BT people moves: new entrants at Clinical and Group Boards

Group

• BT appointed two new Independent Non-Executive Directors to its board, and confirmed the departure of a third. Maggie Chan Jones will kick off her tenure on 1 March as a member of the Nominations and Digital Impact & Sustainability Committees, while Ruth Cairnie will join on 6 April as a member of the Audit & Risk, Remuneration and Nominations Committees. Iain Conn, who is a Senior Independent Director and Independent Non-Executive Director on the board, will step down in July.

BT Group Board of Directors from July 2023 (pending further changes)

Director	Position	Committees	Year appointed
Source: BT.
Adel Al-Saleh	Non-Independent Non-Executive Director	Nominations	2020
Ruth Cairnie	Independent Non-Executive Director, Senior Independent Director	Audit & Risk Remuneration Nominations	2023
Sabine Chalmers	Group General Counsel, Company Secretary, and Director of Regulatory Affairs	Audit & Risk Compliance Executive Nominations Remuneration	2018
Adam Crozier	Chairman	Nominations (Chair)	2021
Steven Guggenheimer	Independent Non-Executive Director	Digital Impact & Sustainability Nominations	2022
Isabel Hudson	Independent Non-Executive Director	Compliance (Chair) Digital Impact & Sustainability Nominations Remuneration	2014
Philip Jansen	Chief Executive	Executive (Chair) Investigatory Powers	2019
Maggie Chan Jones	Independent Non-Executive Director	Nominations Digital Impact & Sustainability	2023
Matthew Key	Independent Non-Executive Director	Audit & Risk (Chair) Nomination Remuneration	2018
Allison Kirkby	Independent Non-Executive Director	Audit & Risk Compliance Nominations	2019
Simon Lowth	Chief Financial Officer	Executive	2016
Sara Weller	Independent Non-Executive Director	Digital Impact & Sustainability (Chair) Audit & Risk Compliance Nominations	2020

• Allison Kirkby, Independent Non-Executive Director at BT Group, joined the Board of Brookfield Asset Management, also as a Non-Executive Director and Member of the Audit Committee. She joined the BT board in 2019 and sits on the Audit & Risk, Compliance and Nominations committees.

• Adrian Thomas was appointed Head of Business, Network & Usage Assurance. He formerly served as Head of Control Operations & Recovery and Group Business Assurance. Thomas joined BT in 2010 after a stint as Head of Analysis & Design at Virgin Media.

Technology

• David Salam, former Executive Director of Mobile Networks for BT Group, confirmed he was switching roles to become Chief Technology Officer for the operator on the much-delayed Emergency Services Network project. Salam is a mobile networks veteran, having spent over three decades in network design, planning, and strategy roles, overseeing the development of EE’s networks, and those of T-Mobile UK prior to that. For several years he guided the direction of EE’s 5G development, highlighting from an early stage the importance of AI and automation to its effective use (BTwatch, #300, passim).

Consumer

• Jason Bray was appointed Head of Property & Portfolio Strategy at EE. He was previously Director of Stores.
• EE’s Head of 5G & Network Propositions Michael Thompson waved goodbye to the operator after joining DTCP-backed Community Fibre as Head of Business‑to‑Business in January. Thompson has a wealth of experience in telecoms, with stints across at Orange, the erstwhile T‑Mobile UK, and BT, serving as Principal Technology Partner at the latter’s Consumer division.

Business

• BT’s Clinical Advisory Board added two new members. Dr. Richard Caddis, Chief Medical Officer and Director of Group Health, Safety & Wellbeing at BT Group joined the board after four years with the telco. Another new inclusion is Dr. Paul Bhogal from Barts Health NHS Trust. After announcing the appointments, Sultan Mahmud, Director of Healthcare at BT Enterprise said “I reaffirm our commitment to our customers, to be clinically led and digitally driven, to help our health customers on their digital transformation journeys”.

• Aron Shaw was named Director of Partner Management & Strategic Workforce Planning. Shaw was previously Vice‑President for Global Design & Delivery Operations — and prior to this, he held a series of managerial roles at Openreach.

Openreach

• Richard Priestley was named Head of Project Management Office. He joined Openreach from WGM Engineering where he worked as Head of Programme.
• Priti Vekaria departed Openreach after more than six years to join CityFibre as Head of Commercial Finance. She was most recently Head of Finance & Transformation at Openreach.

Alumni

• IoT player Wirepas appointed Jason Bellman to the newly created role of Chief Revenue Officer. Bellman joins Wirepas from Sierra Wireless where he was VP for Global Connectivity, the EMEA region, and Customer, Carrier Partnerships & Transformation. Bellman also spent time at BT from 2010 to 2017, most recently as Director of MVNO & IoT. He also served as Head of MVNO at Orange.
• Shan Eisenberg, who was most recently CCO of Netgem TV, joined London-based Sandbox Group as Chief Revenue Officer. In the new role, Eisenberg is responsible for growing telco and OEM distribution as well as opening new routes to market internationally. Sandbox operates digital platforms such as preschool learning platform, Hopster and Brazilian children’s edutainment platform, PlayKids. Eisenberg also spent five years with EE, most recently as Head of Home & TV Propositions & Pricing.

• Lisa Harrington, former BT Chief Customer Officer was named Senior Independent Director at digital infra investor Digital 9. Harrington was already a Non-Executive Director at the business, but steps up to succeed outgoing Keith Mansfield. Harrington is also a member of various other boards, including the Post Office and the UK Government’s Digital Advisory Board. Prior to this, she spent a decade with BT, including time across its Consumer, Retail, Technology and Wholesale divisions.
• Former BT OnePhone Chief Commercial Officer Pär Jansson was promoted to become SVP of GlobalConnect Carrier. He takes the lead at GlobalConnect following the departure of Regina Donato Dahlström, who said it was “time to move on”. Jansson joined GlobalConnect in 2015, initially as CCO, after three years with BT OnePhone, the company behind the telco’s fixed mobile convergence solution.
• Olivia Garfield is reportedly in the mix to replace Nick Read as Vodafone CEO. The former Openreach CEO oversaw fibre rollout to two-thirds of UK premises, in addition to securing public funding via the government’s Broadband Delivery UK scheme during her time at the helm (BTwatch, #220 and passim). This is Money, which first reported that Garfield was under consideration, said she is one of numerous external candidates.

Ecosystem

• Global field inventory management player ByBox named Mark Garritt as Managing Director. Garritt joined ByBox in 2003, where he spent 14 years as MD for Europe. He then left to build his own company, Alexander James Ventures, which invests in property, classic/racing cars and historic motorsport. Since, he has re-joined ByBox, acting as European Consultant before his recent appointment as MD.