Separating family from business is tough - without boundaries, it's impossible

Long before I founded Naked Energy, I worked in my father’s film-editing business. It was a small creative company, and I started at the bottom as a tea boy. Over time, I worked my way up and became much more involved in the direction of the business.

I got hands-on experience in building a business, and it allowed me to appreciate the constant work it takes to keep it going. But there were issues.

Like many family businesses, the lines between personal relationships and professional decision-making could sometimes blur, and I saw firsthand how difficult that can be.

Eventually, I became the main figurehead in the company. I believed growth was essential for its long-term survival and wanted to bring in new talent and different skills to help it compete. Others had a more cautious view, focused on protecting what had already been built. That difference in outlook was difficult to reconcile.

Ultimately, I made the very difficult decision to leave after 15 years. That experience stayed with me, so when discussions first started about my daughter, Luana, joining Naked Energy, I did not take it lightly.

Following the close of our £17m Series B funding round with E.ON and Barclays, we started hiring. We’ve almost doubled the team over the last 12 months. It occurred to me that Luana’s background in science, data, engineering, business, and sustainability was an excellent melting pot and that Naked Energy really needed her skills.

Luana, in many ways, grew up alongside the business, and she developed a keen interest in renewable energy early on. She’d constantly ask me at the dinner table how the business was doing and what was happening; she knew the ins and outs. My wife would and absolutely still tells us if we need to change the subject around the dinner table if we start going off on a tangent.

I made sure I wasn’t involved in the hiring process; it was important that the wider team made the final decision to hire her or not. We needed someone who could bridge the gap between the technical side of the business and know how to grow it commercially, and Luana was that exact fit.

Once the decision was made, we had to make sure work stayed at work, and it didn’t spill out, affecting our father-daughter relationship. We developed clear boundaries. Luana calls me Christophe, not Dad, at work, and reports to her own line manager.

Not only were these steps important for our relationship, but they are also important to protect the businesses' integrity. The team would rightly question me if I played a part in her progression.

Naked Energy is not a family business. It's a venture-backed climate tech company with a professional team, external investors, and a mission that is bigger than any one of us. We are focused on building the technology and systems that can help industries decarbonise heat around the world.

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Christophe Williams is the CEO and founder of Naked Energy.

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