Fabian Struck: From Newspaper Boy to Energy CEO
Image of Fabian Struck
Before most of his classmates had eaten breakfast, Fabian Vincent Struck was already on the streets of Brüggen, delivering newspapers in the dark at fourteen years old. The early morning start was followed by working at a local car wash, at a checkout line at a REWE supermarket, and managing incoming shipments at ODLO Logistics, and he also self-funded himself through university studies. This summarizes Struck’s life while growing up. He did not wait for conditions to improve; he shows up, delivers, and keeps going. This same disposition eventually led him through his journey in the German energy market.
An Education Built from the Ground Up
Struck was born in 1998 in Kempen, Germany, in the Lower Rhine, and graduated from Albertus Magnus High School in Dülken with his Abitur in 2017. He joined Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and studied Computer Science and Mathematics. But one discipline was not enough, so he made the transfer to the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and started studying Business Information Systems.
He financed himself all through. The beverage retailer, the supermarket, and the logistics warehouse were not gap-year jobs. They were his means of survival, and they gave him a perspective on business that school could not give him- a firsthand understanding of how businesses are operated. He experienced a mind shift while working in the warehouse at ODLO Logistics. Recording incoming shipments and managing inventory, he started to see margins and deadlines; he began to see business processes instead of boxes and pallets. These operations turned into strategic knowledge. A business-oriented mentality emerged.
Speed, Distinction and a Discovery
Struck began working full-time in the business world in 2020, after completing a two-year apprenticeship instead of the standard three years at Autex Autoteile GmbH, a distributor of Citroën replacement parts, working in Wholesale and Foreign Trade Management. For this, he earned the IHK Top Graduate Honour of the North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Commerce. In 2022, he followed this up with his second accelerated qualification as a certified tax specialist at steuerbord Steuerberatungsgesellschaft mbH, in Mönchengladbach, again completing ahead of time, in two and a half years. There, he encountered the sector that would define the next phase in his career. In a very short period of time, he was appointed the Head of the firm’s Energy Law Department, responsible for advisory services for electricity suppliers on regulatory compliance, balancing groups and market communication. He had discovered his niche.
Into the Crisis
At the start of Struck’s energy career, the German electricity market was already under stress. A wave of insolvencies also swept through the sector in late 2021, taking six suppliers out of the game by the end of the year. The latest casualty is Neckermann Strom GmbH, a green electricity and gas supplier founded in 2013 and specializing in providing services to underserved markets such as night storage heating, electric heating or EV charging. The insolvency plan was approved, with a creditor payout quota of up to 35% and described as “pleasingly high” for a case of this scale, due to the motivation of employees and investors who were committed through the process.
The Acquisition and the Reinvention
It was here that Struck’s story intersected with Neckermann Strom’s story. Drawing upon the regulatory knowledge, market experience, and commercial acumen he has gathered since his days in the warehouse. Struck established BeGreen in 2023 and acquired Neckermann Strom GmbH, the restructured entity that had emerged from the 2021 insolvency. He then did what his career had prepared him to do: he assessed the situation clearly, identified opportunity and rebuilt it. Under his leadership, Neckermann Strom was repositioned as a supplier of 100 per cent renewable electricity, an initiative which clearly shifted the company from the discounter model that had put it in a vulnerable state, to a specialist, sustainability-focused proposition in a market that was hungry for it.
Today, he is the CEO of Neckermann Strom GmbH and BeGreen Energy GmbH. The technological base gained in his studies, the regulatory knowledge gained while practicing energy law, and the operational experience developed in the warehouses and supply chains in the Lower Rhine contributed to the birth of BeGreen Energy GmbH and the rebirth of Neckermann Strom GmbH.
What the Story Tells You
The energy crisis of 2021 claimed companies that had built their businesses on a system that worked until it was not. What it could not claim was inside-the-box knowledge of how these markets operated, which Struck had gained after years of working in the least glamorous places. It was not the end of the story for Neckermann Strom GmbH with Struck on board; rather, it was the beginning of another one. He’s still an early riser; however, what he delivers today is electricity.
