How change happens: 'Living in the future'​ with Bernie Fitzpatrick

As part of a series exploring how change actually happens I caught up with Bernie Fitzpatrick. Bernie is a future focused CFO and charted accountant who over the last 20 years has helped build, scale and lead energy sector pioneers including Electroroute and SSE Airtricity. He helps visionary CEOs turn their bold visions into commercial realities, building a bridge from the world of today to the world of tomorrow. He is now seeking to bring this deep commercial and financial experience to the next wave of high growth start ups helping deliver the energy transition.

Paul: I’m always curious about how people think about business. How do you think about it?

Bernie: To me business is about identifying a want or need that you want to solve. You then develop a product or service to address this need, understanding how you will do so differently to the competition. Next is about delivery, mobilising resources to get that product / service to market and the customer, with team essential to all of this. This all happens usually within a really dynamic macro context, changing market dynamics, competiton,clients.

As CFO you’ve led high growth companies that have scaled quickly. What sort of a team do you need for this?

I think most important is the ability to look ahead, to look around the corner, seeing not the world as it looks like today, but what it will be like in 5 years’ time. This is a difficult skill and few people can do it really well. You then need high energy and drive to create a business for that future. It is also less about specific outcomes, and more about creating options and opportunities.

You trained as an accountant, and this doesn’t seem like how the typical accountant thinks – any reflections on this?

Ha! Well you are right, a typical accountant (and probably me early in my career) is very much focused on what’s happened over the year past and what’s happening today. However over time and being fortunate to work with visionary leaders I learnt to look to the future, accepting that although the business case might not be there right now, if we create options, we are then well placed to capitalise on future value.

A good example is at Airtricity, we decided to start developing onshore wind in the US before there was a bankable business case. We did so because we could see a future with either a subsidy or price rise that would make it competitive. This turned out to be right, putting Airtricity in a great position when the tax incentives came in.

How do you stay future focused?

 I’ve been really privileged to work closely with visionary CEOs, that rare breed of people who are constantly living in the future. They don’t see the way the world is now, they see how it will be, and know how things will change when it does flip.

I’m not necessarily that guy myself naturally. But there is often a big leap from where we are today to the bold vision of the future. I help build a bridge to that future, turning the vision into a commercial reality.

What in the future are you excited by?

The big thing in the future for me is climate change, we haven’t really been hit with the day to day reality of it yet, or perhaps are just starting to. This is a massive macro challenge which needs innovative businesses delivering solutions at scale.

Within climate change I see that renewables has unstoppable momentum. Energy storage is then essential for enabling all the renewables. And more broadly there are loads of opportunities in how we design our lives and products – we need less of the consume and dump and more of a shift to a service mentality i.e. we shouldn’t replace 1m cars with 1m EVs. I am also really interested in energy efficiency which is absolutely essential to the transition.

Everyone knows energy efficiency makes sense but for a decade we seem to have made very slow progress on it – what do we need to do differently?

 Well firstly the energy price rises have made big difference to business case. It is unlikely prices will stay this high but equally they are not going to go back to where they were two years ago. A lot of the challenge is around inertia, with the potential long term benefit somewhat marginal to businesses and often in a non-core area. To me we need commercial & financial innovation to unlock this. i.e. we know 1,000 companies need to do this. It doesn’t make sense for each one to do on own, and it’s difficult to finance on your own. Can we find coordinated solutions that accept some of those will fail? Overall energy efficiency investment is a compelling offer for funders and the companies.

 How do you think change happens?

Well either you are forced to do it or you foresee and prepare for it – and I much prefer the latter option! In terms of preparing the visionaries are key – that ability to look ahead and to know when and how things will flip, and build a business for that – this is what we need.

And finally if you could write one message on a billboard for the world to read what would it be and why?

I saw ‘don’t go extinct’ in terms of climate change which is perhaps a bit too scary for people so perhaps: “Do this for your kids”. We urgently need find some way to resonate with businesses and people, to get them to recognise the challenge we all face. 

Thanks Bernie.

If you are a high growth start up working to deliver the energy transition and want to benefit from Bernie’s deep commercial and financial experience then get in touch through Linkedin Bernie Fitzpatrick