Greg Jackson (businessman)

Jackson grew up in Halifax,^[1] West Yorkshire, and then Saltburn-by-the-Sea in North Yorkshire.^[2] He became interested in electronics and computer coding in the early 1980s, leaving school at 16 to programme computer games.^[1] He told the BBC that he remembered having his energy supply cut off when he was growing up.^[3] He returned to sixth form college to study economics, before attending Pembroke College, Cambridge.^[4]

According to website Move Upstream, "before the age of 30, he had owned and/or managed a number of small businesses employing 4–60 people and turning over £400k to £4m."^[5] Jackson founded companies including e-commerce firm C360 and Consultant Connect,^[6] a telemedicine provider, and was a director of several businesses, including Zopa, a peer-to-peer lender.^[7] He is also an angel investor in companies including Xlinks, which planned to build the world's largest subsea cable to bring renewable energy from Morocco to the UK,^[6] and carbon accounting company Altruistiq.^[8]

He founded Octopus Energy in 2016, and by 2024 the company was valued at over $9 billion.^[9] The company is now the largest energy supplier in the UK, the first company to supplant British Gas since market liberalisation in the 1990s.^[10] By 2024, Octopus Energy Group had raised over $2.3bn in funding. The Financial Times reported in 2023 that "Octopus’s credentials as a disrupter have helped win the backing of investors including Generation Investment Management, chaired by former US vice-president Al Gore"^[11] among further institutional investors and energy giants.

In August 2025, Jackson was appointed to a three-year term as a non-executive member of the Cabinet Office board; he said he would press government departments to use technology to implement policies more rapidly and efficiently.^[12] Jackson is also a member of the government's Industrial Strategy Advisory Council.^[13]

Jackson lives in London and has two children.^[1]

In the 2024 King's Birthday Honours, Jackson was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).^[14] In the same year, he was named in the 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders in Business in Time magazine's Time 100 Climate.^[15] Jackson is an honorary fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge^[16] and holds an honorary doctorate from Teesside University.^[17]