Skip to main content
JDW Digital Consulting
Back to case studies

Public EV charging · Believ

Build the function, acquire the core, reset the economics

An investor-backed EV charging business was scaling on a licensed platform that capped its cost position, its pace and its ability to differentiate. As Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, James Wehner built the product and technology function, took control of the core platform through acquisition, and reset the economics beneath a growing national network.

  • Interim CPTO leadership
  • Platform acquisition & integration
  • Technology due diligence
  • Operating-model design
  • Data platform & AI enablement
  • Security and privacy assurance

At a glance

  • Organisation: Believ (formerly Liberty Charge), UK public EV charging network; investor-backed by Liberty Global and Zouk Capital
  • Sector: Public EV charging
  • Scope: United Kingdom
  • Role: Chief Technology & Innovation Officer (Contract), February 2024 to April 2026, operating at integrated CPTO level and reporting to the CEO and Board
  • Remit: Product, engineering, design, data, workplace technology and cyber; platform and enterprise architecture; suppliers and commercial relationships; governance and delivery control
  • Engaged through: JDW Digital Consulting

Mandate and context

Believ operates a public charging service whose reliability directly affects both customers and commercial performance. Growth depends on adding sites at pace while keeping the network dependable — and on the cost base of the technology running underneath it.

That technology was licensed. A vendor-led charge point management system exposes cost to a third party's pricing, gates pace to a third party's roadmap, and makes differentiation hard to build on capability any competitor can license just as easily. For a business whose value rests on scaling operationally important public-facing infrastructure efficiently, that was a structural ceiling.

The organisation also had no product and technology function of its own, relying instead on outsourced shared services. Building that capability, resolving the platform question and connecting technology decisions to commercial outcomes had to happen together, under one accountable executive.

"Build the function, acquire the core, reset the economics — held together by one accountable executive."

Role, authority and accountability

James was accountable to the CEO and Board for product, engineering, design, data, workplace technology and cyber, with wider authority over platform and enterprise architecture, cloud and infrastructure, enterprise systems, suppliers and commercial relationships, technology operations, and governance. He served as the Board-level executive lead on roadmap, capital allocation, technical due diligence and growth.

He owned the operating model, platform position, acquisition and integration, vendor economics, and the shape and staffing of the organisation.

Intervention and critical decisions

Building the function. James built a 20+ person multidisciplinary product and technology organisation, grounded in user-centred design, accessibility, agile delivery and DevOps/SRE practice, replacing outsourced shared services with an in-house, product-led operating model.

Taking control of the core. Rather than continue licensing or commit to a multi-year build, James led the platform evaluation and subsequent asset acquisition of SwitchEV's CPMS platform, IP and associated capability. Options were assessed against a defined framework: architectural quality, infrastructure discipline, maintainability, integration fit, control of IP and roadmap, speed to usable capability, and the ability to support future differentiation, expansion and M&A. The outcome was an AWS-native system suited to the demands of a public charging service, secured with close involvement from legal and commercial colleagues through the transaction and integration.

Diagram showing a licensed, vendor-led operation replaced by an owned platform and an in-house product and technology organisation.

Before

  • Licensed charge point management system
  • Outsourced shared services
  • Cost, pace and roadmap set by a third-party vendor

After

  • Owned, AWS-native charge point management core
  • In-house product, engineering, design, data, workplace technology and cyber
  • Governance layer owning roadmap and IP
Dependency replaced by ownership and control.

Decision framework comparing extend, build and acquire options against architectural, control and speed criteria.

Extend

  • Continue licensing the existing platform
  • Cost, pace and roadmap remain vendor-controlled

Build

  • Multi-year build of a replacement platform
  • Slow route to usable capability

Acquire Selected

  • Architectural quality and infrastructure discipline in place
  • Control of IP and roadmap secured
  • Fast route to usable capability
  • Supports future differentiation, expansion and M&A
Options assessed against architectural quality, infrastructure discipline, maintainability, integration fit, control of IP and roadmap, speed to usable capability, and support for future differentiation, expansion and M&A.

Resetting the economics. With that capability held in-house, James reshaped vendor strategy to strengthen control of IP, roadmap and integrations. The reset supported a projected £25m reduction in platform costs over five years — a forward projection arising from the new ownership position and revised vendor terms rather than a saving realised during the engagement.

Building the data capability. Working with Google as a strategic technology partner, James established Believ's first GCP, BigQuery and Looker environment, bringing platform, commercial and operational data together into a unified decision-making capability. Practical AI adoption followed across selected engineering and business workflows under appropriate governance.

Raising assurance. James led the ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 programmes. The ISO 27001 programme had begun before he joined; he substantially expanded its scope to cover the new in-house software and technology capability, and implemented ISO 27701 as the privacy extension to the information-security management system.

Outcomes

"A licensed core caps cost, pace and differentiation at the same time."
  • Core charge point management capability brought in-house through the SwitchEV asset acquisition, giving Believ control of its IP and roadmap.
  • A 20+ person product and technology organisation established in place of outsourced shared services.
  • A vendor and cost reset supporting a projected £25m reduction in platform costs over five years.
  • A unified data capability on GCP, BigQuery and Looker spanning platform, commercial and operational sources.
  • Expanded ISO 27001 certification and new ISO 27701 certification both achieved during the engagement.

Where this experience applies

  • Interim or fractional CPTO/CTO for an investor-backed scale-up that needs a product and technology function built from the ground up, not simply managed.
  • Buy-side platform evaluation and asset acquisition, from options assessment and diligence through to integrating acquired technology and capability.
  • Vendor and cost reset, converting a licensed, dependency-led estate into in-house capability with defensible long-run economics.

Closing perspective

Platform businesses live or die on the link between technology strategy, operating model and commercial reality — a link that has to be owned by one executive rather than divided across functions whose incentives never quite meet. Believ shows that link made deliberately: a function built, a critical capability acquired, and the cost base reset for the next phase of growth.