Alex De Broe

Founder with an exit. Renewable energy and storage. Europe and East Africa.

About me

I have spent 25 years in the energy transition, most of it building things rather than advising on them.

I founded and scaled Eocycle-XANT, a distributed wind and hybrid storage company selling into off grid markets in Africa, Latin America and Europe. I was CEO and CTO. I raised several rounds, took the product from a technical idea to a commercial one, hired and rebuilt the team more than once, and we exited through a trade sale to a Canadian peer. Most of what I know about running a company I learned there, including the expensive parts.

Before and after that I worked on the technical side of the industry. Turbine electrical design at GE Wind, then consulting at 3E on market design, grid integration and technical and financial due diligence for projects across Europe and Africa. Most recently I ran sustainability globally for Aertssen Group, a 600-million-euro construction and logistics company, where I built a Flex as a Service model that turned idle battery assets into a revenue stream. That was an entrepreneurial job inside a large company, and it taught me a lot about getting a new business model past people who did not ask for it.

I have sat on my own board as founder and CEO, and I worked with investor directors through funding rounds and all the way to the trade sale. At Aertssen I prepared and defended decisions at board level. So I know what a board owes a founder, and I also know what founders quietly wish their board would stop doing.

I will tell you where your business model, your project economics or your Africa market entry plan is going to break, before an investor finds it.

I live in Nairobi. I work in Dutch, French, English and Spanish. Two engineering master%27s degrees, from Ghent and from Madison, Wisconsin, plus an Executive Master in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Vlerick.

Where I add the most value

Founders scaling up, raising, or heading for an exit. I have done all three.
Turning energy technology into a business model that holds up commercially.
Storage and flexibility economics. Dimensioning, revenue stacking, C&I cases.
European cleantech moving into East Africa, and East African ventures raising money in Europe.
Building new ventures or new business lines inside established companies.

Availability

I have room for two or three mandates. One or two days a month each, from Nairobi, and I am in Europe every quarter.