The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 21: Oct/Nov 2015 | Page 14

WILTSHIRE WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS

In this special edition of The Business Exchange, we profile some of the county’s most diverse and
prolific businesswomen who are making a real impact in the corporate world.

Julia Davenport
Juliet Davenport is the founder
and CEO of Chippenham
based Good Energy, one
of the UK’s first 100%
renewable electricity supply
and generator companies.
A renewable industry entrepreneur, Juliet
built Good Energy from scratch, starting
from small beginnings more than 15 years
ago. Her mission then, as it is now, was to
tackle climate change, help deliver energy
security for the UK, and give consumers
the opportunity to buy 100% renewable
electricity.
Juliet’s belief in the role renewables
can and must play in an environmentally
sustainable, economically affordable and

diverse energy supply structure grew out of
an early interest in climate change, which
she studied as part of her physics degree at
Oxford University.
Her views were reinforced while working
on an internship with the European
Commission on Energy, during which she
recognised politics wasn’t going to drive the
change needed.
This led to the creation of Good Energy.
Today, the company has more than 176,500
electricity, gas and feed-in tariff customers
across the UK, along with an excellent
reputation for quality customer service,
having topped the Which? energy company
customer satisfaction survey for three out of
the last four years, and recently winning two
consecutive MoneySavingExpert polls.
Good Energy has a unique business
model, using power purchase agreements
to buy renewable electricity from an ever-

growing network of small and medium
sized independent generators spread across
the UK.
A founding member of the Social
Stock Exchange, Good Energy has set the
energy market standard for ethically and
socially responsible companies, proving it’s
entirely possible to do so while maintaining
commercially sound and profitable business
principles.
“I want Good Energy to be the blueprint
for how other energy companies should
be. We have a unique business model,
using power purchase agreements to buy
renewable electricity from an ever-growing
network of small and medium sized
independent generators spread across the
UK,” Juliet said.
In January 2013, Juliet Davenport was
awarded the OBE for services to renewables.

Amanda Newbery

Alison Edgar

Amanda Newbery is one
of the most influential,
successful and well known
business women in Wiltshire.

Alison Edgar is the managing
director of specialist sales
training provider Sales
Coaching Solutions.

She chairs the Salisbury Business
Improvement District (BID), is a director of
the Salisbury Chamber of Commerce and
has multiple roles within the economic
infrastructure of the city. She’s shortly to
take a strategic role within Inspire – the
Wessex Chambers of Commerce.
She has several business interests but
is most well known as the managing
director of Knightwood Leisure Ltd which
runs the Chapel Nightclub in Salisbury.
It’s one of the most successful night time
entertainment venues in the south west

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THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2015

and employs a staff of 70. During the day
the nightclub is known as something of a
community hub where people can meet
and gather for events.
The 52-year-old entrepreneur believes
passionately in creating a cohesive
economic plan for business in and around
Wiltshire. An expert in exporting, Amanda
is a strategic thinker in every role she’s
undertaken.
She said: “I’m not a complainer. If there’s
a problem, I like to look at why there’s a
problem and see