Tem names Claire Addison as Chief of Staff after funding

Tem has appointed Claire Addison as Chief of Staff, following the electricity market technology company's USD $75 million Series B round.

Addison joins from Flexitricity, where she spent seven years working on regulation, policy and market change. In her new role, she will lead Tem's relationships with governments, regulators and industry bodies, oversee compliance with supply and regulatory requirements, and help guide the company's entry into new markets.

Texas is the priority market in that international expansion. Tem has also been growing in the UK, where headcount has risen 75% this year.

Addison's background centres on electricity market reform. At Flexitricity, she advised the UK Government, Ofgem, Elexon and NESO, and worked on changes aimed at widening market access for smaller participants. Before that, she spent five years at AES Corporation across global energy markets, including on early commercial battery storage systems on European and US grids.

Tem is trying to change how electricity is priced and contracted. Its Rosso platform is designed to replace a trading and transaction structure dating back to the 1980s that was adapted from oil and gas markets.

The group argues that the existing system relies on multiple intermediaries, each taking a margin and reducing price transparency for businesses and generators. Rosso, it says, prices and contracts electricity directly in the open and has so far returned more than USD $50 million in transaction fees to customers.

Tem has also facilitated more than 5TWh of energy transactions across more than 7,000 sites in the UK. Its customer list includes Boohoo Group, Newcastle United, Fever-Tree and Silverstone Circuit.

Policy focus

The appointment signals a stronger policy and regulatory focus as Tem expands. Energy market structure has become more politically sensitive as governments weigh industrial competitiveness, power system reform, and rising electricity demand tied to data centres and artificial intelligence.

For Tem, electricity pricing has become an economic issue beyond the energy sector. The way power is bought and sold affects manufacturing costs, industrial output and broader competitiveness, the company argues.

Addison set out her view of the market in two remarks.

"Since I first started my career in the energy sector, I've always been deeply frustrated that electricity is so complex and unnecessarily expensive. No matter what improvements are made, money always seems to flow to the same industry players. It's not fair, and it's a tax on ambition that undermines businesses and productivity," said Claire Addison, Chief of Staff at Tem.

"When I met the team at Tem, it clicked instantly: here was a company building a fair and transparent replacement instead of benefiting from the status quo. I couldn't be more excited to join at this moment in Tem's journey. The infrastructure is proven, and my job now is to work with the people who write the market rules as the market catches up with what's already possible," Addison said.

Growth plans

Tem's latest funding round was led by Lightspeed and, according to the company, was oversubscribed. The fresh capital will support its expansion in the UK and entry into overseas markets.

The company was founded after the energy crisis of 2021 and 2022. Its backers include AlbionVC, Atomico, the Branson family office, Hitachi Ventures, Revent VC, Schroders Capital and Voyager Ventures.

Joe McDonald, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, presented Addison's appointment as part of that next phase. He pointed to the need for closer work with policymakers and regulators as Tem seeks a larger role in electricity market infrastructure.

"Only a handful of people in this country can say they've driven difficult, structural policy change through successive changes of government, and Claire is one of them. She joins at a point when it's become clear that the electron, not the chip, is the constraint on the future. Tem removes that constraint, pricing the energy that's fundamental to securing our future prosperity in the open. Claire will help put us in the right rooms as we scale, collaborating with policymakers and regulators to ensure that our infrastructure is understood by the market," said McDonald.