About

Team size: 15

What are the most important transactions and litigations that you have been involved in during the last year?

Over the past year, I have been involved in transactions totalling almost US$750m. I was also involved in the refinancings of the Andasol and Arenales projects in Spain, the Bisaccia and Torretta projects in Italy and the Zarakes project in Greece.

Has working from home inspired any innovation in terms of the way you and your team work? Are there any standout products or tech you now use that you never did before?

Given the inevitable lethargy associated with sustained remote working, we have been investing in a range of additional tools, as well as looking at how we can adapt our use of existing ones, to support improved teamwork. There have so far been several standout initiatives.

First, the roll out of Emergenetics, a psychometric tool designed to share insights into colleague preferences for thinking and their behaviours. So far, during the Covid-19 lockdowns we have hired 37 people. As we onboarded the first new team members remotely, it became clear that without meeting in person, colleagues missed out on gaining a true understanding their working styles. As Emergenetics provides these thought and behaviour insights – including responses to pressure – adopting it globally is creating a common language as to how we talk about similarities and differences in ways of working at Cubico. In addition, its introduction supports our diversity agenda, which has been incredibly important over the last year.

Second, after the success of one-off ‘coffee roulette’ type initiatives, which matched team members who were unlikely to have worked together frequently before, we feel there is opportunity – given our global spread – to formalise a longer term commitment to team working across the company. Therefore, we are in the process of deploying Lead.Bot, a software programme attached to our company Microsoft Teams platform which matches colleagues internationally on a regular basis. If we couple this with specific tasks each month – a suggested LinkedIn Learning course for pairs to watch and debrief on or a question on innovation or inclusive cultures – it will create a medium for greater team working, knowledge sharing and ideation on a global basis.

Finally, the Covid-19 pandemic drove us to look at best practice for adapting our use of existing technology mediums – namely SharePoint and Yammer – to proactively support remote teamworking. This led to us doubling down on SharePoint as more a ‘self-service’ area of information. For example, we have been utilising SharePoint to store information which would have previously been more readily accessed in office environments and provided a number of ‘how to’ guides on making the best use of that information in its new format. We have pivoted our use of Yammer as a collaboration tool for both ‘intact’ teams and colleagues more broadly. We have added quizzes, games, surveys and ideas on a weekly basis in order to drive engagement, team communication and, ultimately, provide some light relief to the world at large.

Even in the best-case scenario, Covid is likely to have far-reaching ramifications. How are you safeguarding the long-term health of the business?

Our first priority – since the coronavirus pandemic started – has been the health and safety of our employees. While the majority of colleagues have been working from home, some of our onsite teams do not have that option. For those individuals, we have a number of health and safety precautions in place, including the provision of personal protective equipment, sanitation procedures and alterations to work schedules to better allow for social distancing.

We also know that the unfamiliar circumstances and additional pressures resulting from the pandemic have had an effect on the mental health of many people, so we have worked hard to combat this too. Our initiatives have ranged from regular communications from senior staff members and tailored wellbeing initiatives and tools to training options for career development and opportunities to socialise with colleagues virtually.

In terms of safeguarding the business from an operational perspective, we are very lucky to be working in one of the industries which has not suffered the worst effects of the pandemic. In fact, many countries have seen the demand for power from renewable sources overtake that for traditional energy sources – some for the first time. This has led to governments, associations and regulators having to reflect more on the increasing support for the renewables sector.

Of course, we are fully aware that there are still – and will likely be for years to come – many challenges and risks resulting from the pandemic. As a company, we are helped by our strong local presence in the countries in which we operate, allowing us to better monitor and react to emerging situations or changes to each market. We also have in-house business development, operations, financial, commercial, technical and legal expertise, which helps us to efficiently problem-solve on a wide range of issues internally. For example, our highly experienced Legal team comprises experts with a strong knowledge of local law in each of the jurisdictions in which we operate.

We know that changes in laws will be a factor following the pandemic. While some changes will be favourable, supporting the sector, we are prepared for those that won’t be so positive for businesses like ours. We expect to see limits imposed on investing in certain countries, as well as tax increases where governments need money to rebuild their economies. To mitigate against any negative consequences to Cubico, we will continue to analysing political and macro-economic risks globally and in our countries of operation.

We have also assessed the potential implications of Covid-19 on our supply chain. Even though we were not heavily affected by this during 2020, we remain vigilant and have taken steps to buy and keep spare parts in the countries we consider higher risk, as well as continuing to monitor suppliers’ performance regularly, including adequate protections in our contracts.

In addition, changes in working environments due to the pandemic has led to a more decentralised workforce, meaning that cyber security threats are greater. Aside from being well prepared due to our IT infrastructure being cloud-based, we put more sophisticated technology, protocols and controls in place to ensure the security of our systems. We have also been using behavioural analytics to help identify any abnormal or malicious activity.