Jonathan Tudor has left petroleum producer BP, where he was managing director of its BP Ventures unit, and accepted “an offer I could not refuse” to head a corporate venturing subsidiary of UK-listed energy utility Centrica.
Tudor, the winner of a Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars award in 2016, had been venture director at Castrol InnoVentures, a division of BP, before its reorganisation into BP Ventures in the past year.
Tudor had worked at lubricants provider Castrol and BP, where he had found ample support as a “self-confessed geek, who likes technology with the allure of making money in addition to shifting the corporate dial,” since 2012.
Following three years at glass manufacturer Schott, Tudor’s initial move into investing was as an investment director at government technology contractor Qinetiq’s venture capital arm, Qinetiq Ventures, from 2002 to 2007, before its secondary buyout backed by Coller Capital led to the formation of CG Innovation Partners.
In addition to his core activities, Tudor is head of British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association’s CVC committee, and wants to “share best practice on how to manage strategic measures, as well as work on training and the professionalisation” of the work done by corporate venturers.
Tudor brings a decade of venture experience to Centrica, where Sam Salisbury and Christophe Defert, directors and co-heads of Centrica Innovations (CI), have scaled up a unique blend of corporate and impact venturing for the utility.
Centrica launched CI in January 2017 and plans to invest £100m ($125m) in startups over the next five years. The unit will incorporate the £10m Ignite social impact fund it formed in 2014, and which won GCV’s corporate impact venturing award in 2016.