SSE, the Perth-based renewable energy and electricity networks giant, said on Thursday that Martin Pibworth has been promoted to the newly created role of group energy and commercial director, effective November 1, 2020.

Pibworth has served on the SSE board since September 2017, most recently as energy director.

“Martin will be accountable for identifying and delivering on growth opportunities across all of SSE’s market businesses,” said SSE.

“He will be aided in this by the recent expansion of SSE’s Energy Portfolio Management (EPMI) division, which now benefits from enhanced commercial analytics capability and market insights following the addition of SSE’s Energy Economics and Markets Codes teams. 

“SSE Enterprise, led by Enterprise MD Neil Kirkby and comprising distributed energy including solar and storage, will now report into Martin.

“Martin will retain his existing responsibilities for SSE Renewables, SSE Thermal, EPMI and Energy Customer Solutions.

“In addition, he will now have group-level responsibility for driving commercial market risk activities for all SSE’s non-networks businesses.

“Group level risk activities related to the wider company will continue to be overseen by the finance director, Gregor Alexander.

“The promotion recognises Martin’s strong contribution to the group over many years and is a natural expansion of his previous role, bringing together a complementary group of market and customer-facing businesses under his leadership.”

SSE chairman Richard Gillingwater said: “We are very pleased that Martin will be taking on this expanded remit which will see him drive growth and manage commercial risk across SSE’s market businesses.

“He has made an outstanding contribution to the board since he joined it three years ago, and has recently demonstrated the value he and the team bring to the business through SSE’s success in offshore wind auctions and the value created from the recent Multifuel Energy transaction.

“He now has the opportunity to make an even greater impact in his new role.”

Pibworth said: “I’m delighted to take on the new role, particularly with its focus on growth and risk management.

“SSE is uniquely positioned to lead the transition to net zero emissions, both in our core energy businesses and in emerging areas like distributed energy, and bringing these together as part of a single energy and commercial team will help us capitalise on the significant opportunities that lie ahead.”