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Interview: Incoming Utilitywise CEO Brendan Flattery talks to Bdaily about the road ahead

Taking time out from a holiday in Tenerife, current President of Sage Europe Brendan Flattery shares his thoughts with Bdaily on what lies ahead in his new role as Utilitywise CEO.

Effective as of October, Mr Flattery will step into the role replacing outgoing Chief Exec Geoff Thompson, who founded the North Tyneside-based utility cost management consultancy.

Currently responsible for leading a 7,000-person business unit, operating across 11 countries, Brendan has actually spent thirteen years at Sage, working in roles which have also included CEO, UK & Ireland, and Managing Director, Small Business and Mid-Market Divisions.

Geoff Thompson, who will work alongside Brendan in a Executive Chairman capacity, commented that he had found the ‘outstanding’ replacement in Mr Flattery when the announcement was made on tuesday earlier this week.

Hailing his ‘significant experience of scaling up a leading, global enterprise-facing business’ coupled with an ‘impressive track record of driving growth through innovation’, the Sage leader will be especially faced with employing a greater use of tech in the business to help meet evolving customer needs.

“There are lots of similarities between my current role and my future position with Utilitywise”, said Brendan. “The focus will be to drive growth albeit in a different industry, which is an exciting challenge I look forward to!”

“Utilitywise has been a great success story for many years now. I have great admiration for Geoff, who has become an iconic entrepreneur in the North East, and I look forward to working with him.

“We want to continue the good work already being done but the important thing is that we want to evolve. Customer needs are changing, we know this, so we want to bring more services to meet their needs and one such way will be through the introduction of more technologies.”

Whilst Mr Flattery was keen to state his first few weeks at the firm would be dedicated to learning the ins and outs of the business, he was unequivocal in cementing his vision for Utilitywise becoming one of the region’s exemplary companies.

“Utilitywise is an example of the Northern Powerhouse in reality, we employ 2000 people and we’re keen on recruiting the best talent on offer from our North East heartland.”

However, would a sustained rise as one of the region’s most recognisable rising success stories be possible post-Brexit, amidst an economic climate of uncertainty?

For many firms, UK-wide, an element of worry is currently lingering following the uncertainty brought up by the decision to leave the EU.

“I’m honestly not worried”, said Brendan. “It’s important to say that after Brexit the world hasn’t collapsed although much uncertainty is apparent at present. Are people as confident? They’re not and that is stalling business a little.

He continued: “It’s very important that we restore certainty as quickly as possible because business people hate uncertainty!

“It’s been good to see support from the Bank of England and the Government so far, I’d encourage more work to be done to bring confidence back to the business community to get things moving again.

“What I do know is that the region is in a very innovative part of the UK, I worked for Sage for 13 years and can testify that the North East is full of opportunities.”

As well as calling on the government to help stimulate business confidence, Mr Flattery was also keen to see both Utilitywise and the North East remain an essential part of the Northern Powerhouse.

“The Northern Powerhouse doesn’t end at the M62. It’s critical that the North East continues to play a role. I’d encourage visits to us, there’s massive amounts of innovation happening right here.”

Mr Flattery will take up his new role in October, later this year.

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