Founder’s Associate

£40,000 - £60,000 / Full-time / On-site / London

The electricity grid is running on 130-year-old technology. While the world has poured attention and money into renewables, EVs, and AI data centres, the infrastructure that everything connects back into has been left behind.

IONATE is fixing that. Founded seven years ago by a neuroscientist and an electrical and control systems engineer, we are building the hardware-software backbone to bring energy systems into the 21st century – making them smart, more reliable, and capable of handling what's coming next.

The tech has been proven. Early commercial projects are going live across Portugal, Spain, the Nordics, Austria, and the UK. The US market is pulling hard. A Series A of $17M closed in 2025.

The technology risk has been removed. Now it's about execution.

Why This Role Exists

IONATE is scaling from around 50 to 100 people across multiple geographies. Matthew, the CEO, is stretched across every part of the business. He needs a right hand – someone who can look across business units and external stakeholders, organise priorities strategically, and protect his time for the work only he can do.

What You'll Do

• Work directly with Matthew day-to-day as his right hand - learn his role in depth and remove the blockers that slow him down
• Own Matthew’s time - keep him focused on the handful of priorities only he can drive, and handle or delegate the rest
• Act as a strategic thought partner - analyse market data and dynamics, understand what drives investors and customers, and bring your own point of view
• Prepare for and sit in on his meetings, including with major global investors and multinational partners, so he goes in fully briefed on what was said and committed to last time
• Drive follow-through from every meeting - write it up, align with Matthew, and get actions in front of the right people
• Act as the filter between Matthew and the wider team - manage what lands on his calendar and decline on his behalf when something doesn’t need him
• Turn long reports and documents into sharp executive summaries, flagging only what needs his attention
• Write documentation and build presentations tailored to the different audiences a CEO needs to reach
• Own the operational detail - coordinating meetings across commercial partners, investors, and internal teams

Requirements

• You'll be highly organised and quick to get up to speed. You may come from management consulting or a similar environment where you've learnt to work across several domains at once, walk into a meeting at short notice, pick up context fast, and still produce high-quality materials.
• You’ve felt real execution pressure. You know what it’s like to have more work than time - and you get it done anyway.
• Commercially sharp. You don’t need to be an engineer or understand the technology at a technical level, but you can read into energy markets, weigh up a competitor’s claims, and judge whether a value proposition holds up.
• You take the detail seriously. A meaningful part of this role is operational, and you see that as part of doing the job well, not a distraction from it.

It Would Be Nice to Have

• Experience using AI tools to work faster and more effectively
• A strong eye for slides and documents, and experience writing for different audiences, including LinkedIn

Benefits

• Employee Option Plan: You get equity in IONATE, so as we succeed so do you.
• Private Medical & Dental Insurance: From day one, we provide you with full, comprehensive private medical and dental cover through Bupa. You also have the option to add any dependents to your cover. Please ask us for more details.
• Company pension: a flexible, and sustainable pension product to help you plan for your future.
• Career Development: It’s important to us that you have the opportunity for ongoing professional development and career growth. You will receive an annual budget for professional development and work with your team to set and reach goals every year.
• Flexible working schedules: You will have the flexibility for work-from-home arrangements. Talk to us at the application stage about this.
• Cycle to Work Scheme: Low carbon travel is important for everyone, so we have in place a cycle scheme to help you purchase a bicycle.
• Slow travel: We believe in a low carbon future, so if you wish to travel by a lower carbon method – but it takes much longer than flying - we will give you an extra 2 slow travel days per year.