Devrim Celal – Kraken
Leaders in Cleantech
Doubting Strategy and Pivoting
Devrim explains the value of questioning strategy, cultivating dissenting views and learning from failed directions.
Devrim Celal– Kraken
In this episode of Leaders in Cleantech, David Hunt is joined once again by Devrim Celal, Chief Flexibility & Marketing Officer at Kraken, nearly six years after their first conversation in 2019—back when Devrim was CEO of Upside Energy.
Since then, Upside Energy was acquired by Octopus Energy and evolved into Kraken, now one of the world’s leading energy technology platforms, serving tens of millions of customers and optimising flexible power at global scale.
Rather than a linear success story, Devrim reflects on the last decade as a series of distinct phases: early uncertainty, pivotal strategic pivots, the acquisition decision, rapid scaling within Octopus, and now Kraken’s transition into a fully independent global company.
The conversation explores leadership at scale, the reality of building culture through growth, the trade-offs founders face between conviction and adaptability, and what the future holds for flexibility, storage, EVs, data centres and grid optimisation.
This is a thoughtful, honest discussion about long-term impact, not short-term hype—and what it really takes to build enduring companies in the energy transition.
Devrim Celal:
Devrim is the Chief Flexibility and Marketing Officer at Kraken. Overseeing Kraken’s flexibility and product capabilities, the cloud-based flexibility platform controls and optimizes distributed energy resources such as batteries of all sizes, EVs, solar and wind generation or heat pumps with machine learning and AI to match electricity supply and demand, helping the electricity grid deal with the natural volatility of renewable generation. Kraken is currently contracted to manage over 42 GW of power.
Previously, Devrim was the CEO of Upside Energy, which was acquired by Kraken in 2020. Before starting Upside Energy, Devrim’s professional career saw him take up executive roles with blue chip management consultancies and finance companies such as Publicis Sapient, Kearney and Lansdowne. He also holds an MBA from Yale University. In 2023, Devrim joined the Elexon Board, which manages the Balancing and Settlement Code of Great Britain’s energy system, as a Non-Executive Director.
About Kraken:
Vienna-based innovator enspired is known for pioneering automated energy trading and Kraken is the most-loved operating system for energy.
Powered by Utility-Grade AI™ and deep industry expertise, we
About Hyperion Search:
At Hyperion Search, we specialize in building world-class teams for the cleantech and energy transition sectors. We focus on leadership roles but also recruit strategically critical individual contributors who drive business growth. Whether you’re a founder scaling a startup, a board member guiding a scaleup, a VC/PE investor, or a corporation committed to energy and mobility transitions, we find the talent that will deliver impactful, sustainable results.
- Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hyperion-search-ltd
- Website: www.hyperionsearch.com
Follow us online, write a review (please) or subscribe
I'm very keen to hear feedback on the podcast and my guests, and to hear your suggestions for future guests or topics. Contact via the podcast Linked In page.
If you do enjoy the podcast, please write a review on iTunes, or your usual podcast platform, and tell your cleantech friends about us. That would be much appreciated.
Also follow the podcast and to stay up to date.
The AI-powered Podcast Player
