Stephen Fitzpatrick
| Stephen Fitzpatrick | |
|---|---|
| Born | Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom |
| Residence | Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Edinburgh University |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Title | Managing Director of OVO Energy |
Stephen Fitzpatrick is a British businessman, founder of OVO Energy and former owner of the Manor Racing team.
Fitzpatrick was born in Belfast. He studied at Our Lady and St. Patrick's College and the University of Edinburgh, where he received his Master's degree in finance and business. He lives in Cotswolds with his wife Sophy and their three children.
After graduating, Fitzpatrick founded The Rental Guide, a real estate advertisement business which promoted properties in Scotland online and via a free newspaper, in 2001. Livewire nominated him for the Young Entrepreneur of the Year, but Fitzpatrick ultimately closed the business due to concerns about its ability to scale given limited numbers of real estate agents. He moved to London to take jobs in the financial sector with Societe Generale and JP Morgan.
Fitzpatrick founded OVO Energy in 2009. The company was the culmination of a five-year plan during which he received a licence from Ofgem, the UK energy regulator, and saved the £350,000 to start the business. As of July 2016, the company served 685,000 customers and employed over 1000 people in Bristol and London. He acknowledged his inexperience with the energy market and used the five years to study the industry as well as credited the experience he gained with complex finances during those five years as critical to the company's survival. In 2014 Fitzpatrick won Entrepreneur of the Year at the National Business Awards.
In the fall of 2013, Fitzpatrick testified before Parliament's Energy and Climate Change Select Committee on the subject of rising energy prices. Fitzpatrick testified that he could not explain why the "Big Six" energy suppliers, the six largest providers of gas and electricity in the United Kingdom, raised prices. He also noted that Ovo's prices had not increased because the wholesale cost of energy to suppliers remained unchanged. The BBC credited Fitzpatrick's testimony with being one of the drivers behind a 2014 Ofgem investigation into whether the market-dominating Big Six negatively limited competition.
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