Fiona Howarth is a leading force in the electric vehicle revolution in the UK, heading up Octopus Electric Vehicles (part of the Octopus Energy Group) and championing the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). Bringing an enthusiastic energy to the industry with a passion for teaching others about electric vehicles, Fiona not only focuses on delivering an amazing service but also ensuring that everyone has access to honest and reliable information. As a mother of two young girls, Fiona looks to their future as motivation to continue work in the EV field – in hopes of positively impacting their world by combating climate change.
Fiona’s interest in renewable energy and air quality began in her teenage years. It was a conversation with her Physics teacher in high school and her realisation that oil was a finite resource, that led her to initially start looking at renewable energy sources, and with her teacher’s encouragement, she focused on fuel cell technology.
A scholarship to Oxford followed, where Fiona studied Engineering, Economics, and Management. After that, she went to BMW to work in researching hydrogen cars.
Through sponsorship from the Royal Academy of Engineering, Fiona traveled all over the world, including Japan, to look at developments in electric transport. She concluded that hydrogen fuel cells were a long way off, if ever, and that EVs, though they would come sooner, were still far away.
A five-year stint with a top-tier management consultancy firm saw Fiona working with a FTSE 100 energy company on a ten-year strategy review to inform global investment decisions. She then worked with a Big Six energy supplier advising on how to improve productivity among its 7,000-person workforce. Energy was now becoming Fiona’s field of expertise, and she was seconded to the Department for Energy & Climate Change (DECC, now part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, BEIS).
From 2011 onward, she moved into the smart devices and energy supply sector, with a five year stretch launching market-leading connected home products – starting at British start-up Alert Me, who later became part of the leading smart home provider Hive, a British Gas innovation.
In early 2017, Fiona drove her first pure electric vehicle and realised that, while she’d been doing other things, they’d become brilliant. Tesla had started to revolutionise our roads – just as Apple did with the iPhone. It was whilst attempting to buy an EV at a dealership, that she realised there was a lack of independent and reliable information on EV’s. She found there was a lack of clarity relating to things such as the duration of charging and the impacts of some tax-efficient schemes. They subsequently tried to steer her to a petrol car that was popular with families, and if she hadn’t been so committed to electric cars, she could easily have been put off.
It was at that point she founded Octopus Electric Vehicles, and since then has been building a team of experts passionate about helping consumers and businesses make that transition to electric vehicles. They’ve secured excellent leasing rates on leading EVs, designed a great EV salary sacrifice scheme to help businesses increase the uptake of EVs, created energy tariffs designed specifically for EV drivers, and have partnered with smart charging tech companies to enable customers to access cheap and green energy rates with ease.
Visit Octopus Electric Vehicles
~Business Game Changer Special Promotion~
Nominees three achievements
Creating a game changing business, which has been voted one of the UK’s companies to ‘Escape to Work’ in 2019, through fostering a family environment within the business.
Working with the vehicle industry to lobby the Government to help EV adoption.
Creating and building a business that actually helps the customer, whether that is through education, workshops or just a phone call, Octopus Electric Vehicles is a knowledge hub for anyone who wants to learn about EV’s
