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Jazz Shaper: Joe McDonald

Posted on 7 June 2025

Joe McDonald is the co-founder and CEO of tem, a clean energy company changing the way renewable energy is bought, sold and powered. 

Joe McDonald head & shoulder

Joe is a serial founder with over 12 years of experience in the energy sector. After being turned down by Google for not being considered ‘Google material,’ he started his entrepreneurial journey by becoming a founding employee at energy startup Limejump.  

As former Vice President of Sales and Product at Limejump, he led the development of virtual power plants that allow small, renewable energy assets to access the market opportunities of larger utilities and steered the company’s successful exit to Shell in 2019, earning him a spot on Forbes' 30 Under 30 Europe list. 

Motivated by the inefficiencies in energy market transactions and a belief that energy should be a human right, he co-founded tem in 2021 to reimagine the entire transactions infrastructure of energy. The platform uses a matching algorithm to make the way we buy and sell energy more transparent, decentralised, simpler and a fairer deal for all. 

Highlights

Naivety was a superpower for sure.

I wanted to be the client owning and building.

If you really love trying to solve problems and you get pointed in the right direction and you are willing to take logical risk, I actually think a lot of people could start businesses.

I realised there is probably only a few people who are getting to see how it all works and so there was an element of like responsibility.

I need to take all the lessons of the last 7 years and go again.

I was not willing to do this by myself. I really wanted to enjoy the journey this time.

I think he could see I was really hungry and I really wanted to own something.

I was like, hold on a sec actually I don’t want to serve that client, I want to be the client.

I was quite privileged in my background right - people talk about inherited wealth but I also think about inherited just like capital and stability from parents.

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