Jetstar’s former head of digital Simon Pearce has moved to Origin Energy, taking up the role of CTO of 'Retail X'.
Retail X was formed out of a strategic partnership with Origin and the UK’s Octopus Energy, announced in May, which is focused on the rollout of Octopus' cloud-based platform ‘Kraken’ across Origin’s retail business.
Origin confirmed the appointment to iTnews after executive recruitment firm Alex Kaar announced the appointment on LinkedIn.
Pearce held multiple roles at Jetstar over the past five years, including head of digital and head of innovation and analytics.
Prior to that, he held senior IT positions with ANZ, HSBC and Telstra.
Origin’s retail chief technology officer is a newly created position that will join the Retail X leadership structure, leading internal capability in maintaining and developing Origin's own Kraken platform going forward.
The Retail X business aims to “deliver the most advanced retail energy customer platform in Australia.”
Implementing Kraken and redesigning the end-to-end retail operating model is expected to improve customer service and reduce costs and customer churn.
The energy retailer is aiming to migrate 50,000 of its customers onto the Kraken platform by the end of 2020.
Over the next 24 to 30 months, Origin will transfer its remaining 3.8 million retail electricity and gas customer accounts onto the Kraken platform.
