Full Name: Jonathan Charles Skeen

Position and Company Name: MD: Commercial at SOLA Group

Main Activity of the Company: SOLA Group is a fully South African vertically integrated renewable-energy infrastructure, generation and storage company primarily focused on delivering low-cost, flexible and clean energy to South African businesses through the electricity grid

Date and Place of Birth: I was born in 1983, in Durban

Schools and Tertiary Education: Hilton College, high school; Electromechanical Engineering degree, University of Cape Town; Master’s degree in Technology Policy and Management, University of Edinburgh

First Job: Engineer at Pyromet, now Tenova Pyromet

Size of First Pay Packet: About R11 000 a month

Career Path to Date: My career has strongly focused on renewable energy. Within that sphere I’ve worked in engineering, energy policy, project development, business development, and executive management

Value of Assets under Your Control: SOLA’s commercial team is responsible for securing revenue for our project assets, and has signed in excess of R65-billion in energy and battery capacity revenues across our renewable wheeling facilities. This excludes our large portfolio of behind-the-meter and off-grid projects, which we’ve implemented in South Africa, Namibia, Seychelles and Mozambique

Number of People under Your Leadership: 10 direct and indirect reports

Management Style: It’s constantly evolving! In a smaller company, you tend to have your finger on the pulse of everything that’s happening, but as SOLA has grown, I’ve had to learn to keep an eye on the most important things while giving people the space to do great work

Personal Best Achievement: I’m proud of the hybrid solar-plus-battery wheeling project that we put together with Sasol and Air Liquide. It’s the first of its kind and required complex problem solving on multiple levels

Person Who Has Had the Biggest Influence on Your Life: My wife, our children, and my parents

Person Who Has Had the Biggest Influence on Your Career: Several of my colleagues at SOLA. It’s amazing how much you can learn from watching talented people navigate the challenges of work. Over the years I’ve also been inspired by my close friends

Person You Would Most Like to Meet: Extending this to people from other eras, I would have liked to have been guided on a climb by the great (and late) alpinist Walter Bonatti

Businessperson Who Has Impressed You Most: I really admire people who can build a good career without changing their values or trading off big chunks of their personal lives

Philosophy of Life: Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies

Biggest Ever Opportunity: I’ve never been more excited about the South African energy sector than I am right now. If business and government can keep their eyes on the ball, I believe the energy sector will unlock the kind of economic growth and job creation most South Africans have never experienced or thought possible

Biggest Ever Disappointment: There have been many, but the majority were when I was younger and I had less context or experience to understand why they had happened

Hope for the Future: That a well-planned, competitive electricity market in South Africa will turbo-charge the entire South African economy and drive a new era of entrepreneurship and economic growth

Favourite Reading: I’m a fan of fiction by Paul Auster, Raymond Chandler, Philip K Dick, and a few others. I like reading about history, and will read almost anything on mountaineering, especially by Walter Bonatti, Dougal Haston, Jon Krakauer, or Robert MacFarlane

Favourite TV Programme: I tend to prefer movies to TV programmes

Favourite Food/Drink: Cold South African beer, Mozambican-style Portuguese, and Italian food from some specific spots in Joburg

Favourite Music: According to my phone, I’ve had ABBA, Bad Bunny, Black Pumas, Bongo Cat, Taylor Swift and Cardi B on ‘heavy rotation’ for the past few months

Favourite Sport: Rugby (to watch) and climbing

Hobbies: Climbing, fishing, and occasionally some poor guitar playing

Car: A VW Kombi

Pets: An Australian Shepherd named Teddy

Married: To Kelly

Children: Three, two of whom are twins

Clubs: Mountain Club of South Africa