Neil Berkett
Virgin Media chief executive
Neil Berkett assumes the enviable position as CEO and Director of Virgin Media, Inc., one of the key telecommunications and media company based in the UK. He has served as its COO at the old NTL when he joined the company in September 2005 and engineered the merger between NTL and Telewest to become what is Virgin Media. Right before his appointment, he has served as acting CEO after Steve Burch resigned his CEO position in August last year.
Promotion
Chairman Jim Mooney is all but praises for Neil, proclaiming before the board that Neil more than deserves the promotion. He clearly demonstrated “strategic vision and operational experience to take the company into its next phase of growth”: after driving the successful NTL-Telewest merger. He added that under him, the company has seen the best financial results since the merger.
During the year Virgin media saw its total customer base grow to almost 5 million with Neil doing most of the work designing and promoting the company’s products and services for the new millennia. The company saw an added 61,000 subscribers for its TV service up from a 20,000 increase in the previous months.
Excellent Credentials
Neil has more than 25 years of corporate experience in highly competitive customer-facing businesses. Before joining Virgin Media before the merger in 2005, the now 53-yar old Neil Berkett was the managing director at Lloyds TSB Bank plc since 2003 in charge of its distribution. He was the COO of Prudential Assurance Co., Ltd for a year since 2002. Before that, he occupied a concurrent role as CEO of chief executive of Trek Investco Ltd and a principal at Marsh Mill Consulting Ltd. He headed the retail operations of St George Bank and had worked overseas before that as Sr General Manager of Citibank’s Australian division, CEO at Eastwest Airlines Australia and Financial Controller at ICL Australia in succession.
Paul Tollet
Vice President of Orange Business UK
The service provided by Orange Broadband in the UK has come under fire for its shoddy customer service as well as unreliable and unsecured networks. An online forum for consumers has been organized called OrangeProblems which discusses the many service shortfalls and poor customer service once you start complaining about their networks.
Paul Tollet, the company’s VP for Orange Business, has been the man at the center stage standing as Orange’s apologist and defender. Over the last months since strong criticism came to the attention of Orange management, Paul Tollet gave his best shot to correct the perception. It looks like it paid off.
Award for Customer Satisfaction
An independent customer satisfaction survey recently conducted claims that Orange has improved its broadband service on the whole. The independent market researcher YouGov made the survey which revealed that Orange did improve its ratings in the customer satisfaction area as well as network reliability and reach citing “its ability to deliver a continuous mobile broadband connection” as most welcome to its subscribers.
From what can be gathered from the in depth report on the survey commissioned by the independent marketing research and consulting company YouGov, Orange has apparently achieved the number one ranking in customer experience in the mobile broadband market.
Paul Tollet is brimming with delight, saying: “Being awarded the best mobile broadband network by our customers across the UK is a real honour. We have taken significant measures to improve the quality of our network for both voice and data, and are so glad that our customers are really starting to see the benefit,”
The company’s efforts at improving its operations in the delivery and customer service departments have resulted in the positive survey results. Add to that, the VP for Orange Business in the UK has this parting statement.: “Orange is not only committed to improving our overall network coverage but we also go that extra bit further and develop the right tariffs, services and devices so everyone can get the benefit of mobile broadband wherever they are, whenever they want and at the right price.”
Ian Shepherd
Consumer Director of Vodafone UK
Ian Shepherd, Vodaphone UK’s consumer director, is in the forefront of its consumer line promoting some of the newer products and service offerings of the company.
A Spokesman for Vodaphone’s Products
For starters he maximized the internet as a marketing tool to make Vodaphone’s presence felt more online. He has YouTube videos promoting new mobile phones on the Vodaphone network. He gets featured on many mobile phone sites. He has a Twitter site. Being one of the young corporate executives at the helm, Ian doesn’t underestimate the commercial value of social networking sites. His Twitter site is a veritable advertorial source for Vodaphone that not only contains just about the entire company’s commercial consumer portfolio, but also the many public events and corporate announcements that come regularly. Vodaphone’s Free Friday gets a lot of exposure on that site as well.
