Centrica smart homes boss to step down

Claire Miles, the managing director of Centrica Home Solutions, has announced she will step down to take up a new position at Yell.

The smart homes division, which until recently was named Connected Home, mainly sells products under the Hive brand.

Miles, who took over the role in January 2018, will hand over to Peter Simon, who has been with Centrica since 2016 as customer products and propositions director for UK Home – the group’s domestic energy supply and services arm.

A spokesperson for Centrica said: “Centrica Home Solutions is still a key part of our strategy to become an energy services and solutions business for the 21st century.

“Hive is a leading brand in the UK and this is a market where we can continue to win. We’ll be sad to see Claire go, but Peter Simon is another customer-obsessed leader who will continue to deliver growth.

“Prior to joining us he worked at Barclays, most recently as managing director of marketing, analytics and new ventures. He already has a clear vision for reaching profitability by helping our customers manage their home and energy needs in a low-carbon future.”

In its interim results published on Tuesday (30 July) Centrica said the division has been “successful in delivering material growth” in the UK, partly due to strong synergies with other parts of the group. For instance, the home services team has been used to install the products sold by Centrica Home Solutions.

The business nevertheless posted an adjusted operating loss of £49 million for the first half of 2019, compared to a loss of £44 million during the same period last year.

It has been a tumultuous past few days for Centrica, which earlier this week revealed its chief executive Iain Conn is to leave the company next year.

The interim results also revealed that the British Gas owner made a statutory operating loss of £446 million for the six months to 30 June compared to a £704 million profit during the same period in 2018.

EBITDA fell by 19 per cent from £1.3 billion to £1.075 billion and adjusted operating profit dropped by 49 per cent to £399 million.

British Gas customer accounts were down by 178,000. The company said this incorporated a spike in switching during March and April following the introduction of the price cap, with the numbers stabilising in May and June.

Following the announcement of his departure, industry insiders told Utility Week that Conn’s strategy of focusing on energy services contributed to the company’s poor performance.

One source said: “I think they wanted to be a pure play services business. The reality is if you go into services that is not an uncontested space. If you are going into digital services and smart homes, there is a bunch of people who want to play in that space that might be way better than you at being digital and using data and tech”.

You can read the full analysis examining Iain Conn’s legacy here.