Telecom giant BT Group appoints Allison Kirkby as CEO

LONDON — Britain’s largest mobile and broadband provider BT Group on Monday appointed Allison Kirkby to replace Philip Jansen as CEO, saying the switch would take place at the end of January 2024 at the latest.

Kirby was previously president and CEO of the Swedish telecommunications provider Telia with experience at Virgin Media and Denmark’s TDC. She has been a member of BT Group’s board for the past four years.

“I fully support our strategy and am excited to lead it into its next phase of development as we grow to support customers, shareholders and the UK economy,” Kirby said.

Jansen announced earlier this month he would step down from his role within the next 12 months. He will remain on hand to support the handover until March 2024 before he retires, BT said on Monday.

His legacy includes BT’s push to build a national fiber network, offering discounted wholesale fiber prices to major broadband providers in exchange for moving customers onto the network. The British telecommunications company Ofcom in May reigned that BT subsidiary Openreach’s Equinox 2 wholesale pricing scheme was allowed.

“Based on the evidence available to us, we do not consider Openreach’s new price discounts to be anti-competitive,” Ofcom said at the time.

“Openreach is now 44% of the way through its full fiber build and customer demand has continued to grow with an overall network utilization rate of 32%,” BT said on Thursday. in its quarterly earnings for the three-month period to 30 June. It also declared adjusted EBITDA up 5% to £2 billion ($2.57 billion), with pre-tax profit of £536 million, up 11%.