He is quite busy these days promoting the Vodaphone Access Gateway which is claimed to be the first homebound device that can increase mobile phones signals while in the house or in a building anywhere in the country. Using femtocell technology, the device increases the strength of 3G coverage indoors if the mobile user is having reception problems.
The Right Man for the Job
Vodaphone’s former director for strategy and new business development, Ian Shepherd, took on the new and more challenging role as consumer business director in January 2006. Ian Shepherd is credited with the successful brokering of Vodaphone’s Phones 4U deals with consumers and the operator’s redesign of its retail business operations. From then on, Ian Shepherd took charge of the company’s retail business overseeing its store outlets and distribution network dealing with consumers services and products.
Corporate Restructuring
A spokesperson from Vodaphone has indicated that corporate changes have been taking place to make the company more responsive to the changing business clime. The appointment of Ian Shepherd to the position was initiated by the company’s CEO Nick Read who is responsible for getting the company re-alignment into effect immediately as part of the corporate shake-up that started nine months earlier.
Professor Michael Walker
Director of Vodafone UK’s research and development
Vodafone has a very capable professor to head its research and development operations based in the UK. Professor Michael Walker is the Group R&D Director for the Vodaphone Group of Companies. In addition, the professor heads efforts focused on technology innovation and overseas the overall management of start-up companies commercializing these new technologies.
Allied to this, his membership in the Board of Vodafone Ventures -the company’s venture capital arm, gives the professor enough clout to evaluate the economic and business opportunities promised by the emerging markets for the various technical innovations he is overseeing in various positions.
The new R&D position is tailor-suited to the professor after proving himself more than prepared to spearhead various initiatives at technical innovation as well as his previous and concurrent experience in the technical fields of the academe.
Impressive Academe Credentials
Professor Walker holds the Vodaphone Chair as a part-time professor in Telecommunications at the Royal Holloway, University of London. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Surrey and the Vice Chairman of VCE, an association of industries and universities doing mobile communications research. He sits on the science advisory boards of the Universities of Surrey and Warwick as well as some new telecommunication companies.
The Professor was a member of the UK Technology Strategy Board and held the office of Board Chairman in the European Standards Institute. Shortly before joining Vodafone, Professor Michael Walker was Head of Mathematics at the Racal Research Company. And prior to that, he was an academic faculty member at the Tuebingen University in Germany. He is also a Fellow at the Royal Academy of Engineering as well as a member of the Council of the Academy.
Chris Clark
CEO, BT Ireland
British Telecom board appointed Chris Clark as its CEO of BT Ireland in July of 2007. He joined British Telecom (BT) in 1991 holding various positions in the company over the years, both within the UK and overseas. Prior to his new role, Chris was BT’s director for business transformation in the retail sector where he succeeded to make radical business transformation for the last two years.
Credentials
As the previous CEO of Converged Mobility Operations of BT, Chris led the commercial and operational success across BT’s mobile communications where he became part of the Wireless Broadband Association working to put the WBA into a leading global WiFi alliance.
Between 1999 and 2004, Chris was President of the BT Global Service’s Wholesale Business, where he oversaw 350 people across 16 countries and stood responsible in delivering well over 1.5 billion revenues for BT. This business unit was formed with the merging of BT’s Concert, its international joint venture with AT&T, and its previous European joint venture company. Prior to this, Chris was the CEO for BT’s European company Farland BV.
He had been based in the US for some time where his stint in various key business development positions made him advisor to President and CEO of British Telecom Worldwide. This certainly helped pave the way for his current capacity today as CEO of BT Ireland.
A Daunting Task Ahead
Chris Clark has been CEO in a number of BT companies and this latest appointment brings him to familiar territory as CEO of BT’s Ireland operations. He continues to work with other BT CEOs dividing the world of over 30,000 professionals with expertise in the telecommunications industry. Off these 3,000 ICT experts, Chris overseas about 500 who understand the growing business needs focused either on Ireland or overseas.
