Meet the team

Louise Wapshare: Chief Executive Officer, SmartestEnergy Business Limited

Having qualified as an accountant, Louise spent the first 25 years of her career in various finance roles before moving across to general management in 2019. Working in the energy sector for more than 15 years, Louise has held several senior leadership positions within Centrica and SmartestEnergy and is now CEO of SmartestEnergy Business.

She is an engaging and dynamic leader and has a broad range of financial, operational and commercial skills and capabilities, which she has used to drive performance and growth in a very challenging market.

Louise's career began at an accounting firm after graduating in Accountancy and Economics from Reading University and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Certified Accountants and the Chartered Institute of Management. Most recently, she completed her MBA at London Business School. Outside work, she and her husband enjoy walking their dogs in the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside and keeping the local food and drink establishments thriving!

Kieran Murphy: Vice President Finance, SmartestEnergy Business Limited

Kieran is responsible for the strategic oversight and financial performance of SmartestEnergy Business. He is also responsible for building and maintaining professional relationships with banks, auditors, tax advisors, and trading partners.

After graduating from business school with an honours degree, Kieran qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant. He established his career in senior financial and commercial roles across several different sectors, including construction, financial services and manufacturing.

Kieran joined Dual Energy as Group Finance Director in 2013. Drawing on his previous experience of working in large corporates, as well as SMEs, Kieran helped to put the framework and strategies in place to enable Dual Energy to treble in size within three years of joining. He subsequently played an instrumental role in facilitating the purchase of the business by SmartestEnergy.

Richard Bartlett: Vice President Sales and Marketing, SmartestEnergy Business Limited

Richard joined the SmartestEnergy team in December 2019 upon its acquisition of Dual Energy, where he was Sales and Marketing Director. He is now responsible for the growth of SmartestEnergy's Business Division.

Having joined Dual Energy in 2013, Richard was responsible for executing a high-growth strategy, including the design and delivery of its sales channel and marketing strategy, including pricing and product development.

Richard brought with him an in-depth knowledge of deregulated markets by having gained more than 20 years of experience, and with his leadership, Dual Energy became one the fastest growing privately-owned companies in the UK, winning several awards along the way.

Before his career in the energy industry, Richard held leadership roles in the telecoms sector and graduated with a Master's Degree in Business Administration.

Darren Jeffery: Head of Customer Operations, SmartestEnergy Business Limited

Darren oversees SmartestEnergy's Business Division customer operations and is responsible for leading and developing teams that engage with our customers across multiple channels. He drives improvements across our culture, process and performance, enabling us to delight customers and our people as we continue to grow.

Since joining Smartest, he has delivered various projects, predominantly focused on improving our debt management processes and controls. Crafting a customised debt management solution that aligns with our long-term goals whilst giving us tangible quick wins in the short term.

Darren is the Deputy Chairperson for our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Group at Smartest and sits on the Wellness Hub Committee. With a focus on our people and culture, he aspires to help deliver our goals for staff wellbeing, with a personal philosophy of 'Employee Happiness drives Customer Delight and Advocacy'.

Darren joined as part of the Dual Energy acquisition in December 2019 and has been leading large internal and outsourced operations for the last 20 years, predominantly within the insurance and banking sectors. His previous roles have included; Head of Operations at First Central Insurance Group, Close Brothers merchant banking group and more recently Ticker Insurance. He is a huge football fan and, outside of work, has been lucky enough to play 3 times at The Emirates in charity games for The Arsenal Foundation.

Nicolas Begu: Vice President Commercial Development, SmartestEnergy Business Limited

Nicolas is responsible for developing new propositions and accessing new markets relating to SmartestEnergy Business' power and gas supply business, leveraging the wider SmartestEnergy Group capabilities and improving the commercial offering towards its business customers.

Nicolas joined the management team of SmartestEnergy Business following its acquisition by SmartestEnergy Ltd in December 2019, where he oversaw the integration programme between the two businesses. He has significant experience in structuring bespoke supply and trading arrangements, developing new products and a strong track record of working with multi-site customers and large intensive users.

He has also worked for a number of other I&C energy suppliers in the UK and France, including EDF and British Gas and has enjoyed success in a variety of roles, including key account management and European sales, pricing and commercial structuring.

Jonathan Corbishley: Head of Commercial, SmartestEnergy Business Limited

Jonathan joined SmartestEnergy as part of the acquisition of Dual Energy, where he began in January 2018 as Head of Commercial. He brings a blend of commercial and technical experience to the team and is responsible for the oversight of SmartestEnergy’s Business Division, overseeing forecasting and hedging activities, as well as all pricing and commercial propositions.

He has been instrumental in the ongoing development and deployment of key business systems and functions and successfully oversaw our recent SoLR (Supplier of Last Resort) project, taking on circa 1100 supply points of the failed supplier MA Energy - the first project of its kind in Smartest Group.

Jonathan’s previous experience is with fast-growth challenger brands, where he oversaw commercial and IT operations, most recently for a new start-up supplier taking it from inception to 80k+ customers in 12 months. He is an information technology professional with a Bachelor of Science in Management and Strategy from Aston University.