Say the number or say you cannot
Where a figure cannot be defended we write that, rather than presenting a range wide enough to be safe and useless.
About
A technology firm
that followed
its clients.
Acentrium was founded in Frankfurt as a technology consultancy. We now work on the energy transition, with the same engineers, the same delivery discipline, and a laboratory we did not have ten years ago.
The shift
Why we changed focus.
For a decade we built software, data platforms and delivery teams for regulated industries: banking, insurance, public sector and industrial clients. The work was good and the discipline it taught us was better. Large programmes fail at interfaces, and someone has to hold them.
By the early 2020s more of our clients were asking energy questions. An insurer wanted to understand the assets it was underwriting. A manufacturer wanted to know what would replace its furnaces. A utility wanted forecasting it could actually operate against. We answered those questions well enough that they kept coming, and it became clear that this was the business rather than a sideline.
So we made the move deliberately: hired energy engineers instead of adding another software practice, opened the laboratory, and built the European consortium relationships that now carry a large part of the research work. The technology capability did not go anywhere. It sits underneath the energy work, which is where it is most useful.
What has not changed is how we staff engagements. The people who win the work deliver it, deliverables are reviewed by someone senior who was not in the room, and we would rather lose a mandate than staff it thin.
0years advising regulated and capital-intensive industries
0of renewable capacity supported in development or delivery
0active European research and demonstration consortia
0research programmes running in the laboratory group
How we are organised
Small centre, deep practices.
Frankfurt is the home office and holds strategy, grid, molecules, data and the laboratory. Copenhagen is where the offshore delivery work is anchored, close to the developers and test facilities we work with. Brussels covers the consortium and programmes side. North African programmes are staffed from Frankfurt with regional partners.
The firm is partner-led and deliberately flat. Practice leads carry client relationships and hire into their own teams, and the growth round now underway is the first time we have recruited at this scale in a single wave.
How we behave
Four things we hold to.
The recommendation is signed
Every deliverable carries the name of the person accountable for it. That person is available afterwards.
Staff it properly or decline
We turn down work we cannot resource with the people we described at pitch. This costs us revenue and keeps the practice intact.
Compliance is not paperwork
Export control, sanctions screening, data protection and research ethics are handled before a mandate starts, not once it is inconvenient.
Publish where it helps
Consortium work is shared with partners and reviewed openly. Client work stays closed, and we do not blur the line to look impressive.
Train the next people
Everyone senior carries responsibility for developing someone less senior. It is part of how performance is assessed.
Next step
Want to meet the practice?
We are happy to make an introduction to the practice lead closest to your question, whether or not there is a mandate in it.