Currys CEO Alex Baldock & Octopus Energy’s Greg Jackson on Retail, Energy, Regulation and AI

Jimmy's Jobs of the Future

Boxlight Creative Studio

Technology, Business, Careers

5.0 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2026

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Currys CEO Alex Baldock & Octopus Energy’s Greg Jackson on Retail, Energy, Regulation and AI Jimmy hosts a panel with Currys CEO Alex Baldock and Octopus Energy CEO Greg Jackson on how retail and energy drive jobs, growth and prosperity. Baldock outlines Currys’ scale (nearly £10bn sales, 24,000 colleagues) and argues retail employs around 20% of the private sector workforce with rising productivity, but faces policy-driven cost increases, red tape and employment regulation that threaten flexible entry-level jobs. Jackson describes Octopus’ rapid growth (8m UK households, operations in 30 countries), the demerger and valuation of its Kraken platform, and diversification into EV leasing and charging. Both stress competition over heavy regulation, cite inefficiencies and distortions in UK energy pricing, discuss geopolitical risks and electrification, and explain how AI is transforming customer service, operations and energy system optimization. 00:00 Welcome and Introductions 03:06 Currys Retail Snapshot 03:41 Retail Jobs and Productivity 05:10 Octopus Energy and Kraken 08:47 Enterprise and Profit Narrative 12:17 Regulation and Competition 17:10 Energy Shocks and Electrification 21:43 Inflation and Cost Pressures 29:36 Employment Costs and Flex Work 36:09 Work Culture and Transparency 41:44 AI Impact on Retail and Energy 49:27 Closing Thanks and Networking Credits: Host / Exec Producer: Jimmy McLoughlin OBE Producer: Sunny Winter https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunnywinter/ Junior Producer: Thuy Dong AP: Ethan Pearman Special thanks to the Margaret Thatcher Conference organising team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money, whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.
0:18.4	Welcome to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. I'm delighted to bring this special live episode from
0:23.3	the Centre of Policy Studies Margaret Fatcher Enterprise Conference. Now look, I get asked to speak at a lot of
0:30.1	conferences, get asked to host the podcast at a lot of places. And I wish I could do it all,
0:34.5	but whilst running Box Lye and making lots of other shows
0:38.1	as well, it is quite challenging to do that.
0:41.0	But this one felt a really special opportunity to sit down with two remarkable gentlemen
0:46.0	who've had incredible business careers, but come at it from quite different angles.
0:50.8	So Alex Baldock is the chief executive of Curry's and has led a really interesting transformation
0:57.0	of the high street chain over the last decade or so. And to be joined by Greg Jackson,
1:04.0	who is the chief executive and founder of Octopus Energy, obviously we are a huge fan of Octopus
1:10.0	Energy and so much so. Greg was our 200th
1:13.4	guests on Jimmy's Jobs in the Future. He's created more jobs in the United Kingdom than pretty much any other entrepreneur over the last 15 years.
1:21.7	So to talk to the two of them who have come at business from two different angles in what they've done, but are two of
1:30.5	the most successful businesses in the UK. But a really exciting opportunity to get their
1:36.3	views on each other's businesses and talk about the different things. So it was real pleasure
1:40.6	and opportunity. And I'd love to know what you think of this episode in particular
1:45.0	because we are looking at maybe doing some mixing up our content a little bit more, getting
1:50.2	some more people together for round tables similar to this. So I would love to know what you think,
1:55.2	who would make good pair-ups from the 250 or so guests that you had before on the show.
2:01.2	So send us a comment on LinkedIn or anywhere on socials.
2:06.0	Thanks very much and I really hope you enjoy this episode.
	...

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