The CEO of a rapidly-growing energy supplier based in Manchester has spoken about her upcoming plans as she prepares to take maternity leave.
Sarah Bateman is the boss of Unify Energy, which supplies gas and electricity to UK businesses. The business has just 18 staff, yet turns over an astonishing £60m annually.
Despite being eight months pregnant, Bateman spoke at BusinessCloud’s latest Northern Leaders event – Meet the New Generation of Entrepreneur (NGE) – in Leeds last week.
“I’ll tell you how I’ve dealt with it in six months!” she said of her upcoming leave. “There is a plan.
“I’ve got a really, really great team that I work really collaboratively with. Unify Energy is not really a job to me – it’s a purpose, it’s a lifestyle.
“So it’s really about making sure that there are really strong stewards in core parts of the business while I take a bit of a step back.
“I don’t really intend to disappear for prolonged periods of time. For me, it’s about balance and that’s always been true.”
Bateman is no stranger to balancing demands. She has two older children, aged 13 and 15, and also runs a second business with her husband. On top of that, she sits on the board of trustees at Smart Works.
She added: “I think I’m kind of versed and trained at prioritising things at different times.
“That kind of adage of ‘women can have it all’ is a bit of a lie. The line just sets women up for failure, to be honest.
“You have to be really honest with yourself in terms of balance and prioritising things.”
Disrupting the energy sector
Bateman spoke at length about the model which makes Unify Energy unique.
“We supply electricity and gas to businesses, but at a more detailed level we disrupt the energy market by providing products and services that don’t exist anywhere else,” she explained.
“We’re the first and the only regulated energy supplier to offer a particular product to the commercial property sector, which saves landlords a lot of money.
“It reduces their upfront cash exposure for energy by anywhere between 70 and 90% and dramatically increases the level of service that both landlords and tenants receive.”
The company supports around 1,200 customers and has scaled rapidly through technology, rather than headcount.
“We’ve invested a lot in technology to scale and propel the business operationally,” the CEO continued.
“We like being lean. There’s a lot of benefits that come from being a smaller, close-knit team.”
The ‘secret sauce’
Behind the company’s commercial success is a powerful culture, which has been the foundation of its momentum.
Bateman said: “We’ve got a really, really great team. Our culture is so incredibly important to us, and for me, it’s the secret sauce in terms of how we’ve done well.
“We’ve got way, way more to do to fulfil our potential and the opportunity, but we’ve got an eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) of +94, which is ridiculously high, and we’ve got 96% staff retention over a five-year period.
“Colleagues live and breathe what we do, and it means they really look after our customers.”
Unify – set to join GM Business Growth Hub’s second ASCEND Scale Up Programme cohort – was originally a corporate spinout from Manchester-based property giant Bruntwood.
“We’re based in Manchester, but we’re a national organisation all over the country. Our culture is deeply rooted in people and purpose,” said Bateman, who had a short stint at the property firm as an energy developer.
“Anyone who knows anything about Bruntwood will know how deeply rooted in the community they are and that lives on in what we do at Unify Energy.”
Looking ahead whilst stepping back
While Bateman’s upcoming maternity leave will be her first as a CEO, she exuded a sense of calmness about the situation.
“This will be a different experience,” she admitted. “But we’ve put lots of things in place to protect the business. I think we will manage it okay for now!”
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