Dr Somayeh Taheri is CEO at UrbanChain Ltd, a blockchain/AI-based energy exchange system that directly links energy consumers to renewable generators. Having been founded in Manchester in 2017 by Dr. Somayeh Taheri, UrbanChain has since continued to disrupt the energy market by reducing the energy bill prices for businesses and households.

UrbanChain is the only company in the UK that runs an energy market just for renewables. Its trading platform is called the peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange which is driven by AI and blockchain technologies. Such is the demand of those wanting to join the P2P exchange, Dr. Taheri has revealed her ambitions for an IPO within the next three years. UrbanChain's turnover pipeline is £22m and the company has received £7.35m in funding to date, including from Eurazeo, Innovate UK and various government bodies. In early 2023 UrbanChain was awarded a £430,000 funding boost from the the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero to introduce electric vehicle charging stations and batteries to its renewable energy trading market.

Prior to UrbanChain, Somayeh was a research associate at the University of Manchester. Her research interests touched on the application of distributed energy systems in the energy sector, using Blockchain, Data Science, Multi-Agent-Based Simulation (MABS), Geographic Information System (GIS) methodologies, and Building Information Models (BIM).