Europe one hand and underwriting the risks facing renewable assets for the next decade so that they can be financed on the other.  Since inception ElectroRoute as a company has been intent on knitting together the complicated threads of a decarbonised energy system.

I’m enormously grateful to Alex Bryson, Eamonn O’Donoghue, Alan Mullane, and Bernie Fitzpatrick – the steely co-founders who never wavered along the journey. Their fundamental belief in the mission of building a decarbonised energy system and the commercial opportunity that lay therein bound and fuelled the management team over the years.

While I’m stepping back myself at this juncture, ElectroRoute’s next phase is looking even brighter. Under the leadership of our new Co-CEOs Caoimhe Giblin and Donal Flynn, the company will benefit from vast experience and an expansive professional tool kit.  Two brains will certainly be better than one as the company drives confidently ahead.  I have always felt very privileged and humbled to count Caoimhe, Donal, and our HR director Catherine Kelly (all my professional seniors previously in Airtricity) as part of my team in ElectroRoute.

I have to suppress the temptation to elaborate endlessly in praise of the fantastic staff I have had the pleasure to work with, the friendly and open company culture we created and the innovative approach to technology at ElectroRoute. There simply aren’t enough words or time to do justice to the incredible people who have walked through our doors.  It’s been a great privilege working with each and every one of you across all locations, whether in Dublin, London, Tokyo, or of course, Donegal.

Great credit goes to our early-stage investors, central to whom were Paul Dowling and Bran Keogh. They helped us get on, and stay on, the right path. Over the past 7 years joining the Mitsubishi Group of companies has been instrumental in propelling ElectroRoute to its current significant European and indeed global footprint.  The scale, strength, and quality of our business today is testament to the invaluable collaboration and strength within the Mitsubishi family. That we now have a full suite physical and financial power trading platform operational and staffed in Tokyo is evidence of the potential for our collaborations in the years ahead.

The future is bright.  While I’ll be doing different things in the future, I am very excited to watch ElectroRoute continue to evolve and thrive under its new leadership. To everyone who has been part of this remarkable journey, thank you for making the last 13 years truly unforgettable.

Ronan