James Rees —
26 years inside energy.
EnergyLab is a single-operator practice on purpose. The person you meet on the intro call is the person who does the work.
EnergyLab is the latest chapter — and the first in my own name.
I'm James Rees. Twenty-six years inside the UK energy sector, spanning pricing, product, propositions and commercial leadership across suppliers, energy-services businesses and energy SaaS.
Most recently four years at Good Energy, where I led commercial pricing through the UK energy crisis and the launch of new propositions in flexibility, half-hourly licence-exempt supply, and a designed-for-launch energy-as-a-service model with FCA-accredited consumer finance. Before that, leadership roles at Drax Group and Opus Energy, and earlier pricing and consulting work at British Gas Business and CGI.
The premise of EnergyLab is straightforward: most growth problems in the energy sector aren't strategy problems — they're translation problems. Between commercial ambition, regulatory constraint, product reality, and the spreadsheet that has to balance. I built a career sitting at that intersection. EnergyLab is that career in practice form — small, senior, embedded, and deliberately limited to the kind of engagement where one experienced operator is more useful than a team of generalists.
Six things this practice
tries hard not to do.
No analyst pyramid.
The senior operator is the operator. Briefs aren't passed downward and re-summarised back up. When the work needs specialist help, partners are brought in by category, by name, and disclosed.
No benchmarks as answers.
What other suppliers do is data, not strategy. The point is the bet you should make, not the average you should match.
No 80-page decks.
The output is a decision and the artefacts to execute it. Usually a memo, a model, a term sheet. Sometimes ten slides. Never a hundred.
No implementation phase sold separately.
If I designed it, I'm there until it lands. Pricing models, regulator submissions, billing requirements, partner contracts — included.
No jargon laundering.
If a proposition or pricing structure can't be explained in plain English, the customer won't buy it — and the front-line team can't sell it.
No retainers you don't need.
Most engagements start as a fixed-scope sprint. A retainer is something we earn into, not the opening offer.
The shape of 26 years.
The career started in commercial pricing at British Gas Business, then moved into consulting at CGI on UK energy retail delivery — pricing systems, CRM and trading platforms.
From there: product and proposition leadership at Opus Energy and then Drax Group, with B2B SaaS, channel propositions and data-led energy performance products. Then four years at Good Energy across the Commercial & Innovation, Head and Director roles in Product & Propositions — including tariff leadership through the UK energy crisis and the launch of a series of flexibility, licence-exempt supply and energy-services propositions.
EnergyLab launched in 2026 to bring that experience to clients directly — one senior operator, deeply embedded, accountable to the answer that lands. The detailed timeline and selected programmes are on the Work page.