In response to Octopus Australia’s growth of assets, which now amasses $8.8bn in development assets and over $1.1bn in operating assets, Octopus Australia has restructured its senior leadership team. Octopus Australia has invested heavily in its staff in response to the significant demand from institutional and wholesale clients, with the team now comprised of 50 people, up from around 16 a year ago.
Key to the restructuring of the team is the appointment of Sonia Teitel to Co-Managing Director of Renewables Australia and Sophie Gibbons to Head of Funds Distribution, Product and Marketing. Octopus Investments believes in having diverse representation across senior leadership within the business, which is somewhat rare for real assets funds management, especially infrastructure.
Changes also include the appointment of Darren Brown to Co-Managing Director, Renewables Australia, and Jonathan Filbey to CFO.
Sam Reynolds, CEO, Octopus Australia, commented:
“As key members of Octopus Australia’s senior leadership team these new roles will be integral in leading the business towards its next milestones in the renewable energy sector. I look forward to continuing to invest in the diversity and leadership of our business and driving our mission to accelerate renewable energy transition and create meaningful change.”
Sonia Teitel and Darren Brown, Co-Managing Directors, Renewables Australia
After two years of co-heading the Investment and Development team at Octopus Australia and establishing the business’ current portfolio of renewable assets, Sonia Teitel and Darren Brown have been promoted to Co-Managing Directors, Renewables Australia. With decades of sector experience respectively, Sonia and Darren are expertly placed to lead the Renewables Australia team towards continuing to grow its portfolio of assets.
To ensure Octopus Australia continues to deliver best practice and exceed the expectations of its stakeholders, all of the business’ renewable energy professionals will now be unified under the Renewables Australia team, co-led by Sonia and Darren. The team will work hand in hand with the distribution and product team and be dedicated to delivering the 6GW+ growing portfolio for investors and other key stakeholders.
Sophie Gibbons, Head of Distribution, Product & Marketing
After joining Octopus in 2019, Sophie has been promoted to Head of Distribution, Product and Marketing. Sophie has led the team through multiple successful fundraises and has been integral in building Octopus Australia’s current product offering and investor base. Sophie has overseen the growth of the investor base to over $1.1bn, spanning a diverse range of clients across institutional, wholesale groups, private banks, and family offices.
In her new role, she will continue to draw on over a decade of industry experience to lead the Distribution, Product and Marketing teams towards further expanding their distribution footprint and presence of Octopus Australia in the market, driving much needed funds towards the energy transition in Australia.
Jonathan Filbey, CFO
Jonathan has been a member of the Octopus Group for over 10 years, working across Investments, Fund Management and Distribution. As part of the team which established Octopus Australia in 2018, Jonathan led the development of the flagship financial products, OASIS and OREO which secured investment from domestic and international institutional clients and are financing a $8.8bn pipeline of projects. In London, Jonathan worked as part of the energy investment team scaling Octopus’s energy platform to one of the largest in Europe.
This broad experience across the business has positioned Jonathan well to take on the role of CFO for Octopus Australia, working across strategic decision making and business intelligence with a view towards scaling Octopus Australia’s operations across renewable energy development, operations and funds management.
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