Assem Ongarbayeva appointed new Chief Strategy Officer

We are excited to announce the appointment of Assem Ongarbayeva as our new Chief Strategy Officer. Assem joins UPowr after seven years at AGL, where she worked across forecasting, wholesale market pricing, strategy and most recently, physical markets trading. 

As a Physical Markets Trader, Assem was responsible for managing AGL’s portfolio across both wholesale and FCAS markets – optimising both generation and retail assets. Assem played a key role in the management of the portfolio during periods of energy volatility, while also training new traders.

Over the past seven years Assem has played an active role in driving new energy innovation, providing commercial support for the development of solar PV, battery and digital metering products and services. 

Assem is a mentor to renewable energy start-ups in Startup Bootcamp's accelerator program, and is a committee member at the Australian Institute of Energy. Assem was also recently selected as a Fellow as part of the Startmate Fellowship.

As Chief Strategy Officer at UPowr, Assem will work to shape UPowr's strategic focus and explore opportunities for UPowr to create value for Australian households who purchase clean energy technologies. Assem will also explore investment opportunities and play a key role in preparing UPowr for its Series A funding round.

Assem shared that she is excited to join UPowr, as it works to achieve its mission of transforming how households generate and use energy. 

“I’m excited to join such a talented team with a vision like UPowr’s at a time of significant disruption in the energy industry,” Assem said.

“Tackling climate change is important to me, and I believe UPowr has the right technology and people to significantly drive positive change in helping households switch to clean energy.” 

UPowr CEO and Co-founder Stu Philpot said that he is thrilled to be welcoming Assem to the UPowr team.

“We are humbled Assem has chosen to work at UPowr. Assem’s extensive knowledge of Australia’s electricity markets, combined with her commercial and financial skills will help us move quickly into new markets, products and services. Assem’s short term focus will be on our next round of funding, so it’s perfect timing for UPowr, we can’t wait for her to start.”