News
Amara NZero appoints Simon Oakland as Chief Executive Officer
Amara NZero has appointed Simon Oakland as the Company’s new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), succeeding Gonzalo Errejón, who has decided to step down to embark on a new professional chapter after 4 years of dedicated service as CEO.
The Board of Directors extends its sincere gratitude to Gonzalo for his leadership and many valuable contributions to the company. Under his guidance, Amara NZero has achieved robust financial growth from c.€270m revenues to over €600m today, while also expanding the Company’s footprint to new markets and new products enabling the Energy Transition.
Simon brings extensive experience in distribution, most recently serving as CEO at Wolseley, where he led the business through a period of strong sales growth and margin uplift. Before that, he performed multiple roles for Ferguson Enterprises including CEO of Ferguson’s Canadian business, Group Executive Committee member with responsibility for Wasco in Holland and Tobler in Switzerland, and MD of the French business as well as Group Head of Corporate Development. Prior to joining Ferguson in 2012, Simon gained valuable strategic and Board experience across a variety of sectors spanning Europe, North America and the Far East as part of a successful career in private equity, most recently as a Partner at Alchemy Partners. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics from the University of Oxford and an MBA from Cranfield School of Management.
The Company is confident that with Simon’s vision and expertise it can strengthen the path of sustainable revenue and margin growth in its solar, wind, electrification, and services business units, on which it has already embarked this year. In particular, Amara NZero will continue bolstering growth in its Wind, Electrification and Services
segments which have shown robust performance, compensating a weaker Solar segment, and will leverage its expanding geographical footprint to return to growth in Solar.
Simon Oakland, incoming CEO: “I’m excited to join Amara NZero at this pivotal moment as we build upon a strong foundation to deliver even greater value to our customers and stakeholders. I share the Board’s confidence in Amara NZero’s growth opportunities enabled by the long-term tailwinds supporting the decarbonisation, electrification and digitalisation of the energy system in the countries where we operate.”
John Davison, Chairman added: “We are very pleased to have a leader of Simon’s caliber, with experience delivering sustainable growth in other distributors, step into this role. The Board and I are confident that his leadership style and ethos closely align with the company’s values and will benefit Amara NZero as we enter an important new chapter of growth.”