Tiscali UK CEO Turner Jumps To Smart Energy Metre Firm AlertMe

Tiscali UK CEO Mary Turner is leaving the top-six UK ISP… for a home monitoring company.

She’s becoming CEO of AlertMe, which sells home energy and security monitor boxes to consumers and lets them review the data through Google PowerMeter from anywhere via a monthly web subscription.

Turner had been Tiscali’s long-time UK chief, but its acquisition by Carphone Warehouse last year “silenced” Turner, Times Online reckons. The AlertMe announcement says Turner had only “remained in an advisory capacity to the TalkTalk Group since the sale”. Carphone CEO Charles Dunstone, in the announcement, gives Turner a glowing exit review.

The £236 million sale price had to be renegotiated because Turners ISP had 160,000 fewer customers than originally advised, Carphone said earlier this year.

Cambridge-based AlertMe was founded in 2006 and is amongst the companies to try using technology to reduce homes’ carbon footprint. It’s funded by Good Energies, Index Ventures, SET Venture Partners, and VantagePoint Venture Partners. But, with electricity providers themselves already starting to issue electricity monitors to customers, AlertMe’s future may be in partnering with utilities rather than as a standalone service – it’s seeking partnerships.