Meet the Engensa Management Team

Toby Darbyshire

Toby is co-founder and CEO of Engensa.

Toby has a long history of working in the energy and renewables arena. Prior to co-founding Engensa he worked for Bain & Company in their Energy Practice advising clients around the world on strategy development and working with utilities in the UK to develop their renewable energy businesses.

In addition to Bain, Toby has worked with Cleantech Venture Capital funds in New York and advised the Shadow Energy team on domestic policy. Toby holds an MA from Cambridge University.

Toby (a passionate advocate of the green agenda) is constantly frustrated by the fact that he lives with his girlfriend Justine, a macro economist, in a third-floor flat in a central London conservation area with hardly any roof space (so useless for solar). Engensa is partly his way of dealing with this frustration!

Dr Toby Ferenczi

Toby is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Engensa.

Toby leads our procurement and installation teams and has responsibility for the operational side of Engensa's business. He has experience working for General Electric building their renewable energy business in Munich nestled in the heartland of the German solar industry.

Prior to GE, Toby worked for New Energy Finance in London

Toby has a BA and MSci in Physics from Cambridge and a PhD in solar technology from Imperial College, London

Thom Chase

Thom is our Operations Co-ordinator. He is the nice fellow who organises everything before and after your installation so you know what to expect before we come, and you get a perfect handover once your panels are in place.

He holds a Bsc in Audio Engineering and is a qualified Electrician. Before Engensa Thom was working as a project manager for a property developer but was keen to pursue a career in renewable technology.

Thom lives in Kensal Green with his opera singer wife Rosie. He drives an imported Mark 1 Toyota Prius (All the controls are in Japanese!) and has the unusual hobby of keeping saltwater fish.

Julia Groves

Julia joined us as Commercial Director in September 2010, and is already a vital member of the management team.

She has a proven track record in building new businesses and for the last six years has worked exclusively in the renewable energy and low carbon travel sectors, most recently as Commercial Director and CEO of the leading UK vertical axis wind turbine design company, quietrevolution ltd.

Julia lives with her husband Shamus and their two boys in a grade II listed house, that will be the first to sport solar panels just as soon as the council sign off her permissions in early 2011. She is a passionate ( and vocal!) believer in sustainable prosperity

Neil Buck

Neil is one of the most experienced and longest serving solar Operations Directors in the UK. Having worked on an 8MW solar project in Spain in 2007 (one of the biggest arrays in the World) as well as many others, he has a wealth of knowledge about installing panels. We like to think of him as our Solar Operations Guru. At Engensa he ensures all our projects and installation teams are running smoothly and efficiently and that all our customers are happy with our service.

Not only does Neil work for a solar company but he also has solar panels on his house in Spain (which is completely off the grid) and where he owns 100 acres of organic olive trees. He lived in Spain for seven years with his wife and two boys and speaks Spanish fluently. We are very glad he decided to come back to England.

Ian Jenkins

Ian is an independent board member of Engensa. When not working with us, he is Managing Director of RUSTON Wheb a European Cleantech headhunter that originated as part of WHEB Ventures.

Ian started his career at McKinsey & Co, the global stretgic consultancy and from there progress into industry where he held brands marketing and general management for a number of blue chip FMGC multinational corporations including Glaxo and Tambrands. Following from here, He has 13 years of board experience, ten of which were at CEO level. During this time he led businesses within the technology sector through IPO and MBI transactions.

Ian holds a BSc in Materials Science from Sussex University and a DPhil in Engineering.

Ben Goldsmith

Ben is Engensa's founder investor and has been with us since the very beginning.

With nine years' clean technology investment experience Ben Goldsmith is recognised as a leading clean technology investor and a pioneer in the sector. In 2002 Ben co-founded WHEB with Rob Wylie and Kim Heyworth with the intention of building Europe's leading specialist green investment business.

In 2003, Ben founded the Environmental Funders' Network (www.greenfunders.org) which now brings together more than 80 grant-making organisations with a combined annual budget of more than $80m.

Peter Davies

Peter Davies joined Engensa as an investor and senior adviser in 2010.

He started his career at Hambro in the 1970s before joining Mitt Romney at Bain in the early days of the Private Equity business. Since Bain, Peter has founded and ran scores of businesses all over the world and was nominated and awarded the British Venture Capital 'Entrepreneur of the year 1993' Cartier award for the large start-up category where he developed a company from a £500,000 start-up to world-wide market leader.

He also lectures and mentors at the Judge Business School in Cambridge just down the road from Corpus Christi where he read Engineering as a young undergraduate.