Kensa has announced the appointment of Paul Donovan as its new chair of the board, effective from 1 November after a planned recruitment and transition process.
He succeeds Lord Matthew Taylor, who is retiring after 10 years in the position.
According to Kensa, Paul is a highly experienced chair and CEO with a track record of scaling businesses, delivering customer-focused solutions and generating value. Paul spent a decade in the mobile communications industry where he led Vodafone’s emerging markets business, followed by CEO roles at private equity backed companies including Odeon and UCI Cinemas Group, Eircom and Arqiva.
Paul will serve as Kensa chair alongside his duties as non-executive director at Arqiva and Nordic Aviation Capital.
Tamsin Lishman, Kensa’s CEO, said: “On behalf of everyone at Kensa, I’d like to thank Lord Taylor for the commitment, belief and guidance he’s provided during his ten years as Kensa chair. He has seen this innovative, British business grow into one of the key players delivering heat decarbonisation, and we are hugely grateful for all his contributions.
“We are delighted to welcome Paul to Kensa. His business experience, leadership and guidance will be invaluable as we build upon our trusted expertise, continue to lead the future of renewable heating and cooling and deliver affordable, consumer-focussed solutions.”
Paul added: “Kensa has established itself as the UK leader in ground source heat pumps and has a clear goal of delivering affordable heat decarbonisation. I am excited to be joining the passionate and dedicated Kensa team and to help the business realise its role in enabling the green energy transition.”
Lord Matthew Taylor said: “It has been such a pleasure chairing Kensa and being part of the fantastic team that cares so much about ground sourced heat pumps and how they can give people zero-carbon heat for the lowest cost. We have brought in major investment from Legal & General and then Octopus, becoming by far the UK’s leader in manufacturing and installing ground source heat pumps.
“Having completed my 10 years, it’s time for a new chair to take Kensa to the next level. It’s been a phenomenally successful decade for Kensa, growing from a small business to a national leader in sustainable heat, attracting investment from some of the biggest and most trusted organisations in the UK. I am sure with Paul as chair, and with the fantastic and committed team around him, the next 10 years will see Kensa go from strength to strength as it brings people high quality, low cost zero carbon heating.”