Alan O’Brien
A leader in energy-efficient commercial boiler controls, AIM-listed Sabien (SNT) has grown from being a small UK start-up to an international player.
Most companies don’t invest much time or money on their boilers or hot water systems apart from regular maintenance and parts replacement but as Sabien demonstrates, perhaps they should. As the ‘UK's leading provider of commercial boiler and direct fired hot water heater optimisation controls’, the company knows the financial and C02 savings that can be made by fitting its M2G technology.
M2G is a load optimisation control for commercial boilers and is proven to reduce gas consumption and CO2 emissions by between 10 and 25 per cent. Typical paybacks are between six months and two years.
The CEO Magazine spoke to Sabien’s CEO Alan O’Brien about the company, how he’s turning around the business’ outlook after a couple of years of underperformance, and what sets Sabien apart in its sector.
The CEO Magazine: When you became CEO, what was your mandate for the company?
Alan: As founder and when I started the company back in 2004, it was purely to move out of large industry and work in a smaller company where I could see the outcome of my efforts. When you are employed in big industry, you rarely see the outcome of your work and for me it was the right time to do something different anyway.
I wanted to set up a company which would become world class at delivering a business outcome for its clients. I had good advice—a lot of my colleagues are people I had worked with before; we would meet up to chat about our ideas. If ever I decided to start my own company I had friends and colleagues who could steer me in areas like corporate finance and operations. So my agenda was pretty selfish: set up a business I could control the destiny of, rather than working for someone else.