Seventeen years ago, I walked into Origin as a Personal Assistant.
Not quite the power seat at the table, but arguably one of the best vantage points in any organisation. You see everything: how strategy forms, how decisions get made, how momentum builds, and how the most significant opportunities are often right there, just waiting for someone to notice them.
In 2017, a poster appeared on a wall near my desk. Free Electrons, a global initiative bringing utilities and startups together to explore new technology and tackle some of the most consequential challenges in energy. I walked past it for weeks. Too busy. Too focused on BAU.
Then one day I stopped and actually looked at it. Nothing about the poster had changed. Everything about how I saw it had. It piqued my interest, but I wasn’t sure I was quite ready.
A conversation with a colleague changed that. They admitted they were figuring it out as they went, too. That small moment of honesty was clarifying, and a little liberating. Almost everyone in new territory is doing exactly that: figuring it out. The people who break through aren’t necessarily more certain. They just learn to see what others walk past and choose to move.
So I put my hand up. I made the ask. And I stepped into innovation.
Two lessons from that period have never left me.
Lesson One: Learn to see the green.
There’s a well-known exercise where people study a photograph and are asked to count every red object. When the image disappears, the question changes: how many green objects did you see?
Most people can’t answer. Not because the green wasn’t there, but because their attention had been trained elsewhere.
The best organisations build the capacity to see both. When you’re focused on running the core business (the red), as you should be, it takes deliberate skill to hold space for what’s emerging at the edges (the green). The signals that matter most don’t announce themselves. That poster taught me that. You have to build the habit of looking.
Seeing the green isn’t about taking your eyes off today’s priorities. It’s about making sure tomorrow’s opportunities don’t pass unnoticed.
This is where the external ecosystem becomes invaluable. Free Electrons accelerates exactly that. Not just through the startups and the technologies, but through the peer network that forms around them. When utility leaders from across the globe sit in the same room, wrestling with the same grid pressures, the same customer expectations, the same pace of change, the learning compounds fast. You’re not just accessing emerging technology. You’re getting direct line of sight into how your peers are thinking, prioritising, and moving. That kind of intelligence is hard to manufacture and impossible to Google.
Origin understood this early. Rather than treating innovation as a side project, the business leaned in, committing to partnerships and pilots that most others would have overlooked. That willingness to engage with the unfamiliar, before it became obvious, is what separates organisations that shape the future from those that respond to it.
What began as early-stage pilots has grown into capabilities now central to how Origin operates: our Virtual Power Plant, SPIKE, Voice AI, community batteries. None of that happens by staying inside the frame. It happens when you deliberately look beyond it, when seeing the green becomes a habit, not a happy accident.
Of course, recognising an opportunity is only half the equation. You still have to do something about it.
Lesson Two: You don’t ask, you don’t get.
Sounds simple. It isn’t.
Most of us hesitate. We wonder if we’re ready. Whether the timing is right. Whether we have enough evidence, enough credibility, enough of a plan. We wait for the moment when everything feels solid before we put our hand up.
That moment rarely comes. And while we’re waiting, someone else asks.
We don’t need to have everything figured out. We need a genuine belief that the problem matters and the will to go after it, alongside people who will push our thinking in ways we can’t anticipate. Readiness is something we build in the doing, not before it.
This is true for the startup founder wondering if they’re ready for the room. It’s equally true for the utility manager sitting on an idea, waiting for the right moment to raise their hand.
Startups aren’t waiting for the perfect partner, and the utilities aren’t waiting for the perfect pitch. They’re looking for people willing to show up, engage seriously, and bring real curiosity to hard problems. That’s the entry requirement. Not perfection. Presence.
A seat at the table isn’t reserved for a title or a function. It belongs to those who choose to show up for it. Today, alongside my colleague Suchi Szczepanski, we head up ecosystem engagement at Origin connecting people, ideas and the outside world to where it matters most inside the business. The ask got me here. It can get you there too.
The energy transition isn’t slowing down for any of us. The organisations leading it aren’t waiting for certainty before they act, but they’re not moving carelessly either. They’re asking, experimenting and iterating with the same discipline they bring to running the core business, fast enough to matter, careful enough to keep trust.
Looking back, the poster wasn’t the opportunity. The opportunity had been there all along. The poster simply made it visible.
Sometimes that’s all it takes. The ability to notice. The decision to ask – and the rest follows.
Amy Van Beek
Senior Manager, Innovation & Market Engagement, Group Strategy
Amy Van Beek is Senior Manager, Innovation & Market Engagement at Origin Energy, one of Australia’s leading integrated energy companies. She oversees innovation and ecosystem engagement, connecting external ideas, technologies and people with Origin businesses across retail, energy markets, technology, and clean tech.
Before her current role, Amy was Manager, International Projects & Innovation within Origin’s Future Energy division, where she played a role in shaping Origin’s engagement with the global innovation landscape, driving international partnerships and technology pilots that brought new capabilities into the business.
Amy brings more than 17 years of experience across energy markets, corporate operations, and innovation leadership. Since 2018, she has been part of the Free Electrons team, a global program connecting leading utility companies with startups to accelerate the development and adoption of new technologies – championing the practical application of emerging ideas to deliver meaningful, scalable impact.
