On 1st October 2020, Oliver Koch has taken over the management of the sonnen Group. He succeeded Christoph Ostermann, sonnen’s founder, who will continue to advise the management of sonnen GmbH, Wildpoldsried, Germany, until the end of the year.
Oliver Koch has been part of the management board and Chief Operating Officer (COO) at sonnen – which was acquired by fossil fuel company Shell in 2019 – since 2014. He has been instrumental in building up the company founded in 2010, among other things, he has led the sonnenBatterie into standardised series production and managed its expansion into the USA and Australia. As a member of the management board, he has continuously played a decisive role in shaping sonnen’s strategy.
“After more than ten successful years at an incredible pace, the time has come for me to follow new directions. sonnen has achieved a leading position in the energy market and is strongly positioned for the future. With Oliver, sonnen has gained a CEO who has helped build the company up, who knows it inside out and who will successfully lead it through the next growth stage,” says sonnen’s founder Christoph Ostermann.
sonnen is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of energy storage systems. With the sonnenCommunity, sonnen is transforming into a new type of energy supplier. sonnen now offers its customers all the technologies and services they need to switch completely to renewable energies. By forming a virtual power plant, households can provide grid services – a task previously reserved for traditional power plants.
“sonnen will consistently continue its current growth strategy. Our goal was and is to continue to scale up and make our technologies for clean and affordable energy available to an ever-increasing number of people. I am honoured to have received the confidence to continue delivering on Christoph’s vision and lead the amazing team he has built,” says Oliver Koch.
Prior to joining sonnen, Oliver Koch held management positions in various companies such as the US solar company Paramount Solar, which was acquired by SolarCity in 2013, and the Bertelsmann Group, where he headed business units in the US, Australia and South Korea.